Cyberpunk 2077's Johnny Silverhand Is A Big Part Of The Game, Thanks To Keanu Reeves

Remember how cool E3 2019 was? A big part of that was thanks to the unexpected appearance of everyone's favorite dog lover, the breathtaking Keanu Reeves, who took the stage and announced some long-awaited news about CD Projekt Red's Cyberpunk 2077. For one thing, Reeves is in the game. He plays Johnny Silverhand, a kind of virtual ghost that lives inside the protagonist's mind. Thanks to Reeves' performance and enthusiasm for the role, Silverhand unexpectedly became a big part of the game. 

Reeves' performance brought the character to life, making Silverhand "more relatable and complex," according to story director Marcin Blacha. In fact, Reeves brought so much passion and complexity to the role that he pushed for Silverhand to have a bigger part in the game. Evidently, he doubled the time that Silverhand originally had slated, according to Italian voice actor Luca Ward. That means you're going to get more Keanu Reeves for your money, and that is never a bad thing.

As for Johnny Silverhand, he's always been a part of the Cyberpunk universe, and is best known as the frontman of the legendary chrome rock band Samurai. He died bloody at the end of the 2024 Fourth Corporate War, which begs the question: how is he still around? His girlfriend, Alt Cunningham, had invented a program called Soulkiller years before his brutal death. And Soulkiller allowed for peoples' consciousnesses to be transferred into a machine, or other bodies. So thanks to that, Johnny Silverhand lives on.

That means we'll get to spend a lot of time talking to ourselves in Cyberpunk 2077. We're happy for it, too. Who doesn't want their own personal Keanu Reeves? He's breathtaking, after all. But before you get too excited: we cannot romance Johnny Silverhand, the ghost in our head. Cheer up, though. There will undoubtedly be plenty of other romantic options in Cyberpunk 2077, Samurai.