Cyberpunk 2077: All Legendary & Iconic Weapon Locations
Introduction
Iconic weapons in Cyberpunk 2077 are unique named variants with special effects, permanently upgradable through the crafting system. In Patch 2.0+, iconic weapons scale to your current tier when picked up, and you can use upgrade components to advance them through all five rarity tiers (Tier 1 through Tier 5++). Many iconic weapons are missable — tied to specific quest choices, hidden crafting specs, or optional boss encounters.
This guide catalogues 20+ iconic weapons with exact locations, acquisition methods, special effects, and optimal pairings. Weapons are ordered roughly by when they become available in a standard playthrough.
Melee Weapons
Byakko (Katana)
- Type: Katana (Blade)
- Acquisition: Complete all of Wakako Okada's gigs in Westbrook. She will place Byakko as a reward in her stash at the Westbrook apartment.
- Special Effect: After killing an enemy, your next heavy attack within 3 seconds becomes a lunging leap with +200% range and guaranteed critical hit. Chain kills continuously reset the buff.
- Best For: Sandy Samurai builds. The lunge chains during Apogee Sandevistan create a teleport-kill loop unmatched by any other melee weapon.
- Missable: No. Gigs are always available.
Scalpel (Katana)
- Type: Katana (Blade)
- Acquisition: Complete "Big in Japan" gig from Dennis in the Afterlife. Dennis asks you to retrieve an item from a Tyger Claw hideout. Scalpel is in the safe in the back room (requires Tech 5 to open, or find the key on a desk).
- Special Effect: While Sandevistan is active, +50% crit chance and all hits apply Bleeding. Synergizes with Apogee's built-in +20% crit for near-100% crit rate.
- Best For: Sandy builds that want a one-weapon solution. Pair with Scalpel only if you don't want to swap between Byakko and another blade.
Errata (Thermal Katana)
- Type: Katana (Blade, Thermal)
- Acquisition: During "Disasterpiece" (Act 2, Judy questline), in the Scavenger power plant. After descending into the main factory floor, find the furnace room (marked by intense orange lighting). Errata is embedded in a burning corpse in the center. You can grab it during combat — it's not locked behind any door.
- Special Effect: Hits apply Burn and have a 25% chance to ignite enemies. Ignited enemies spread Burn in a 3m radius. Against grouped enemies, one hit sets the entire group on fire.
- Best For: Crowd-control melee. Pair with Sandy Samurai for a hybrid slash-and-burn playstyle.
- Missable: Yes. The power plant is only accessible during Disasterpiece. If you miss it, the area becomes inaccessible.
Jinchu-Maru (Katana)
- Type: Katana (Blade)
- Acquisition: Looted from Oda during "Play It Safe" (the parade mission in Act 2). Oda is the mandatory boss on the rooftop.
- Special Effect: 100% critical hit chance when Kerenzikov or Sandevistan is active. Double damage against enemies with more than 50% health. The crit chance override means you can dump all Reflex-point crit perks for other investments.
- Best For: Boss-killer builds. Every hit during Sandy is a guaranteed crit with the double-damage bonus on fresh targets.
Cocktail Stick (Katana)
- Type: Katana (Blade)
- Acquisition: During "Automatic Love," in the manager's office of Clouds. Access requires either the receptionist keycard (pay her 200 eddies or use a Body 6 intimidation check) or navigating through the VIP area.
- Special Effect: +15% movement speed for 5 seconds after a kill. Stacks up to 3 times. At 3 stacks, V moves at vehicle speeds on foot.
- Best For: Speed-running and repositioning-heavy builds. The stacking speed boost turns every kill into a momentum tool.
Sir John Phallustiff (One-Handed Club)
- Type: Blunt Weapon
- Acquisition: After completing "Venus in Furs" (Meredith Stout follow-up if you sided with her during The Pickup), check the motel room bed. The weapon appears after the encounter sequence.
- Special Effect: +100% damage against stunned or staggered enemies. Paired with Gorilla Arms charge attacks or the Berserk stagger, this one-shots all non-boss humanoids.
- Best For: Blunt melee Chrome Compressor builds. Combined with the stagger from Berserk + Gorilla Arms, the effective damage is absurd.
- Missable: Yes. Requires siding with Meredith in The Pickup AND keeping her alive.
Power Weapons
Moron Labe (Power Assault Rifle)
- Type: Power Assault Rifle
- Acquisition: Looted from a Militech soldier during the "Gimme Danger" mission. In the Arasaka Industrial Park, one of the guards in the processing building drops the crafting spec. Check all Militech-clad bodies — the drop is guaranteed but the body can be overlooked.
- Special Effect: Bullets deal +50% damage to mechanical enemies (drones, mechs, robots). Headshots against mechanicals cause an EMP burst in a 4m radius.
- Best For: Anti-mech encounters. Keep this in your second weapon slot for any mission with Arasaka or Militech heavy units.
