14 months later I can finally change my nail polish in Cyberpunk 2077

It was one of the most baffling omissions in a game about using technology to change yourself: Once you’d created your character in Cyberpunk 2077, there was no way to alter them. For the rest of the game you couldn’t so much as tweak your character’s looks, not even with a new hairstyle or eyebrow piercing. You could stick enormous mantis blades inside your forearms, sure! But change your nail polish? Nope.

The huge new Cyberpunk 2077 patch released today fixes that, at last partially. You still can’t tamper with your body type or facial structure—the patch doesn’t fully replicate the character creator, so you’re stuck with the base model of the first V you built—but at least you can now change your hairstyle, facial hair, pubic hair, teeth, scars, makeup, piercings, and yes, at long last, you can finally change your nail polish.

Why am I so fixated on nail polish? Because it’s a first-person game and I almost never look at my version of V—except for his hands. And every time I saw his nail polish I was reminded I couldn’t change it. It was annoying!

It’s a long overdue feature, especially since modders managed to add some character customization options not long after Cyberpunk 2077 launched in 2020. (If memory serves, character customization options for The Witcher 3 also only arrived after launch, too.) But it’s nice to finally and officially be able to change your character’s appearance, even if it’s not entirely comprehensive.

And there’s a bit more roleplaying friendliness included in the patch. Instead of just being confined to a single, static residence, there are now options to rent four other apartments in Night City. This includes a swanky pad in Corpo Plaza if you want to show off your wealth and a cluttered dive in Northside if you want to play a grittier version of V. To rent these new pads, you can just login to V’s desktop computer and look for the EZ Estates app.

(Image credit: CDPR)

A shade of customization for V’s main apartment has been added, too. Accessed through the same app, under the Makeovers tab, you can change the theme of your apartment, which isn’t quite the same as rearranging the furniture or decorating the place with new items. But it at least changes the mood of the joint a little. Along with a new hairstyle and some new piercings, maybe that’s enough to feel like you’re playing as a whole new V.