How to Hack into the Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 Militech Datashard

Early in the main story of Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, players may acquire the Militech Datashard. This shard can come from Meredith Stout during “The Pickup” quest. If you obtain this item, you might be wondering what to do with it. The game gives you an optional objective to hack into the shard, but gives you almost no indication on how to accomplish that.

How to Hack the Militech Datashard Completely in Cyberpunk 2077 2.0

When it comes to hacking the Militech Datashard in Cyberpunk 2077 2.0, you want to first open up the menu. Head to the journal option, which is the far right one. Underneath the journal, you’ll also see a shard menu. Pick it, and then find the Militech Datashard Meredith Stout gave you there.

Save the game before interacting with it, as this will thrust you into a hacking minigame. If you have never done these before, which is possible given how early this is in the game’s main story, you’ll want to be able to reload if you mess up. You can also back out of the minigame at anytime, so long as you don’t complete it, and retry as many times as you want without consequence.

The hacking minigame works like this: the shard has two possible options for how to complete it, with the first being to decrypt it and stop the bug the Militech put on it and the other is to copy the daemon virus they put on it in the first place. You only need to complete the first objective and break the encryption to succeed, however, you get a bonus cyberware if you do the second as well.

There is a string of random letter and numbers, usually in two like E6, which you have to complete to do each objective. You have around 30 seconds to pick anywhere in the encryption, so always start with the first letter and number combo the game gives you. From there, you then have to find another set of letters and numbers that match the second in the string. But the catch is you can only pick from options that are in the same line as your previous pick.

This is why it pays to plan ahead and look at what your options will be. This way, you can plan and succeed in both tasks, which is possible with the right choices. Since it can be random for each player, it’s best to save and retry if you mess up. It takes some getting used to with this minigame, but you can master it with practice.

Cyberpunk 2077 is available for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.