Listen up, choombas. It's 2026, and my brain is still wired to the neon-soaked, chrome-plated fever dream that was Night City. While V's story might have reached its crescendo—whether they rode off into the sunset with the Nomads or became the undisputed king of the Afterlife—the city itself never sleeps. It just keeps humming, a relentless, predatory beast fueled by ambition and betrayal. And let me tell you, leaving some of its most fascinating inhabitants behind felt like ending a symphony right before the final, earth-shattering chord. CD Projekt Red's Project Orion is on the horizon, and my circuits are buzzing with one demand: bring back the legends, the mysteries, the ghosts in the machine whose stories are far from over.
Jefferson Peralez: The Mayor With a Rewired Brain
My encounter with Jefferson Peralez was more unsettling than finding a rogue Militech spider-drone in your bathtub. Here was a man running for mayor, his life a perfectly curated dollhouse, only to discover unseen hands were rearranging the furniture—and his very memories—in the dead of night. The Peralez questline wasn't a side gig; it was a vertigo-inducing plunge into a conspiracy so deep it made the Badlands look like a kiddie pool. Was it the enigmatic Mister Blue Eyes? A rogue AI punching through the Blackwall like it was tissue paper? Something else? We never got a clean answer, and that's what makes him a must-return.
If Project Orion drops us back into Night City's political snake pit, Jefferson Peralez won't just be a candidate; he'll be the mayor. Imagine interacting with a man whose mind is a palimpsest, constantly being erased and rewritten by forces unknown. Will he be a familiar, if haunted, ally? Or will he just be a marionette, his strings pulled by shadows so deep they swallow light? His fate is a loose wire sparking in the rain, and I need to see where it leads. The potential for a narrative where the city's leader is its greatest prisoner is a story too deliciously twisted to ignore.
Mr. Hands: The Fixer Who Knows Where All the Bodies are Buried
In a city overflowing with fixers louder than a MaxTac assault, Mr. Hands was a whisper that carried the weight of a tectonic plate shift. Enigmatic, private, and as emotionally available as a brick wall, he was the fixer's fixer. He didn't deal in threats; he dealt in immutable truths and leverage so potent it could topple corpos. Working with him felt less like taking a job and more like being granted audience with a spider at the exact center of Night City's web.
With the fallout from the Dogtown ruckus in 2023, the power dynamics in Pacifica must have shifted like sand in a hurricane. Has Mr. Hands used the chaos to cement his position? Is he still the elusive middleman, or has he ascended to become the puppet master of Dogtown, pulling strings from a throne of encrypted data and blackmail? Not seeing him again would be like finding a legendary, one-of-a-kind cyberdeck and leaving it in the trash. His cold, calculated influence is a cornerstone of Night City's underworld, and a sequel without him would feel... unprofessional.
Rogue Amendiares: The Living Legend Who Drinks with Ghosts
Alright, I know this one's tricky. Rogue's fate is tangled up with Johnny's engram and V's final choices. But hear me out: Night City without Rogue Amendiares is like the Afterlife without its signature drink—a hollow imitation. She's not just a character; she's an institution. Her reach in the merc world was as vast and inescapable as Arasaka's tax audits. Even if she's retired from active fieldwork, the idea of her story being over is preposterous.
She's a living archive of the city's history, a woman who shared a drink with a terrorist rockerboy and lived to tell the tale. The new protagonist deserves to earn their rep by taking jobs filtered through her legendary network. Let her be the oracle in the VIP lounge, sipping something strong and dispensing contracts veiled in stories of the old days. She could drop vague, tantalizing hints about what really happened to V, turning our previous legend into her new bedtime story for up-and-coming edgerunners. Cutting her story short would be a crime against the very soul of Night City.
River Ward: The Good Cop in a City That Eats Good Cops for Breakfast
River Ward was like finding a single, unrusted nail in a scrap heap the size of a city block. In the NCPD, a force more corrupt than a 50-year-old data archive, he was a man who still believed in truth and justice. Watching his idealism get crushed by the relentless machinery of Night City was one of the most human stories in the whole damn game. Kicked off the force, he became a private eye—a lone knight in a trench coat, tilting at windmills made of corporate steel and human misery.
By 2026, his career as a PI should be in full swing. Has his cynicism finally hardened into a shell, or does that flicker of hope still burn? He represents the city's conscience, however battered. I want to see him again, maybe hiring the new protagonist for a case that goes deeper than any he faced on the force. River is the heartbeat under Night City's chrome skin, and I need to know if it's still beating or if it's finally flatlined.
Mister Blue Eyes: The Enigma Wrapped in a Riddle, Dipped in Chrome
This guy. This guy. Mister Blue Eyes wasn't a character; he was a question mark given human form and a very expensive suit. His unnatural azure gaze was a silent scream of wrongness in every scene he inhabited. Aiding Songbird's escape, offering V a one-way ticket to the Crystal Palace, watching the Peralezes like a hawk—his fingerprints are on every major shadow-play in the endgame.
Is he an avatar for a Rogue AI, a puppet whose strings lead straight into the digital abyss beyond the Blackwall? Is he the ultimate corporate spook, so far off the books he doesn't even have a name? His story is the biggest dangling thread in the entire tapestry. A sequel that doesn't pull on that thread is just cowardice. Project Orion needs to make him a central figure, because unraveling the mystery of Mister Blue Eyes might just mean unraveling the true power structure of the entire Cyberpunk world.
Viktor Vektor: The Heart of the Ripperdoc Trade
Finally, we need a touchstone. A piece of home. Viktor Vektor was that for V. In a city where everyone has a price, Vik charged you fair and still patched you up with a fatherly sigh and a dose of hard truth. He was the anchor in the storm of chrome and chaos, his clinic a rare sanctuary of (relative) honesty. The idea of Mega Building H10 without his glowing sign is just depressing.
Maybe his business finally went under. Maybe he's still scraping by. Whatever the case, the new protagonist needs a ripperdoc they can (mostly) trust. Walking into Vik's chair again would be the perfect narrative bridge. He could be the link to the past, swapping stories about "an old client" named V over the whir of a surgical arm, his wisdom a legacy passed down to the next legend in the making. Losing Viktor would be like losing Night City's last reliable mechanic; you might find another, but you'll never trust them the same way.
These characters are the lingering ghosts in Night City's machine, their code not yet fully executed. Project Orion has a chance to compile their stories into something even greater. Don't leave us with blue balls, CDPR. Finish what you started. 🔥🔧💀