Cyberpunk RED Guide Hub | Night Market Index Guide | Cyberpunk RED Guides
The Short Answer
Buy the Core Rulebook first, then buy the book that fixes the next real need at your table. Get Black Chrome when choices of gear, cyberware, vehicles, and Night Markets will make sessions better. Get Danger Gal Dossier when a GM needs factions, NPCs, and a mission ready to use. Get Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn when the group wants a linked, street-level campaign rather than another pile of options. Get an Interface RED volume only when you want the particular DLC it collects.
That order is deliberately unglamorous. More books do not improve a campaign that has not yet found its crew, jobs, or table rhythm. The Core Rulebook has the complete foundation. Expansions should answer a question your group is already asking.
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Hot Take
Do not make every new sourcebook available to players the moment it arrives. Start a campaign with the Core Rulebook, then add one expansion because it supports the kind of jobs the crew has chosen. A focused gear book can make a Tech or Fixer happier; a faction book can give a GM a sharper city; a campaign book can give a new group momentum. Opening every catalog at once mostly turns character creation into shopping and makes it harder for the table to see what the core game already does well.
The exception is a group that has explicitly asked for a high-option campaign and has a GM ready to curate it. Even then, name the allowed sources before character creation and add books in batches rather than treating every publication as mandatory rules baggage.
Buy By Need, Not Release Date
| Your table needs... | Buy or use... | Why it is the right next step |
|---|---|---|
| The complete game | Cyberpunk RED Core Rulebook | The baseline for character creation, Roles, skills, combat, netrunning, cyberware, equipment, the Time of the Red, and GM procedures. |
| A low-commitment first session | Cyberpunk RED Easy Mode | A free quickstart path. Use the full Core Rulebook for an ongoing campaign and exact rules coverage. |
| More gear with a Night Market context | Black Chrome | More than 170 items across apps, cyberware, fashion, armor, general gear, linear frames, vehicles, and weapons, plus economy and Night Market support. |
| Ready-made Night City pressure | Danger Gal Dossier | Fifteen factions, more than 100 NPCs, NPC-creation guidance, gear, and a mission give a GM usable people instead of generic opposition. |
| A connected campaign | Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn | Six linked street-level missions centered on the Forlorn Hope, with new rules in its appendix. |
| A curated DLC reference | Interface RED | Five collections of selected DLC, each with an exclusive bonus article. Check the current checklist for collection boundaries. |
| A 2070s entry point | Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit | A starter box with its own era framing, rules, and items. Confirm the setting before mixing it with a 2045 campaign. |
| A deeper 2045 city | Night City 2045 | A city sourcebook with city facts, flashmaps, factions, districts, outskirts, and Playland by the Sea. |
The Core Rulebook is not optional for a standard campaign. The publisher describes it as the complete game: character generation, rules, world lore, stat blocks, and the 2045 setting. Easy Mode is a try-before-you-buy tool, not a replacement for that foundation.
What The Major Books Are Actually For
Core Rulebook and Easy Mode
Use the Core Rulebook whenever the table needs the actual procedure, baseline option, or setting assumption. Easy Mode is useful for a short introduction, but a group moving into a campaign should transition to the Core Rulebook rather than treating quickstart material as a complete rules reference. See the Cyberpunk RED beginner's guide for the purchase verdict and first-session path.
Read the Cyberpunk RED Core Rulebook guide for its verified chapter-level scope, a new-group reading order, and the practical reason it remains the campaign foundation.
Read the Cyberpunk RED Jumpstart Kit versus Core Rulebook guide if you own the starter box or need the direct new-buyer verdict.
Returning from an earlier edition? Read Cyberpunk RED versus Cyberpunk 2020 before carrying an old character sheet, Skills, or Netrunning procedure into a RED campaign.
Black Chrome
Black Chrome is a gear book, but its best value is not raw power. It gives gear choices social and economic context through manufacturers, Fixers, Night Markets, and the 2045 economy. Use it when equipment should create leads, favors, upgrades, or tradeoffs. Do not add it just because every player wants a larger list on day one.
Read the Cyberpunk RED Black Chrome guide for its catalog scope, Night Market value, and availability limits.
Danger Gal Dossier
Danger Gal Dossier is the fastest route from "Night City is dangerous" to named people with agendas, affiliations, capabilities, and consequences. Its faction and NPC focus makes it a strong first expansion for GMs who would rather run jobs than build a new roster for every district. It is also useful when the crew's Media, Fixer, Lawman, or Exec needs a living social map to push against.
Read the Cyberpunk RED Danger Gal Dossier guide for its faction, NPC, and GM-preparation value.
Interface RED
Interface RED collects selected free DLC into five volumes, each with an exclusive bonus article. It is a useful curated reference, but no volume represents every Cyberpunk RED download and a related DLC is not automatically collected just because it appeared in the same release era.
Read the Cyberpunk RED Interface RED guide for the current five-volume map, buying advice, and collection boundaries.
Tales of the RED: Hope Reborn
Hope Reborn is a campaign purchase, not a generic setting encyclopedia. Its six missions form a street-level story around the Forlorn Hope and support different job styles, including a branching finale. Pick it when the group wants a prepared arc with room for its crew to matter; skip it if you want to build a different neighborhood from scratch.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Mission Kit
The Mission Kit is a starter box aimed at the 2070s era. It can be a welcoming on-ramp for players coming from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, but its era and product-specific rules deserve a deliberate conversation before they are folded into a 2045 game. Treat it as a distinct starting package, not as an automatic expansion for every Core Rulebook campaign. Read the Cyberpunk RED and Edgerunners Mission Kit guide for the starter-scope verdict, era choice, and adaptation checklist.
