Cyberpunk 2077: The Pickup Quest Walkthrough and Branching Choices
Cyberpunk 2077 The Pickup and Meredith Stout choices branch into Flathead deals, virus tricks, and Royce firefights.
V's latest job from Dex DeShawn sounded simple enough: retrieve a high-end spider-bot called the Flathead from the Maelstrom gang at the All Foods warehouse in Northside. Of course, in Night City, nothing stays simple for long. The Pickup is one of the first major quests in Cyberpunk 2077 that truly lets players shape the outcome, and even in 2026 it remains a favorite example of CD Projekt Red's branching narrative design. Every conversation, every credchip, and every locked door can push V toward a different version of the story.
Before V heads to All Foods, the game offers an optional meeting with Meredith Stout, a paranoid Militech agent. She runs an aggressive background check, but any dialog choice leads to the same offer: pay for the Flathead with a loaded credchip. The catch is that the credchip carries a virus. V can refuse it, accept it, or skip the meeting entirely. Refusing or accepting changes the number of possible outcomes during the negotiation with Maelstrom. Skipping Stout is also valid, though it leads to a darker result: Gilchrist gets promoted while Stout is killed. In other words, the optional meeting is not just flavor. It is a fork in the road.
Once V enters the abandoned All Foods building, the atmosphere tightens. V sits on a couch and watches a tense cutscene before Royce, the Maelstrom boss, arrives. From there, the quest opens into a web of choices. If V refused the credchip, there are two possible outcomes. V can shoot Royce, or buy the Flathead with V's own money. If V accepted the credchip, there are still two outcomes, but five different avenues to reach them. The extra paths come from how V handles Stout's virus-loaded chip.
| Credchip decision | Possible choices | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Refused the credchip | Shoot Royce | Violent outcome |
| Refused the credchip | Buy the Flathead with V's own money | Peaceful purchase |
| Accepted the credchip | Shoot Royce | Violent outcome |
| Accepted the credchip | Buy with Stout's credchip | Purchase with the virus still hidden |
| Accepted the credchip | Buy with V's own money | Peaceful purchase |
| Accepted the credchip | Buy with Stout's credchip but tell Royce about the virus | Royce learns the truth |
| Accepted the credchip | Buy with a cracked version of Stout's credchip | V outsmarts the virus |
Each path gives The Pickup a different texture. Shooting Royce turns the warehouse into a firefight. Buying the Flathead with V's own money keeps things transactional. Telling Royce about the virus can earn respect or suspicion, depending on how the conversation unfolds. Using a cracked version of Stout's credchip is a clever middle route for players who want to keep the deal alive without handing Maelstrom a loaded weapon. None of these choices are purely good or bad. They are all Night City solutions, each with a price.
There is also a side story hidden inside the warehouse. Brick, a former Maelstrom member, is locked behind a door in the northern corner of the map. Royce left him there after taking over. Getting Brick out is simple for a hacker: scan the terminal to the left of the door and use the Remote Deactivation hack. Players who have not invested in hacking can still free Brick by finding a computer in the next room. The code is 9691. After that, V must deal with a laser mine. The mine can be disarmed directly, or V can find a detonator in the room where the door code was discovered. Of course, V can also detonate the mine and kill Brick, or simply leave him to rot until surviving Maelstrom members take pity on him. The choice belongs to the player.
What makes The Pickup memorable is how quietly it teaches Cyberpunk 2077's biggest lesson. Night City rewards curiosity and punishes carelessness. A conversation with a corporate agent can determine whether a gang boss lives or dies. A locked door can become a rescue mission or an execution. A credchip can be a payment, a trap, or a bluff. For a quest that begins as a simple pickup, it carries an enormous amount of narrative weight. In 2026, with Phantom Liberty and years of patches behind it, The Pickup still stands as one of the clearest examples of how many stories V can tell without ever leaving the same warehouse.