Update 2.1 for Cyberpunk 2077 has been released and alongside it, a new metro system! This guide will explain what it is and how to use it.
This guide is up-to-date for Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.3
What’s NCART
The Night City Area Rapid Transit is a new transport system that allows the player to move across most of Night City in a more relaxing way.
New York, Paris, Beijing, Seoul, Mexico City, London, Madrid, and pretty much every major city in the world has a metro system so it’s more than fitting that Night City gets one after all these years. Especially after it appeared in the trailer of Phantom Liberty. It event appeared in the very first real trailer (not counting the teaser) for the game, from 2018.
Fans of the game developed a Metro mod shortly after the game’s launch and while it might not be the same, it did please those who wanted to get an official metro system.
How to unlock it
The NCART or metro can be unlocked only after completing the main job “The Heist”. This is where V. and Jackie infiltrate the Konpeki Plaza and attempt to steal “something” from a very important “someone”.
This is fairly early in the game and way before you can access the Phantom Liberty expansion. It won’t be long before you can use the metro system.
When you are eligible to use the NCART Metro system in Night City, a Customer Support representative will send you a message on your phone notifying you that you get a free card to ride the metro.
How to use Night City’s Metro
If you mark a metro station on your map, the line to follow will show up in purple. All the stations are also displayed in this color, so it’s very easy to distinguish them due to how bright they look. For colorblind people, it’s also easy to identify them by looking for the big curved “M” logo.
There’s an entrance and an exit to the metro. Green and red lights are displayed at the entrance and exit respectively. It doesn’t matter that you’re the best merc in Night City, you can only get “inside” through the entrance. If a crime has been reported you won’t be able to use the metro, just like with any elevator.
There are two ways to use this new transport, “Fast travel” and “Ride metro”.
As you might imagine, fast travel lets you go to any fast travel point in Night City. This also includes all the metro stations.
“Ride the metro” triggers an animation where V. shows his/her metro card. After a few seconds, you will be able to select your destination. Sadly, it’s not possible to access the stations or railways.
A map of the available stations will display and under it, you’ll see a menu that says “Select destination”. There’s one important thing to note, the stations that are on the map do not match the destinations under it.
The destinations are the main districts of Night City: Heywood, Watson, Westbrook, Santo Domingo, City Center, and Pacifica. The NCART doesn’t provide service in Badlands and Dogtown.*
This feels very counter-intuitive and might confuse many players who don’t know how all districts are distributed. Below is a simplified map of Night City to help you learn the locations of all main districts.
Additionally, not all stations are accessible. Just like with any subway/metro in real life, some lines and stations are more connected than others. Getting to a specific station will require you to take the right train.
For example, the image below shows very few destinations available compared to the previous one that had access to most districts. It depends on your current location, which station you board from and where you want to (and can) go from there.
The vibe in the wagons and people aboard will vary depending on where you’re going. The passengers in the next image are headed to the City Center. If the player goes to Santo Domingo then the passengers will look different.
There’s even a person who announces the next stop so you can get out in time. If you miss it then you’ll have to wait until the next stop to get out. Using the metro is almost the same as getting someone else to drive on a mission but without the dialogue.
You’re simply watching everything while not being able to interact with anything or anyone. It’s possible to stand up or watch through the window but that’s it.
There’s a total of five metro lines and nineteen stations. Since all of them cover more than one district, they are color-coded to make it easy to identify them. What you see next is a map of all lines and the first and last stations for each one.
The small dots mark all the stations. There are some points where multiple lines cross with each other (for ex: Congress & MLK). These are the stations that allow to access more destinations.
After finishing your small journey, V. will appear outside of the exit. As stated before, using the metro is not a very interactive experience but it certainly gives a small boost to the immersion of the game.
Each station, its surroundings, and its entrance will match the visual aspect of the district and neighborhood where they’re located. Outside the Med Center, you can expect to see Trauma Team forces while in Santo Domingo there’s a small fight club just a few feet away from the exit/entrance of the metro.
Many other things were released with the 2.1 update: New vehicles, changes to motorbike combat, radioport, replayable car races, improvements to boss fights (like Adam Smasher), etc! You can check out this content and more on our Cyberpunk 2077 guides master list.
