CD Projekt Red’s massive 2.0 update completely revamped skill progression in Cyberpunk 2077. It reorganizes V’s abilities into five separate categories that function independently of attributes and perk points.
Among the available categories, the Shinobi skill focuses on mobility, stamina efficiency and blade combat. In this guide, you’ll find every Cyberpunk 2077 Shinobi skill reward and learn how to level up fast.
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How to Level Up Shinobi Manually
For earning experience toward your Shinobi rank. you should lean heavily into high-mobility maneuvers and close-quarters blade combat. However, the system imposes very specific rules on when your actions actually count:
- Combat-Mandatory Agility: While general parkour across Night City feels great, executing evasive maneuvers like dashing, dodging, and climbing only yields Shinobi experience when performed during active combat. Spamming dashes down an empty highway will not move your XP bar; you must be actively evading enemy threats.
- Swords and Katanas: If you are not naturally inclined to bounce around the battlefield, wielding katanas and other bladed swords (like Mantis Blade) during combat directly feeds your Shinobi XP. Slicing through targets ensures steady rank progression even without complex acrobatic loops.
Closing the gap with a bladed weapon triggers constant Shinobi XP gains throughout a firefight.
Cyberpunk 2077 Shinobi Skill: Instant XP Boosts
Beyond manual combat grinding, you can instantly secure blocks of 100 to 400 Shinobi experience points by discovering items known as Skill Shards: Shinobi. In the game’s internal data files, these items are tied directly to your Reflexes attribute (tracked under the base identifiers ReflexesSkill_Skillbook and ReflexesSkill_Skillbook_Legendary).
Furthermore, players exploring the Phantom Liberty expansion can uncover a highly unique, specialized Progression Shard explicitly titled CYBERPSYKO CATCH BULLETZ MIDAIR AMAZING UNQUIE FOOTIGE!!1!.xbd.
Faction Drop Locations
Skill Shards: Shinobi fall from designated elite units, gang members and corporate operatives scattered across Night City and Dogtown. When clearing out scanner hustles or gigs, target these specific combatants to find shards:
- Corporate & Military Forces: Militech Heavy Gunners and Infantry Scouts, alongside Classified Black Ops Operatives and HMG Operators.
- Dogtown Militia: BARGHEST Assassins and Lieutenants.
- Street Gangs: Scavengers (including Crows, Curs, Hooligans, Hounds, Hyenas, Jackals, Snipers, Spiders, and Vultures), Tyger Claws (Adepts, Dragons, Kunoichis, and base Tyger/Tygress units), Valentinos (Guerreros, Matóns, Sanguinarios, Seasoned Thugs, and Toros), Maelstrom Goons and Zealots, 6th Street Sarges (Fast Ranged) and base Soldiers, Animals Maulers and Wreckers, Voodoo Boys Malfinis and Spirits, and desert Wraith units (Devils, Goliaths, Hunters, and Outlaws).
Cyberpunk 2077
