Jackie Welles: V's Partner, What Happens to Him and Why Players Remember Him
The short version
Jackie Welles is V's best friend and first partner in Cyberpunk 2077, a Heywood merc who works with V up to the Konpeki Plaza heist. He is voiced by Jason Hightower.
On this page
Jackie in one paragraph#
Jackie is a Heywood kid, a former Valentinos member and the son of Mamá Welles, who runs El Coyote Cojo. He wants to be a legend, he has a girlfriend named Misty, and he talks about drinks at the Afterlife like a man who has a plan for his name. He is easy to like, which is the point.
How you meet#
Your lifepath decides how. As a Nomad, you smuggle a crate for him across the border. As a Streetkid, you both try to steal the same car. As a Corpo, he pulls you out of Lizzie's Bar when Arasaka comes for you.
In all three, he offers you a place to stay at his mother's house. The first quests are The Nomad, The Streetkid or The Corpo-Rat, then The Rescue and The Ripperdoc.
The heist#
Jackie and V work a few jobs with the netrunner T-Bug, then Dexter DeShawn hires them for the Konpeki Plaza job. The Pickup gets the Militech Flathead from the Maelstrom, The Ride sets the deal with Dex, and The Heist is the job itself.
Spoilers Where it goes wrong
Yorinobu Arasaka walks in on his own suite and kills his father Saburo. V and Jackie escape on the Delamain cab, but Jackie has been hit. He puts the Relic chip in V's hand before he dies. This is the moment that hits hardest in the whole intro.
V decides what happens to the body. He can go home to Mamá Welles, where the ofrenda in the quest Heroes follows, or be buried at the North Oak Columbarium, or be handed to Vik, in which case Arasaka collects it.
Spoilers What comes after
Jackie's presence lingers, and so does the guilt. His ARCH motorcycle is a gift from Mamá Welles. The engram that Mikoshi holds of him appears in the game's late sequences as a simulation, and V can say goodbye. In the Arasaka ending, a nightmare of Jackie handing over the chip hits V.
Spoilers The drink
Before the heist, Jackie tells Claire Russell at the Afterlife that he wants a cocktail named after him if he ever becomes a legend. It is vodka, lime juice, ginger beer and a splash of love.
After The Heist, V can tell Claire that Jackie is dead and ask her to make the drink.
Spoilers The cocktail test
Do the small thing. After The Heist, tell Claire Russell at the Afterlife that Jackie is dead and ask her to make the drink. Opinion: it is the quietest scene in the opening and it lands harder than the funeral.
The game spends its first act making Jackie the one person V can trust, then takes him. That is why people still argue about the intro, and why the rest of the game feels the way it does.
Production trivia: Jackie is V's partner in a job called Breaking Through in the 48-minute gameplay reveal. In a very early version of the story he caused the heist to fail. More of his world is on the Night City page.
Explore#
- Official