It would be impossible to discuss Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty without taking a step back and looking at the base game and all that happened around it.
As most readers will undoubtedly remember, Cyberpunk 2077 was the most anticipated title among most gamers for a very long time. The game was announced all the way back in May 2012 (CD Projekt RED will later admit it should have waited before announcing it) when the development team was very busy with the making of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt. There weren't many cyberpunk-themed triple-A games being made, and the stunning CGI teaser trailer released in 2013 (viewed around 27 million times to date) quickly had players salivating at the game's setting and tone.
While CD Projekt RED was already a respected studio after the first two The Witcher games, the developer's popularity suddenly skyrocketed when The Witcher III: Wild Hunt launched in May 2015. The action RPG earned universal acclaim from critics and fans, being hailed as the new standard in open world action roleplaying games that would influence the genre for years to come.
It won the Game of the Year prize at 2015's The Game Awards and many more GOTY awards from other publications and outlets. It eventually became the most-awarded game of all time with 281 such awards until The Last of Us Part II broke that record in 2020. Just a few months ago, CD Projekt RED announced The Witcher III: Wild Hunt has sold over 50 million units, making it one of the most successful games ever.
The hype surrounding Cyberpunk 2077 subsequently rose to unhealthy levels, and the announcement of Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand was the proverbial icing on the cake. By the time it shipped in December 2020, it might as well have been gaming's equivalent of the Second Coming. Needless to say, such lofty expectations are rarely met in full, and Cyberpunk 2077 wasn't perfect at launch on PC. It was buggier than The Witcher III: Wild Hunt, for one thing, although that was partly due to its much more ambitious feature set, and developing the last ten months in COVID mode certainly didn't help.
Still, the first wave of PC reviews and impressions was very positive, and even the Stadia version was well received. The real problems for the studio happened with the console versions, as Cyberpunk 2077 ran very badly, especially on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. In an unprecedented move, Sony removed the game from their digital store until such time as it was fixed by the developer and offered full refunds. Cyberpunk 2077 only returned to the PlayStation Store in June 2021, but the store page still warned PS4 users not to buy it due to poor performance.
In hindsight, it's clear that CDPR wanted to maximize revenues by releasing the game on the older platforms with the largest install base. However, the old consoles simply couldn't keep up with the complexity of Night City, and the result hugely damaged the studio's reputation.
Meme spawned all over the Internet, turning Cyberpunk 2077 into the warning tale not to pre-order games or blindly believe in developers, not to mention the target of countless angry opinion pieces or YouTube rants. With the imminent launch of the 2.0 update and the Phantom Liberty expansion, you are bound to see the reverse happening. Many will undoubtedly hail it as CDPR's redemption story, somehow turning what had been called a piece of junk into a masterpiece.
My perspective is quite different. Having had the fortune of playing the game when it came out on a high-end PC with the shiny (at the time) GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card, I immensely enjoyed the over 90 hours spent in Night City almost three years ago, with the excellent storytelling, great combat, and high-quality side content as the highlights. I didn't even find too many bugs in my original playthrough, except for the funny T-Pose animation that randomly appeared when riding bikes.
As such, I see Phantom Liberty and the 2.0 update as an evolution rather than a revolution. It builds upon what was an already great game at its core, adding new features that, however, were not at all mandatory to enjoy Cyberpunk 2077 when it launched. Take two of the biggest 2.0 additions, for instance: the overhauled police system and the vehicle combat.
Make no mistake, these are welcome additions. No longer will the police spawn out of thin air; you'll now find NCPD officers realistically patrolling the streets, appearing more often in the most luxurious districts. If you break the law, such as mowing down pedestrians or even crashing at high speed into other cars, and eyewitnesses are present, you'll hear the police reporting the crime via radio and starting a search. The minimap will then alert you of nearby NCPD patrols that need to be avoided for a while to get clear of the search.
Vehicle combat is also now implemented in a GTA-like fashion. While driving, players can draw a weapon (a pistol or revolver, mind you, as holding the wheel while wielding a shotgun doesn't really seem practical) and shoot. By default, the game locks you onto targets, though unlocking the aim and moving the crosshair wherever you want is possible. It's not necessarily the most effective way of dispatching enemies, though; I find that getting out of the car and doing it the old-fashioned way gets the job done better and faster.
That changes a bit if you can get your hands on vehicles equipped with mounted weaponry introduced with the Phantom Liberty expansion. Two weapon types are available: miniguns, either strapped to the side or bolted to the front of the car, and mini-rocket launchers. Needless to say, both can be absolutely deadly, though aligning the miniguns with your target can be tricky.
My only gripe is that most vehicle combat during Phantom Liberty's missions occurs in El Capitan's Courier gigs, where the fixer asks V to snatch certain vehicles off the road and bring them to his garage locations. Unfortunately, you can't really bring your weaponized vehicle to these missions as you're stuck with whatever vehicle you're asked to steal. As such, the weaponized vehicles feel underutilized except when you're going on a deliberate murderous rampage or just wish to take on gangs in random open world fights.
The thing is, Cyberpunk 2077 was never marketed as a true Grand Theft Auto competitor. While these features fit well with the setting and increase the immersion, the game was always meant to be an action RPG, first and foremost, and that was fully delivered at launch.
