The amount of lore and history that can be discovered while playing through Cyberpunk 2077 is absolutely massive. It's well worth anyone's time to stop and read the shards scattered around the in-game world, but given how random they can be, they don't always tell the full story of the world in an easy manner.
Night City in particular is an interesting location, one with tons of history and lore behind it. Those only familiar with the game itself will be surprised to find out just how much has happened before the events of 2077, and how many references to the past are actually scattered around for hardcore fans to discover.
10 Named After Its Founder
The birth of Night City was overseen by a businessman and visionary known as Richard Night back in 1994. Originally, the project was not known as Night City, but rather Coronado City. Night's main motivation when creating the city was to make the perfect city in the world.
It was only four years later that the project's name was changed due to tragic events, which will be explained further down. It's how Night City was born, as well as the similarly named Night Corp, conceived by Richard Night's widow Miriam Night.
9 An Autonomous City Protected By Arasaka
Night City has always been a special place due to how much power and autonomy it has. That's because it's a free city within a Free State, which is highly independent from the New United States government (NUSA). Even within the state of Northern California, it governs itself.
While the NUSA has attempted and even offered to take control of Night City in the past under the guise of helping to fix some of its issues, the city's officials have always preferred to remain autonomous. Mayor Lucius Rhyne, during the Unification War when the NUSA was pressuring Night City to take a side, asked Arasaka Corporation to protect the city's autonomy, which it did successfully.
8 Designed As A Corporate Safe-Haven
The city wasn't just meant to be the perfect place for its citizens, but also for the corporations that would come to rule its streets. Night City's biggest advantage was its promise of unlimited capitalism and free trade, with no government influence or regulations on corporate activities.
It was this promise of free capitalism that hooked in a number of other investors into the project. The first ones to join in to build Night City were Arasaka and Petrochem, as well as EBM. Their financing not only helped build the city itself, but also contributed to the purchase of the land.
7 Built On The Site Of A Massacre
Night City is actually based in a real world location called Morro Bay. In the far dark future of Cyberpunk 2077, Morro Bay used to be a ghost town years ago, before the land was purchased and then altered significantly by Richard Night and his many associates.
It's unclear what exactly happened at Morro Bay to turn it into a desolate ghost town. However, what's known from the lore itself is that something called the Morro Bay Massacre took place there, and was described as a post-holocaust massacre. It's also why the area was named as Del Coronado Bay, to remove this part of history.
6 Assassination Of Its Founder
Richard Night didn't ever get to see the fruits of his labor. As with all major projects that show promise, his was also riddled with issues and disagreements. Night wanted to create a city that was crime-free, which would make life smooth for both citizens and corporations.
However, there was a major issue that prevented this from ever happening. The companies in charge of building the foundations of the city were heavily influenced and populated by members of the Mafia and Yakuza. These members had their own interests regarding Night City, with hopes to get a headstart on their own criminal activities by participating in the city's creation. A disagreement between them and Night led to Night's mysterious assassinations only four years after the project really began.
5 Arasaka Cleaned Up The City
The first years of the city turned out to be the exact opposite of what Richard Night had imagined. Due to the heavy influence of criminal gangs, the streets were riddled with organized crime gangs. This was a major hindrance and annoyance to the corporate powers ruling over Night City.
Eventually, it was Arasaka that stepped up to clean the city. Thanks to its financial prowess and powerful security, it aggressively cleaned the city of any major gang influence and effectively took control of the city once and for all.
4 Site Of A Mini Nuclear Bomb
One of the major events prior to 2077 is the Fourth Corporate War, a bitter rivalry turned into a global conflict between Militech and Arasaka. Night City, like many other locations, became one of the battlegrounds for these two corporations, since Arasaka possessed a large tower in the city that became the target of a Militech strike.
Militech chose to employ a small nuclear bomb which was carried inside a pocket within the building itself. The explosion was devastating. Most of City Center was obliterated, and it forced people of Night City, largely unaffected by the radiation due to cyberware, to move outwards and establish homes in the suburbs.
3 The Aldecaldos Helped The Homeless
The dangerous combination of Arasaka cleaning the streets from crime and the chaos of the Fourth Corporate War was what made Night City the powder keg that it is today. It also contributed to more misery, more poverty, and therefore more crime as people became desperate to survive.
Homelessness was one of the major issues, as was rebuilding parts of the city. The Aldecaldos actually had a major role in supplying more housing to the people of the city by building temporary container-style homes.
2 Animals Withered Away
As if things couldn't get any worse, with rising homelessness and crime despite Arasaka's efforts, another issue was brewing on the horizon for Night City: a pandemic. Spread by birds and presumably other wildlife, illnesses started to plague Night City.
The City Council acted fast and came up with the Avian Extermination Act, which oversaw the killing of all avian creatures found within an 18-mile radius of the city. Even in 2077, V is unlikely to run into any birds, until they pass the border during a special ending with Panam Palmer, when a robin bird lands on their car window. Once birds disappeared from the city, so did most other animals as well.
1 Pacifica Was Meant To Be Its Crown Jewel
Despite how awful Night City was becoming, there were some attempts to salvage it and bring money back in. Pacifica District had that promise initially, when a large-scale project to turn it into a vacation hotspot for the rich was started, with malls, hotels, and even a small amusement park in the works.
Sadly, the Unification War put a full stop on the projects and investors pulled out in fear of losing money. In 2077, all this glamour has been left abandoned to rot on the waterfront of the city, with no plans for future use.