Cyberpunk 2077 braindance guide: Disasterpiece BD walkthrough (2024)

During Cyberpunk 2077’s “Disasterpiece” Main Job, you’ll meet your pal Judy in a van, strap on a headset, and head into a braindance.

It’s still a new concept at this point, so in this Cyberpunk 2077 guide, we’ll walk you through the BD, showing you everything scannable, including the few items that you must scan, some optional scannable items, and some straight up hidden things.

Note: With various patches changing numerous aspects of Cyberpunk 2077 since release, the advice on this page is likely out of date. If you were wondering what’s changed since launch, read our Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty review, which also covers the 2.0 update.

Watch the whole braindance in Playback Mode first

Before interacting with anything, watch the whole braindance first in Playback Mode — the first-person perspective of the netrunner whose brain you’re dancing around in.

This is our advice for every BD, because it familiarizes you with the events you’ll be investigating while filling up your Visual, Audio, and Thermal track timelines with bold sections — the places during which you can find scannable clues later.

Analyze the braindance and find out where it was recorded.

Restart the braindance, and you’ll have three bold sections of the Visual Layer to scan for clues. We’ll take them from left to right.

Visual Layer leftmost bold section

Rewind to the leftmost bold section of the yellow Visual Layer, and stop the video at about 0:10. You can scan four things from here.

Image: CD Projekt Red via Polygon

• Slice of pizza. This is to the left as the netrunner’s getting dragged in.
• Netrunner. The “poor f*cker” whose point of view you see this horror show of a BD.
• Scav woman. The person not dragging the netrunner to the chair. Judy says it’s a woman during some dialogue. On-screen details say she’s “a scav specializing in braindance editing,” so that’s how we’ll refer to her.
• Cardboard box. It’s a cardboard box.

That’ll clear the leftmost yellow bold section of the Visual Layer.

Bonus scav scan

This is weird because it’s scannable after you clear the leftmost area but before the middle area is on your timeline. Just go with it.

Image: CD Projekt Red via Polygon

Pause at 0:16, and keep your eye on the person who’s dragging the netrunner. Before the next yellow area of interest, you’ll be able to scan them.

• Scav. The person with the obscured face. Details say that this person is “a scav on steroids,” so that’s how we’ll refer to them.

Visual Layer middle bold section

There’s only one thing to scan here. Pause at 0:23, within the next bold yellow area of interest.

Image: CD Projekt Red via Polygon

Just as the scav on steroids is strapping the netrunner into the chair, look behind the scav specializing in braindance editing to find the next scannable item.

• Electric Corp patch. It’s on the coveralls that look to be hanging on a pole.

And that’ll clear the hold yellow area of interest in the middle of the Visual Layer.

Visual Layer rightmost bold section

Pause at 0:37, and look at the braindance specialist scav.

On the table she’s facing, scan the coffee cup. (You’ll have to zoom in closer than we are in our screenshot, which we picked because it lets you see where to go in relation to netrunner and two scavs.)

• Paper coffee cup from Buck-A-Slice. You’ll get some information about this in dialogue.

Those are your clues. Coffee + pizza + patch means that you and Jill can pinpoint the location of this torturous BD.

Exit the braindance when ready.

At this point, you can exit the braindance, or continue reading (listening?) to find two optional scans.

Optional Audio Layer sounds

Everything you’ve done above has been in service of solving the “Disasterpiece” braindance puzzle, but there’s more to scan if you’re so inclined. It’s optional — so optional, in fact, that it doesn’t even appear on your timeline — but the descriptions of the audio that you can discover add a bit of (horrifying) flavor to this (hellish) corner of Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City.

Image: CD Projekt Red via Polygon

In the screenshot above, we have the Audio Layer active, and we’re floating back in the corner of the room, near where the braindance begins. Fly to the green concentric circles pulsing in the corners to the left and right of our Cyberpunk 2077 screenshot, and you can hear and read some flavor text.

The Thermal Layer

We should also point out that, if you switch to the Thermal Layer during the “Disasterpiece” braindance, it’s entirely bold for the entire duration fo the BD. We can’t really say why.

As far as we can tell, there’s nothing specific to scan. Nothing at any location turns into a magnifying glass and allows for more clues. It just seems to be an indication that there are heat signatures present throughout the BD.