If you’ve seen Cyberpunk 2077 through to the end, you know there’s no real reason for us to see Johnny Silverhand, the AI-implanted rocker played by Matrix and Sonic the Hedgehog star Keanu Reeves, ever again. But that doesn’t stop people from imagining a world in which Johnny shows up in the upcoming Cyberpunk 2. Reeves himself told IGN that he’d “absolutely” love to step into the rockstar terrorist bad boy’s boots again, and now that the actor has spoken that into the universe, Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the Cyberpunk franchise, is telling Reeves to contact him about bringing the character back.
As IGN points out, Pondsmith was on a livestream with CD Projekt Red to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Cyberpunk 2077, and he referenced Reeves’ interview in which he said he’d be down to return in a future Cyberpunk project. That isn’t out of the question, said Pondsmith.
“Not that long ago, I saw that Keanu would like to find a way to come back from the dead and play Johnny again,” Pondsmith said on the stream. “I have ways to do that, Keanu. Contact me.”
Pondsmith has said he has a much more hands-off role in Cyberpunk 2 than he did on the original game, so I doubt he can just slot Johnny Silverhand into the story on a whim, but we also don’t know if Reeves is thinking of something as involved as the co-lead role he had in 2077, or if he was just being polite and isn’t actually itching to head back to Night City any time soon. I’d be content to never hear from Johnny Silverhand again, considering my 2077 ending had him disappearing into the dark net as my V carried out his (probably) final heist in space. Their story feels done regardless of which ending you pick, so let’s move on to new people and places.
