This guide will explain everything you need to know about the main job “Automatic Love” in Cyberpunk 2077. How to start, different approaches and outcomes, and most importantly, how to get access to the VIP area with and without causing chaos in the club Clouds!
This guide is up-to-date for Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.3
“Automatic Love” is the name of a main job in Cyberpunk 2077. There is no way to skip or not get this mission as it’s part of V’s critical path in thegame. You will get it at the same time as Ghost Town.
Both missions unlock important side jobs for you and the sooner you complete them, the better. My recommendation is to not delay or stall your progress on them for other activities. It doesn’t matter which of the two you do first. They are both part of long chains of missions and you can go through these chains in turns if you want.
This guide will take you step-by-step through the full length of “Automatic Love” and show you where and what different choices you can make and opportunities for unique and/or rare experiences during the mission.
How to start the job Automatic Love
The job is given to you after the conversation you have with Takemura in Tom’s Diner, located in Little China Watson. The follow-up conversation you have with Johnny on the table after Takemura leaves is the final bit of “Playing for Time” and you move on to “Automatic Love” next.
Should you Call Judy
At the start of the job, you have an optional objective to call Judy. Judy Alvarez is a major romanceable character and is involved in a long chain of missions and I recommend that you take the extra time to call her and meet with her.
Judy will agree to meet with you in Lizzie’s Bar.
As you enter, follow the markers to get to Judy’s BD editing room in the basement.
Stay outside the room for a moment to listen to the conversation Judy is having with Susie Q, the leader of the Moxes, one of the gangs in Night City.
You have a few options lines (blue ones) and a main question for Judy – where is Evelyn! The blue lines give you more insights and additional details, but you don’t have to go through them. I suggest that you do as you get more invested and immersed into the game this way.
If you have 5 points invested in Cool, ask her the third question. You tell her that you just need to know who hired her and Judy has nothing to worry about. She will help you then.
Judy tells you that Evelyn is a doll, who used to work at Clouds. Judy also asks you to take the pack of cigarettes and give it to Evelyn when you find her. Now, time to visit Clouds.
You will get a chance to talk to Sisue Q as you exit Lizzie’s Bar. The whole dialogue with her is optional, but you know my thoughts on “optional things” already.
How to Enter Clouds
Clouds is located in Megabuilding H8. You have to get there in the evening, after 19:00 (7pm).
If you can’t get in because it’s not evening yet, pass the time by either using the in-game tool or just sit on the nearby bench.
At the reception, talk to the receptionist. The optional conversations here are a bit boring and will give you no interesting and important additional insights.
You can argue with the receptionist about jacking in at first, later you can argue about the money she asks you to pay to create your profile and find the perfect match for you.
There is no way to avoid doing these anyway. In the end, you will always get these two matches: Angel (male doll) and Skye (female doll). The choice here is more of a personal matter and for immersion based on your preferences. The information you will get out of them is the same, if you choose to even talk to the doll character. More on these options below.
Leave your weapons in the box to the left from the entrance and go inside on the main floor of Clouds. As you approach the box where you leave your weapons, Johny will have a witty note for the two dolls that matched your profile. As soon as you deposit your weapons, the door to your right will open. You can enter Clouds.
So far the mission was straightforward with little to no options to make a choice and when you had one, it was not of great importance. The next bit gets more interesting as you have different approaches to how you want to explore Clouds to get the info you came here for.
Exploring Clouds the standard way in Automatic Love
This segment of the guide will show you how to explore the club after you get access in the way the game seems to want to lead you. This is what I call the standard way.
Walk around the corridors to listen to the conversations the NPCs are having. Near the stairs on the other end you will hear a customer arguing with a guard about not being allowed to the VIP area on the upper floor. You will have to get to that VIP area later, of course. More on that when we get there.
Depending on which doll you choose to interact with, you will go into either Booth 6 or Booth 9. You can have a long or short session, but as soon as you say your safe word, the lights will change and the doll will exit the trance mode and get back to reality with you.
Enter the booth and start the conversation with the doll you have picked. I recommend that you have the full session. The segment related to your mission specifically, starts after you say your safeword.
As soon as you say the safeword, the doll will excit the trance and return to reality.
Offer the doll payment. She (or he) will then tell you the little that she knows. A customed “did a number on her”. She forwards you to Tom. Tom and Evelyn were very close. Tom is in the VIP section of Clouds.
The incident with Evelyn took place in Booth 11, her own booth in the club. You can explore it or go talk to Tom. It’s better if you go explore it first.
Inside the booth there will be nobody else by you and… Johnny. Investigate the room, starting wit hthe blood stain on the wall, to find out what exactly happened to Evelyn.
It seems like a remote hack took her out.
Time to get to the VIP area and talk to Tom. There are several ways to get inside the VIP area:
- Get to the VIP area by creating chaos and alerting the guards
- Access the VIP area by obtaining a VIP Token from a guard
Both of these are explained each in their own segment below in the guide. I placed buttons to bring you back up here to this point after you check the methods to obtain a VIP Token so you can continue with the “standard” path for this mission, if you want to.
