I thought I knew Night City like the back of my hand. After logging at least 400 hours in Cyberpunk 2077, playing through the base game, Phantom Liberty, and countless side gigs, I was convinced I'd seen it all. My V had become a legend in the streets, a ghost in the corporate machines, a fixer's most reliable blade in the dark. Yet, just last week, while cruising through Watson in my newly acquired Rayfield Caliburn, the game reached out and tapped me on the shoulder with a secret I never knew was there. I discovered—or rather, rediscovered—that the Night City Police Department can actually call you. Not just text. Not just a map icon. A real, honest-to-God holocall. The realization hit me like a stray bullet from a suppressed Parabella, quiet but perfectly aimed, shattering my illusion of being a completed player. My subsequent post on the 'Screamsheet' (our 2026 equivalent of social media for edgerunners) blew up, revealing I wasn't alone in my obliviousness. It turns out an entire mechanic of the game had been hiding in plain sight, waiting for veterans like me to stumble upon it.
For years, my interaction with the NCPD Scanner Hustles—those 156 pockets of street crime, cyberpsycho sightings, and gang hideouts that dot Night City like stubborn digital rust—has been purely transactional. I'd get a text from a dispatcher, see the iconic blue skull icon pop up on my minimap, and move in. It was efficient, quiet, and fit my solo mercenary lifestyle. I never questioned it. These hustles are the grist of the Night City mill, a massive chunk of the game's side content that turns V from a nobody into a somebody. But the way I experienced them was only one side of the coin, a streamlined version born from player feedback.
My journey to this 'new' old feature began when I decided to deep-dive into the game's settings, looking for a way to tweak the HUD for a more immersive hardcore playthrough. Buried in the menus, under Settings > Gameplay > Holocalls, I found it: a simple toggle I had scrolled past a hundred times without a second thought. There, listed plainly, was the 'NCPD' option, sitting silently with its switch set to 'Off'. Next to it, the 'Fixers' option was cheerfully set to 'On'. It was a revelation as quiet as a netrunner's breach protocol, but it rewired my understanding of the game's fabric. I flipped the switch.
Suddenly, Night City came alive in a different, more chaotic frequency. Cruising down the streets of Pacifica, my holo lit up. The gruff, no-nonsense voice of an NCPD dispatcher crackled through, directly assigning me a nearby reported assault. No text log. No passive notification. It was a direct line to the city's crumbling justice system. The experience was visceral. It felt less like checking off items on a shopping list and more like being an actual contractor for the police, a feeling reminiscent of a spider suddenly feeling the vibrations of its entire web, not just a single strand. This, I learned, was how it was supposed to be. This was the original 2020 launch experience.
Here’s the breakdown of the holocall settings I found, a piece of game history frozen in a menu:
| Caller Type | Default Status (Post-Patch 1.5) | Original Launch Experience |
|---|---|---|
| NCPD Dispatchers | 🔇 Muted / Off | 🔊 Always On |
| Fixers (e.g., Wakako, Regina) | 🔊 Unmuted / On | 🔊 Always On |
| Result for V | Peaceful exploration, text-based hustle discovery | Constant ringing, immersive but intrusive hustle assignment |
The reason for this toggle's existence is a classic tale of developer and community synergy. Back in the early days, V's holo was a relentless torment. With 156 hustles spread across the city, your phone never stopped ringing. Imagine trying to have a poignant conversation with Johnny Silverhand about the nature of soul only to be interrupted for the third time by a dispatcher reporting a stolen van in Santo Domingo. The community feedback was clear: it was too much. CD Projekt Red listened. With the monumental Patch 1.5 in early 2022—the 'Next-Gen' update that truly resurrected the game—they introduced this very option, allowing players to mute the NCPD's incessant calls while keeping the more curated, story-focused fixer calls active.
This history lesson explained my own confused memories. When I first booted up the game on release day, I did remember the annoying calls. They were as persistent and unwelcome as a Badlands sandstorm inside your apartment. But time, patches, and a fresh install for the Phantom Liberty expansion had scrubbed that memory clean. The option was hidden away, a forgotten relic. My 'discovery' was, in truth, a memory finally defragging itself. Yet, the viral spread of my post proved its value. In 2026, with the game's legendary status cemented and a new wave of players arriving via Game Pass services and the 'Complete Experience' bundle, thousands of players have only ever known the muted, text-based NCPD. To them, and to forgetful veterans like me, enabling the calls is like installing a new mod that adds a layer of gritty authenticity we never knew we were missing.
Enabling the feature now, with the benefit of a finished, polished game, is a different experience. It doesn't feel intrusive; it feels alive. The dispatcher's calls range from urgent and professional to weary and desperate, a small audio diary of the NCPD's losing battle. It makes the Scanner Hustles feel less like generated content and more like dynamic events. You're not just clearing icons; you're responding to a city in real-time distress. The holocall feature is a testament to CDPR's detailed world-building, a thread of immersion that was temporarily spooled back to stop it from tangling the player, but is now there for the taking, waiting to be pulled.
So, here’s my advice from beyond 400 hours: go into your settings. Find that tab. Flip that switch. Let the NCPD call you. You'll hear Night City breathe, panic, and plead in a way silent texts can never convey. It transformed my recent playthroughs, making the grind between major story beats feel like part of a living, breathing dystopia. It’s a small change, as delicate and powerful as a monowire adjusting its harmonic frequency, that recontextualizes a huge part of the game. Don't let it stay a secret for another 400 hours.