Psalm 11:6 (Power Assault Rifle)
- Type: Power Assault Rifle (Thermal)
- Acquisition: Crafting spec from Suspected Organized Crime Activity in Northside, Watson. Clear the NCPD Scanner Hustle (the one with the burning car and Maelstrom gangsters). The spec drops from the gang leader's body.
- Special Effect: Deals thermal damage. Kills cause the target to explode, dealing fire damage in a 6m radius. The explosion chains — if another enemy dies from the explosion, they also explode.
- Best For: Horde-clearing. The chain explosions make this the best assault rifle for any encounter with 5+ humanoid enemies in close proximity.
Buzzsaw (Power Submachine Gun)
- Type: Power SMG
- Acquisition: Crafting spec from Suspected Organized Crime Activity in Northside, Watson (different from Psalm 11:6). Located in the underground Maelstrom garage accessed via a manhole cover.
- Special Effect: All rounds are penetrating — bullets pass through cover, walls, and multiple enemies. No damage falloff through surfaces.
- Best For: Netrunner or tech builds that have pinged and marked enemies through walls. You can eliminate targets from complete safety while they have zero line of sight.
Divided We Stand (Smart Assault Rifle)
- Type: Smart Assault Rifle
- Acquisition: Reward for completing the "Stadium Love" gig in Santo Domingo. The Sixth Street gang challenges you to a shooting contest. Win the contest (or start a fight and loot it from their leader).
- Special Effect: Bullets can poison enemies. Targets affected by poison receive +30% damage from smart weapons. Five consecutive hits on a poisoned target create a toxic cloud (3m radius).
- Best For: Smart weapon Netrunner hybrids who already spread Contagion.
Skippy (Smart Pistol)
- Type: Smart Pistol
- Acquisition: Found on a corpse in an alley in Vista del Rey, Heywood (near the College Street fast travel). Skippy is an AI pistol with personality. On pickup, you choose: "Stone-Cold Killer" mode (headshots only, permanent) or "Puppy-Loving Pacifist" mode (leg shots only, temporary). After 50 kills, Skippy asks you to return it to its owner, Regina Jones. You can refuse — Skippy becomes permanently hostile (shouts insults) but retains functionality.
- Special Effect: In Stone-Cold mode, all shots are headshots. Every hit is a guaranteed headshot with no aim requirement. The DPS ceiling is limited by the pistol's base damage, but it's the ultimate point-and-click weapon for casual clearing.
- Best For: Brain-off gig clearing. Let Skippy aim for you.
Sovereign (Power Shotgun)
- Type: Power Double-Barrel Shotgun
- Acquisition: Complete "Beat on the Brat: Arroyo" — the fistfight in Santo Domingo. Win the fight legitimately (no weapons, no glitches).
- Special Effect: Fires both barrels simultaneously with reduced spread. Reload speed is halved. Effectively double damage with no accuracy penalty.
- Best For: Shotgun one-shot builds for mid-range engagements where a standard shotgun's spread would waste damage.
O'Five (Power Sniper Rifle)
- Type: Power Sniper Rifle (Explosive)
- Acquisition: Loot from the boxing champion Buck during "Beat on the Brat: The Glen." Win the fight in Pacifica's Grand Imperial Mall.
- Special Effect: Fires explosive rounds. Headshots cause a 5m explosion dealing 50% of the bullet's damage as splash. Kills with the explosion count as headshots, creating cascade explosions.
- Best For: Sniper builds that want AoE capability. At Tier 5, a single headshot on a clustered group of three enemies kills all three.
Breakthrough (Tech Sniper Rifle)
- Type: Tech Sniper Rifle
- Acquisition: Crafting spec from Suspected Organized Crime Activity in Rancho Coronado, Santo Domingo. Clear the Militech compound in the southeast.
- Special Effect: Fully charged shots penetrate all cover and enemies in a line. Ignores all armor. At Tier 5, penetration distance is effectively unlimited.
- Best For: Wall-hack builds using ping and marking. Eliminate entire buildings without entering them.
Fenrir (Power Submachine Gun)
- Type: Power SMG (Thermal)
- Acquisition: During "The Pickup" (Act 1), in the Maelstrom All Foods plant. After entering the main manufacturing floor, find the monk being held captive. Fenrir is on a table in the adjacent room.
- Special Effect: Bullets deal thermal damage and apply Burn. Each consecutive hit on the same target increases Burn damage by 5%, stacking indefinitely.
- Best For: Boss sustained damage. Against Smasher or Hansen, the stacking Burn outpaces most single-hit weapons over the fight duration.
- Missable: Yes. All Foods is only accessible during The Pickup.
Smart Weapons
Prototype: Shingen Mark V (Smart Submachine Gun)
- Type: Smart SMG
- Acquisition: During "Gimme Danger" in the Arasaka Industrial Park. After entering the float warehouse, check the small security office on the first floor. It's in a weapon container — you need Tech 10 to open the container.
- Special Effect: Fires explosive smart rounds. Each magazine contains 30 rounds, and every 5th round is explosive. The explosive rounds trigger on smart lock, so even near-misses deal splash damage.