Once you get to the VIP Area, talk to Tom. He will be surprised by your visit. Take your time to have the conversation with him.
He will advise you to take it up to Woodman (Mr. Forrest is his real name). Tom describes Woodman as the “caretaker” for the dolls at Clouds.
Woodman is in his office, but the office is in a restricted area. You can sneak in easily. Wait for the patrolling guard to move away from the wall. This NPC walks between the elevator and the “No Entry” door often.
Once you are in the corridor, there is a room to your left with an NPC talking on the phone. You can approach him stealthily from behind and take him out. If you don’t do that, he will see you walking through the corridor to Woodman’s office and alert the whole club.
This room on the opposite side of the corridor where Woodman’s office is, will offer you a little more insight into the situation at Clouds with the dolls. Take out the NPC and check the computer for the details.
Finally, confront Woodman. No matter what dialogue options you choose, there will be a fight at the end of the scene.
Woodman will not give you the information you need and will not accept a bribe. After you take him down, open up his computer to learn that he sold Evelyn to a ripper – Fingers. Oh, the famous Fingers!
Note: Fingers sells unique cyberwar. Before you decide how to approach him and what to do in the conversation with him later on, be sure to stop by the Iconic and Legendary Gear Guide in Cyberpunk 2077 to find out what items you may want to buy from Fingers first.
After you escape from Clouds, you can take a moment by the elevator in Megabuilding H8 to talk to Johnny. This is optional.
Take the elevator down. Another scene will trigger. “Automatic Love” is now completed and you start the next main job in this long chain – “Tapeworm”.
How to access VIP Area by creating chaos in Clouds
A fun, but more challenging option to explore Clouds and get the information you need about Evelyn, is to take out a guard out in the open, which will alert every other guard and you will have to fight them all from now on.
You can aggro any guard at any point in the start, before you even get through your session with the doll. You can also opt to create the chaos you so strongly desire after that.
Every single one of the guards has a VIP Token pass on them. The first one you take down, you can loot to get their weapon and VIP Token. It may be ugly, but you will at least now have a weapon to use and access to the upper floor, the VIP area and the office of Woodman.
There is no way to avoid confrontation with Woodman, as I explained in another segment in this guide. You have to fight him. How you approach the areas leading up to his office, that’s up to you. You can also take a stealth approach.
Note that at any point if one of the guards aggroes on you, every other guard will from now on be on alert, looking for you and will attack you as soon as they spot you.
How to access the VIP area without alerting guards
There are two ways to silently get a VIP Token. The first requires you to have Body 7, but offers a more interesting exploration. The second demands a little more patience and timing.
How to get a VIP Token from the restricted area
On the main floor of the club, past the VIP stairs and the guard, you will find a restricted area. Enter it.
Force-open the doors if you have Body 7. By the time you get to do this mission you will likely have at least 7, so this should not be a problem. Of course, you can opt to take VIP Token from the guard at the entrance to the VIP area (or any other guard), but this is more dangerous and risky.
At the end of the corridor, you will see a small fensed area with an NPC inside looking at a datapad or something. You can use a hack on him or simple walk silently behind him and grab him.
While recording for this guide, I used my David Martinez Build, so I was all muscle and no hacks at all. I used the physical method of neutralizing the NPC.
If you are going for a pure Netrunner build from the start, you may not have the 7 Body attribute to force-open the door. In this case, you can neutralize the guards from distance, quietly, one by one. Be mindful of the cameras as well.
Assuming you do it successfully with stealth, you now have a VIP Token and can access the VIP area on the upper floor.
Explore the restricted area here fully to find a Knife, just in case. You will also find a way to get back to Clouds from the outside.
How to get VIP Token from the NPC in the restroom
As you approach the stairs leading up to the VIP area, the bouncer is aruging with that NPC, who claims to have VIP access and also states that he is a frequent visitor of the club on weekly basis.
Wait for their argument to escalate a bit. Another NPC will walk down the stairs from the VIP room and join in to help the guard.
After a short conversation, the customer will leave and the VIP bouncer will go to the restroom. This is your chance. Approach him as he is releaving himself and grab him. Then take his Katana and VIP Token. Now you have a weapon (which will come handy for the Woodman fight upstairs) and a VIP Token to acces sthe VIP area freely.
Note that this is a limited opportunity. This NPC will do its job in the restroom and leave it. If you miss your chance and this event is over, you will have to choose one of the other options described in the guide.
Exploring Clouds in an unconventional way
If you want to do things differently during the mission “Automatic Love”, you can. One possible way to approach the mission is to get the VIP Token right away and go up to the VIP area to meet with Woodman.
The conversation will be almost the same with a few small details. If you go to Woodman as soon as you enter Clouds without talking to the dolls or checking the computer in the security room, a few lines of the dialogue will be different, but the outcome is always the same – you have to beat him to access his computer and discover the truth about Evelyn and Fingers.
The mission will progress anyway, but you will deprive yourself from learning a lot of additional details as well as dialogues and cutscenes including Johnny Silverhand, Skye/Angel and Tom.
