Phantom Liberty, the new Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, is a pretty flawless addition to a criminally under-appreciated game. When we first visited Night City at launch, Cyberpunk 2077 was beset with issues; bugs, controversies, a lack of a third-person camera in a game that allowed us to play dress-ups…the list goes on.
This (in my opinion) glaring third issue remains, but since launch, CD Projekt Red has pulled an absolute No Man’s Sky, finessing and adding until the game has become what it is now: a staggering feat of worldbuilding, storytelling and gameplay.
Phantom Liberty sees our hero, V, participating in a substantial story that combines the espionage of a Jason Bourne film with the downtown militarized dystopia of Judge Dredd. Phantom Liberty positively oozes with the vibe expected of Cyberpunk. It’s darker, more brutal, more dangerous and most of all more over-the-top.
Phantom Liberty
Sent south of the city for a job, you soon find yourself drawn into a plot involving a crashed presidential plane, a military junta, and a secret agent – played by Idris Elba – intent on making you a key player in a deliciously convoluted power struggle.
Johnny – Keanu Reeves – is still along for the ride, thankfully. The expansion is set pretty much right before the final act of the main game, and can – if you play your cards right – affect the game’s multitude of endings. But it’s also a truly well-told, immersive story. Cyberpunk 2077 does, if you glance past the occasionally juvenile, edgelord trappings of the cyberpunk genre, hew closer to Blade Runner than I originally thought upon my first play though.
It asks heady questions, rewards sentimentality, and is – in short – a lot smarter than it looks. Phantom Liberty continues in that tradition. The entire “campaign” of the expansion is a spy thriller with genuine stakes.
It’s a relatively linear narrative, which allows you to tool around in this new, awful, fascinating wing of the Cyberpunk 2077 universe and get a feel for life on the other side of the wall, so to speak. But it’s a genuine treat to have a core story so interesting that side quests feel like a distraction. I found myself craving closure on each subsequent beat of this fascinating tale.
The updates to the talent trees, the addition of car hacking and the litany of new skills are all icing on the cake. Navigating the world of Cyberpunk 2077 has always been a joy, but now, it feels faster, zippier and smoother.
I play as an almost full-blown netrunner with a dash of stealth, and being able to queue up hacks that then explode and spread to nearby enemies has turned me into a right nasty piece of work. I still maintain that the game would be all the better for a third-person camera, but it’s hard to deny how stunningly immersive the interactions are with Phantom Liberty’s wonderful cast of characters.
They look you right in the eyes and engage with you on a level I haven’t felt since Alyx Vance talked to me in Half-Life 2, all those years ago. Phantom Liberty is a similarly herculean act of worldbuilding and storytelling. It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, genre and tone-wise, but when compared to other first-person sci-fi shooter / RPGs, it blows the competition clean out of the water.
Phantom Liberty is a stunning continuation of the excellent groundwork laid with Cyberpunk 2077 and remedies most (if not all) issues players had the first time around. The rebuilt skill and perk trees drastically alter the way you play and QOL improvements make Cyberpunk 2077 somehow, even grander than it was three years ago.
If you fell off the original game when it was released, the free Update 2.0 is well worth checking out, even if you’re not sold on Phantom Liberty. However, after you’ve spent some time tooling around Night City with your new and improved V, new skills and a wealth of new features, don’t blame me when you’re dropping a fat stack of Eddies on the Phantom Liberty expansion.
This is just about as good as it gets.
Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty was reviewed on PC using digital codes provided by CD Projekt Red.
