I’ve said this in previous forums, but I still think this should be a thing as a story expansion: Give us an option to join organizations in Night City like the NCPD, Trauma Team, MaxTec, or even the gangs. Your could have different cosmetic items or bonuses based on your allegiances, get different responses from organizations (varied hostility based on how you react towards certain gangs), maybe some of your decisions can overlap (like being a mole for the NCPD by infiltrating a gang, giving preferential treatment to a specific gang by targeting their rivals, or simply getting kickbacks by getting on a gang’s payroll).
In terms of storytelling, the one I’ve thought the most on would be in regards to the NCPD (and how it could possibly tie into the current story), where you and Jackie could decide to go legitimate after the All Foods incident (or earlier, when you could decide that Dex will most likely stab the two of you in the back regardless of how the job would have gone). You get your badges and travel around Watson, taking on Tyger Claws and Maelstrom members and maybe even raid a few of their holdouts, leading to you eventually being sought out by Saburo Arasaka himself (not as a “hero cop,” but as a mercenary for one last job) to find the Relic, which he has reason to suspect that his son might be involved in the chip’s disappearance. Events from this point could play out similar to the main story where you get your hands on the Relic, Yorinobu lashes out at his father, but you can decide to intervene and potentially save Arasaka’s CEO, you having to fight or otherwise make your escape from Konpeki Plaza, leading to a confrontation with Adam Smasher where he supposedly finishes off Saburo (if you saved him) possibly kills Jackie (depending on something like a QTE), and brings you in to be questioned by Yorinobu, where he is unaware of your possession of the chip and decides to have you taken out (you can possibly influence this by stealing his pistol from his penthouse, where he’ll either shoot you with a guard’s sidearm or by setting his father’s AV to be destroyed to make it look like you attempted to rob him and kill his father, but were destroyed by the AV’s kill-switches (or something to explain Yorinobu’s fabricated story). Somehow, you manage to survive the attempted murder and the story can play out similarly to how it does in the main game, only this time, you can decide whether you should seek out as many resources as possible to save your existence while plotting your and Johnny Silverhand’s revenge against the Arasaka Corporation, or attempting to spend the time you have left cleaning up the streets of Night City to ensure that life in the city would be better when you leave than what it was in the beginning of your journey. There could also be an option where Jackie is the one who has the Relic when they get flatlined, and you would be helping him with the race against the Relic to either save his being or by helping him go out with a blaze of glory while taking Yorinobu or the whole of Arasaka down with him.
And then again, you could also refuse Saburo’s offer, which would kick off a completely different story involving cleaning up the rest of Night City (as your actions have made it to where the lockdown on Watson is lifted), while also investigating a rabbit hole of corruption, sabotage, back-handed deals, greed, murder, and in-fighting involving the megacorporations, the Night City government, the gangs, and even the highest members of the NCPD.
There’s a list of other ideas that I would hope to see in later updates/expansions, but it is currently late at night where I am, and I am at the brink of total exhaustion.