Cyberpunk 2077 free mod restores 2,200 NPCs to Night City

Night City in Cyberpunk 2077 feels more alive than ever with this free mod, making CD Projekt RED's RPG even more immersive. Hopefully, that should help pass the time until Project Orion, the Cyberpunk 2077 sequel.

From the creators of The Witcher series, CD Projekt RED's Cyberpunk 2077 is now considered one of the greatest sci-fi RPGs of all time, and rightly so; it's a fantastic experience.

We all remember Cyberpunk 2077's rocky launch, which was so bad that it was removed from the PlayStation Store for around six months. Credit to CD Projekt RED, though, for fixing its bugs and adding missing features, with many fans now feeling the game has exceeded expectations. However, one area where Night City could still improve is the density and variety of its population. Thankfully, this free mod fixes that.

Cyberpunk 2077 mod restores Night City's crowd variety

The mod is called Crowd Variety Restored, was created by dnbnhlp, and is free to download right now via Nexus Mods. It does exactly what you'd expect, but perhaps a little bit more, and we'll take you through its best features right here.

This mod makes Night City feel more immersive and alive. One of the gripes many players have with huge open worlds is that we regularly see the same NPCs littered all over the map. This mod corrects that by restoring NPC appearances that were removed from the game's launch, for whatever reason.

“Ever notice the same junkie on every corner? In vanilla Night City, she has exactly two looks. The homeless guy with the backpack has three, and nonbinary corpo women share just three between them. No wonder you keep seeing the same faces in different places,” reads the mod's description.

“Yet CDPR made over 2,200 extra crowd looks, finished them, shipped them with the game, and then never let them reach the streets. New colours, new hair, new jewellery, and whole outfits have been sitting in the game files all along. This mod brings them back.”

The 9 best features of Cyberpunk 2077's Crowd Variety Restored mod

2,200 unused NPC appearances restored

Of course, the best feature of this mod is the restoration of more than 2,200 unused NPC appearances discovered in the game files.

Double the variety

Not only does this mod reportedly double the variety of civilian NPCs, but more than 90% of civilian types receive additional appearance options, making the crowds feel less repetitive.

Even more hairstyles and clothes

NPCs now have a greater variety of hairstyles, hair colours and clothing, adding more diversity to Night City's population.

More cyberware augmentations and accessories

Alongside the extra clothing and hairstyles, NPCs in Night City will have more cyberware augmentations and accessories.

Junkie women look more distinct

The NPCs labelled as “junkie women” can at least look a little less generic, with 30 different appearances instead of the original two. This includes eight new outfits.

Homeless men get some love, too

Homeless men with backpacks get 40 different appearances instead of the original three. They'll also have 17 new outfits.

More corpo women

Corpo women with bags get 99 different appearances instead of the original eight. This includes 23 new outfits.

No more loitering (kind of)

This may seem like a small change, but preventing identical NPCs from appearing too close together should help make Night City feel more alive.

NPCs sound more alive

NPCs have had their voices and appropriate sound effects restored, rather than remaining mostly silent, making Night City feel even more vibrant.

Finally, we should mention that, as with many Cyberpunk 2077 mods, Crowd Variety Restored is a PC exclusive and is not available on consoles.