- Best For: Smart weapon Netrunner builds. The automatic explosive rounds benefit from the Pyromania perk (Tech tree) for stacking damage bonuses.
Hawk (Precision Rifle)
- Type: Power Precision Rifle
- Acquisition: Complete "Riders on the Storm" (Panam's quest to rescue Saul). After the mission, Panam gifts you this rifle at the Aldecaldos camp.
- Special Effect: Each successful hit increases rate of fire by 15% (stacks 5x, resets on miss or reload). At full stacks, the fire rate matches an assault rifle while retaining sniper-tier damage per shot.
- Best For: Mid-range DPS. Builds that want assault rifle volume with precision rifle headshot multipliers.
Endgame Iconic Weapons
Pride (Power Pistol)
- Type: Power Pistol
- Acquisition: In Rogue's ending path (The Sun), after defeating Adam Smasher. Rogue's corpse (if she died) has Pride in her hand. If she survived, she hands it to you.
- Special Effect: 100% critical hit chance on the first round of each magazine. Headshot multiplier increased to 300% (from 200%).
- Ending-locked: Requires The Sun or (Don't Fear) The Reaper. Carries back to point-of-no-return save.
Prejudice (Power Assault Rifle)
- Type: Power Assault Rifle
- Acquisition: Same as Pride — from Rogue during The Sun ending path.
- Special Effect: Kills grant +15% damage for 10 seconds (stacks 5x). At 5 stacks, movement speed +20%. Effectively a "win more" rampage weapon.
- Ending-locked: Requires The Sun or secret ending.
Ba Xing Chong (Smart Shotgun)
- Type: Smart Shotgun
- Acquisition: Loot from Adam Smasher's body in any ending path where you fight him. After the Mikoshi sequence, return to the arena and grab it from his remains.
- Special Effect: Fires explosive smart projectiles that track targets independently. Each projectile can target a different enemy. The smart tracking is per-pellet, not per-trigger-pull.
- Best For: Any non-Int build that wants smart weapon clearing without a smart link.
Weapon Tier and Upgrade Strategy
In 2.0+, iconic weapons drop at your current level's tier. If you pick up Fenrir at level 15, it will be Tier 2+. If you wait until level 40, it drops at Tier 5. The crafting upgrade system lets you advance an iconic weapon's tier using upgrade components.
Optimal strategy: Pick up all iconic weapons as soon as they become available. The component cost to upgrade from Tier 2 to Tier 5 is approximately 200 Tier 1, 120 Tier 2, 60 Tier 3, 20 Tier 4, and 8 Tier 5 components. This is cheaper than crafting a new Tier 5 weapon from scratch, and you get to use the weapon throughout the game.
Component farming: Dismantle all non-iconic weapons. Tier 5 components are the bottleneck. The best farm is the Valentino Alley loop in The Glen — a circuit of three gang encounters that respawn every 24 in-game hours, each dropping 4-6 weapons.
Location Checklist
| Weapon | Quest/Area | Act | Coordinates (approximate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fenrir | The Pickup (All Foods) | Act 1 | Northside, Watson |
| Cocktail Stick | Automatic Love (Clouds) | Act 2 | Japantown, Westbrook |
| Errata | Disasterpiece (Power Plant) | Act 2 | Charter Hill, Santo Domingo |
| Jinchu-Maru | Play It Safe (Rooftop) | Act 2 | Corpo Plaza, City Center |
| Sir John Phallustiff | Venus in Furs (Motel) | Act 2 | No-Tell Motel, Kabuki |
| Moron Labe | Gimme Danger (Industrial Park) | Act 2 | Arroyo, Santo Domingo |
| Prototype Shingen Mark V | Gimme Danger (Industrial Park) | Act 2 | Arroyo, Santo Domingo |
| Skippy | Vista del Rey alley | Act 2 | Vista del Rey, Heywood |
| Divided We Stand | Stadium Love | Act 2 | Rancho Coronado, Santo Domingo |
| Scalpel | Big in Japan gig | Act 2 | Afterlife / Japantown |
| O'Five | Beat on the Brat: The Glen | Act 2 | Pacifica |
| Sovereign | Beat on the Brat: Arroyo | Act 2 | Arroyo, Santo Domingo |
| Hawk | Riders on the Storm | Act 2 | Aldecaldos Camp |
| Byakko | All Wakako gigs | Act 2 | Westbrook fixer reward |
| Psalm 11:6 | NCPD Hustle | Act 2 | Northside, Watson |
| Buzzsaw | NCPD Hustle | Act 2 | Northside, Watson |
| Breakthrough | NCPD Hustle | Act 2 | Rancho Coronado |
| Pride | The Sun ending | Act 3 | Arasaka Tower |
| Prejudice | The Sun ending | Act 3 | Arasaka Tower |
| Ba Xing Chong | Adam Smasher drop | Act 3 | Arasaka Tower arena |