In that regard, perhaps a more noteworthy improvement of the 2.0 update is the perk/skill overhaul. Perk trees have been greatly streamlined, offering more meaningful choices that can completely overhaul your character's playstyle. Each perk tree is connected to an attribute: Body lets you choose between specializing in blunt melee weapons (with a focus on stuns and Area-of-Effect damage), increasing your health regeneration and adding the shield-like Adrenaline Rush bar to withstand more hits, and boosting high-powered ranged weapons like shotguns, LMGs, and HMGs; Reflexes allows for high-speed movement (including the brand new air dashing), blades melee specialization (including the ability to deflect bullets back to the sender), and augmenting assault rifles and SMGS; Intelligence is dedicated to enhancing V's capabilities as a Netrunner through quickhacks and smart weapons; Tech augments cyberware and health/grenade items; and Cool focuses on thrown weapons, stealth, and precise weapons (pistols, revolvers, precision and sniper rifles). The catch is that you need to spend enough attribute points to unlock the more advanced perks of each tree, with thresholds set to 4, 9, 15, and 20.
It's a great system, though there is one minor flaw I would like CDPR to address as soon as possible. While perks can be refunded at any time without any costs, attribute points can only be reset once, severely limiting the build experimentation. I'm sure that mods will take care of that shortly on PC, but a native way would be very welcome for console users, even if it came at the cost of quite a few in-game eddies.
Personally, I had lots of fun playing Phantom Liberty with a stealth close-range ninja build featuring katanas and shotguns, but there are at least three other builds I would have wanted to check out but couldn't due to not being able to reset my attributes.
There's also another layer of customization to consider: cyberware. Armor is now tied to it, and you have a certain limit on how much cyberware you can install based on the attributes and perks you've chosen, as well as your character level. Lastly, the expansion introduces the Relic tree, unlocked during the initial main mission. Unlike the other perk trees, it requires players to find specific Militech shards scattered throughout Dogtown to unlock its points. In a few cases, there'll be heavy resistance and possibly even a miniboss to fight; other times, you'll find them lying around with no one to contest. The Relic tree is mostly focused on enhancing the existing cyberware combat options (Gorilla Arms, Mantis Blades, Projectile Launch System, and Monowire) with brand new abilities, though you'll also find improvements to the Optical Camouflage and the ability to target weak points in the enemies' cyberware and armor with any weapon. Overall, customizing your V feels better than ever in Cyberpunk 2077 2.0.
CD Projekt RED previously said Phantom Liberty would be their biggest expansion yet, though they never gave specifics on the estimated length. There are exactly 30 missions in Phantom Liberty, 13 of which are tied to the main quest, and 17 are spread through various side quests and gigs.
After beating the main quest and most side content, the in-game hour count says 120 hours, meaning I've spent around thirty hours with the expansion. However, I'm the kind of player who grabs every corpse to hide it in nearby containers after each fight, which takes some time. Still, I'd wager it is fair to compare Phantom Liberty with The Witcher 3's Blood and Wine, widely considered one of the biggest expansions in gaming.
Dogtown itself isn't that large, truth be told. I reckon there are far bigger districts in Night City. However, it does feel different. To begin with, whenever you're moving in and out of the district, you must pass through a military checkpoint and vehicle scan. That explains plenty of Dogtown, a walled-off section of the city where former NUSA Colonel Kurt Hansen basically established his own nation. His word is law, and his BARGHEST soldiers patrol the streets instead of the NCPD.
The side stories players will find in Dogtown tell of ruthless characters looking to exploit the situation for monetary gain or, more often, dejected residents who can barely find a way to survive on a day-to-day basis. Mr. Hands, a fixer with a rather multifaceted personality, assigns most of these missions to V. Moreover, Dogtown is the only place where Air Drop missions can spawn, explained in the lore as Hansen's method of getting supplies. You'll be able to spot an Air Drop quite easily, and they tend to be dropped in a handful of locations. Naturally, V must contend with other factions looking to obtain the AirDrop contents. Barghest is always there (and spawns immediately on the location, which is admittedly a bit underwhelming), though sometimes it'll be a three-way fight with the Voodoo Boys, who also have a presence in Dogtown. The loot is usually pretty good, and you can also get shards to enhance your capacity, which is always nice.
As for the main quest, it gives off a spy movie vibe, diverging thematically from the base game's main plot. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty weaves a complex narrative with plenty of twists and turns, delivering a thrilling story where black and white have no place and grey is the only reality.
I found myself completely unsure whether I made the right choices, and as such, I will definitely replay those parts to see different outcomes. A key choice heavily influences the final part of the story and likely plays differently, too, which reminds me of the base game's multiple final missions. Completing Phantom Liberty also unlocks a new ending for the final game, though I haven't checked that out yet. All of the cast's performances are great, with high-profile actors like Idris Elba as FIA agent Solomon Reed and the returning Keanu Reeves as Johnny Silverhand predictably stealing the show.
Head to this article for a more thorough technical analysis of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty. Here, suffice it to say that this is an absolutely gorgeous and technically advanced game that also performs well overall on high-end hardware, thanks to its outstanding scalability. Just like the base game, it's also one of the games with the best Dolby Atmos implementation.
The only technical downsides are the lack of Haptic Feedback and Adaptive Triggers support for the DualSense controller on PC and the raised black levels with High Dynamic Range (HDR) displays. Both of these can be fixed with mods which, however, are incompatible with the new version of the game and will have to be updated.
As listed in the 'cons', Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty crashed a lot on my PC, more than in my original playthrough. I'm not sure why, but I've sent the crash logs to CD Projekt RED.
Reviewed on PC (code provided by the publisher).
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