To this day, there are a lot of unknown variables in the story of Cyberpunk 2077’s development. What is clear is that the conceptual product fans envisioned in the mid-2010s is not what fans received in 2020. Now, while Cyberpunk 2077’s character creation is rather thorough physically, one major change fans are aware of in development could have changed the entire game.

Cyberpunk 2077 launched with three lifepaths: Corpo, Nomad, or Street Kid. It was once much more detailed than that, however, as Cyberpunk 2077 players had to choose a key life event (a choice between the death of a sibling, being a runaway from home, and earning their first big kill), a reason for being in Night City (unfinished business, an explorer in town, or something to prove), and a hero. The latter, combined with other details of the game, suggest that perhaps Johnny Silverhand wasn’t always going to be the definitive voice in V’s head.

RELATED: Cyberpunk 2077: Glitches and Exploits for Update 1.3

Cyberpunk 2077 Heroes – Johnny Silverhand, Morgan Blackhand, and Saburo Arasaka

In this original character creation method, players could pick their hero from Johnny Silverhand, Morgan Blackhand, and Saburo Arasaka. This, in and of itself, suggests there was a Cyberpunk 2077 that once put less emphasis on Johnny. It’s unclear what this choice was intended to impact, but it’s not a stretch of the imagination to suggest Morgan and Saburo could have also played similar roles with PCs as Johnny. This is especially true given that Johnny Silverhand and Morgan Blackhand are rolled into one in Cyberpunk 2077.

It wasn’t Johnny Silverhand who nuked Arasaka Tower in Cyberpunk lore, it was Morgan Blackhand. It wasn’t Johnny Silverhand that had a rivalry against Adam Smasher, it was Morgan Blackhand. In fact, Morgan is just as important in the lore as Johnny, but is reduced to one reference in the Afterlife and an easily missable news report (that simply suggests that someone with his arm killed someone else).

At the other end of the spectrum is Saburo Arasaka, who as many players will know depending on their ending in Cyberpunk 2077, can be alive and in his son’s body at the end of the game. Given the entire premise of Johnny’s engram being that it’s taking over V’s body, having Saburo’s replica engram in V could have ended the game with Saburo—through V—returning to Corpo power. Morgan could have just as simply been the engram that got snatched a well.

Easily, there are enough in-game ambiguities, lore, and info about the development to think this was possible. It should be noted that this is just speculation, but it does seem that because of Johnny Silverhand, Morgan Blackhand and Saburo Arasaka’s roles in Cyberpunk 2077 could have been reduced dramatically. The big question is why.

RELATED: The World of Cyberpunk 2077 Beyond Night City

Cyberpunk 2077 – Enter Keanu Reeves

The answer may come down to simple star power. Working on the assumption that Blackhand and Arasaka being in V’s head was cut for Silverhand, the most logical conclusion is due to Keanu Reeves—not that it is his fault or anyone at CD Projekt Red. This isn’t about who made what choice, but the vision of the game. Adding star power could, in theory then, have helped it reached the heights it was chasing. Fans know, for example, that Keanu Reeves's lines as Johnny Silverhand were doubled at one point. The simple answer wouldn’t be to write more but to change what exists, thus potentially explaining why Johnny and Morgan were essentially fused.

After all, the reason this could have happened is obvious: very few games have the sheer star power behind their main characters as Keanu Reeves. There’s something certainly to be said about how Hollywood, movie stars, and video games go together, but if a game is going to feature Keanu Reeves, the developer wouldn’t want that to happen in just a third of the game. Choosing Morgan or Saburo would have limited Keanu’s impact on the game, which is still hailed as one of its best parts, or it means no one would have ever chosen Morgan or Saburo as their “hero” to begin with.

Many online believe that Cyberpunk 2077 was likely changed when Keanu Reeves was brought on board, given his announcement didn’t happen until 2019. The fact that Morgan and Saburo’s roles in the game clearly changed, regardless of how deep they went, would suggest that the star power had something to do with it. There are no promises that even having these options would have seen Cyberpunk 2077 release differently, but at the end of the day, it’s a worthwhile question.

Perhaps, one day, the full development history of Cyberpunk 2077 will be made more apparent and what happened to this choice of “hero” in the original concept can be explained. For now, Cyberpunk 2077’s 1.3 update has received a lot of attention, despite there being some lingering bugs, and the tides may slowly be turning. It may never be the game fans thought they were originally getting, but it doesn’t have to be the Cyberpunk 2077 that was released in 2020 either.

Cyberpunk 2077 is available now for PC, PS4, Stadia, and Xbox One. PS5 and Xbox Series X upgrades are in development.

MORE: Every Connection Between The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 Explained