Night City 2045
Night City 2045 is the city-first purchase. It provides material for tables that want districts, local factions, mapped locations, and a detailed place to make jobs feel geographically connected. Buy it when "somewhere in Night City" has stopped being enough and the crew needs a neighborhood to care about.
Read the Cyberpunk RED Night City 2045 guide for its verified scope, campaign timing, and GM-facing city tools.
Interface RED: What Each Volume Collects
Interface RED volumes collect selected free DLC and add bonus content. They are not chronological core-rule updates, and they do not collect every download. Use this table to decide whether a particular volume saves you from assembling several related DLC PDFs.
| Volume | Collected DLC | Bonus content | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interface RED Volume 1 | Old Guns Never Die, Red Chrome Cargo, Single Shot Pack, Cyberchairs, Elflines Online, and Elflines Online Expansion Pack 1 | All About Drones | Early add-ons, alternate play texture, and drones. |
| Interface RED Volume 2 | Hardened Mooks, Hardened Lieutenants, Night City Weather, Jumpstart Kit Conversion Guide, Cargo Containers & Cube Hotels, Daeric Sylar's Guide to Elflines Online, and The 12 Days of Gunmas | The Exotics of 2045 | Tougher opposition, housing, weather, and a Jumpstart-to-core bridge. |
| Interface RED Volume 3 | Hardened Mini Bosses, Digital Dating in the Dark Future, Woodchipper's Garage, Salvaging Night City, Midnight With the Upload, Must Have Cyberware Deals, Collecting the Random, Elflines Online the TCG, Spinning Your Wheels, and The 12 Days of Cybermas | Going Metal | Salvage, tougher encounters, downtime, netrunner gear, and oddball campaign texture. |
| Interface RED Volume 4 | Hornet's Pharmacy, Black Chrome+, Achievements and Loot Boxes, Stickball, The Dreaded Punknaught, Corporate Conapts & Studio Apartments, Halloween Screamsheets, and The 12 Days of Gearmas | Cyberfists of Fury | More gear, homes, small games, missions, and a buildable street vehicle. |
| Interface RED Volume 5 | Breaking Your Stuff, Chasing the Rabbit, All About Agents, Toggle's Temple, Did Someone Say Murder?, Your New Best Friend, Screamsheet Generator, and The 12 Days of REDMas | Solo of Fortune 2045 | Later DLC, scenario support, and Mercenary Level play. |
The official Cyberpunk RED Checklist is the source of truth for collection status. It is particularly useful when a DLC name sounds as though it ought to be in a volume but is not.
Read the Cyberpunk RED Screamsheet Guide when you want to turn the Core Rulebook's media format or a verified DLC collection into a player-facing job lead.
DLC That Is Not In Interface RED
Do not use "uncollected" as if it meant one thing. The publisher marks different DLC with different status notes, and those distinctions affect whether you should hunt for the original download.
| Status | Verified examples | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| DLC explicitly marked not collected | The checklist includes examples such as Night City Tarot, Danger Gal Dossier+, Night Market Index, and CEMK DLC #1: Karaoke Night | Use the original DLC if you want that content. Do not wait for an Interface RED volume to supply it. |
| DLC with rules partly reprinted elsewhere | A partial rules reprint is not automatically the complete DLC | Check the individual checklist entry and its stated destination before treating it as fully collected. |
| Newly released DLC | Status can change when a later volume is announced | Check the current checklist, not an older guide snapshot. Volume 5 moved several previously standalone DLCs into a collection. |
This is why a source-aware guide should cite a book or DLC instead of saying an option comes from "Cyberpunk RED" in the abstract. A table can decide whether it wants the original download, a collected volume, a campaign book, or none of the above.
A Simple Purchase Ladder
- Start with the Core Rulebook for an ongoing campaign, or use Easy Mode for a short trial.
- Play enough sessions to learn whether your group wants more jobs, more gear, more city, or more ready opposition.
- Choose one expansion: Hope Reborn for a campaign, Black Chrome for gear, Danger Gal Dossier for GM-facing city pressure, or Night City 2045 for location depth.
- Add an Interface RED volume only when its specific collected DLC supports the campaign you are already running.
- Before using a DLC, check its collection note in the publisher checklist. Do not assume a later book contains it.
For a new group, this order keeps the fiction and the crew ahead of catalog management. For a veteran group, it makes every added book a conscious change to the game rather than an accidental pile of legal options.
Related Guides
- Return to the Cyberpunk RED Guide Hub for the full library map and source-aware routes as they publish.
- Use the Cyberpunk RED beginner's guide to decide whether to start with Easy Mode or the Core Rulebook and to prepare a first session.
- Read the Cyberpunk RED Core Rulebook guide to see what the complete game covers before selecting an expansion.
- Read the Cyberpunk RED Black Chrome guide when equipment access, Fixers, and Night Markets should become useful campaign pressure.
- Read the Cyberpunk RED Night Market Index Guide to locate a published equipment source without treating a listing as automatic campaign availability.
- Read the Cyberpunk RED Danger Gal Dossier guide when named factions and NPCs should make the city react.
- Read the Cyberpunk RED Interface RED guide before assuming a DLC is included in a collection.
- Read the Cyberpunk RED Night City 2045 guide when a recurring campaign needs district-level city detail.
- Read Cyberpunk RED versus Cyberpunk 2020 when a returning group needs the new-edition verdict before choosing books or rebuilding characters.
- Read Cyberpunk RED and the Edgerunners Mission Kit before buying a 2070s starter box for a 2045 campaign.
- Browse the Cyberpunk RED guide directory for the live guides. Gear and GM hubs will be linked here when they are published.
Get new Cyberpunk RED guides as they publish.
