The Cyberpunk we deserve: Impressions of Phantom Liberty - a storyline expansion for Cyberpunk 2077

Phantom Liberty is the first and last storyline expansion for Cyberpunk 2077. We have discovered a new area of Night City - Dogtown, where we will find a spy thriller story, charismatic characters, various activities, and important innovations that came with the 2.0 update for the main game. From the very first minutes, the expansion immerses you in the events and does not let go until the very end. You immediately have questions in your head, but against the backdrop of dynamic events, you don't have time to look for answers, but later the questions in your head turn into remorse, where you are not sure if you really did the right thing, but you understand for sure that freedom in the world of the game is deceptive. And thanks to the 10-20 hours of play time, the game simply does not have time to get bored, and we got the DLC that I want to say: "This is my add-on of the year". The gg editorial team has explored the dangerous Dogtown and will share their impressions to help you understand whether Phantom Liberty is worth buying.

5 Reasons to Buy Phantom Liberty:

• You are missing intense game stories
• You have already completed Cyberpunk 2077 several times and want new locations, characters, and weapons
• You like games where the end of the story depends on your decisions
• You like films/games about spies
• The add-on offers a new area, weapons, characters, and tasks that will last for 20 hours

1 Reason Not to Buy Phantom Liberty:

• You haven't played Cyberpunk 2077 and don't intend to

Fast forward:

• A spy thriller with drama, inner demons and political games
• How to play it
• Optimisation, visuals, and audio
• What we didn't like
• 5 things to know about Phantom Liberty

A Spy Thriller with Drama, Inner Demons, and Political games

The story of Phantom Liberty begins after the second act of Cyberpunk 2077. We receive a call from a mysterious girl named Songbird, who tells us to meet her near the border with the Dogtown, a closed and dangerous area of the city. When you meet Songbird, you immediately realise that she has a lot of tricks up her sleeve, and most importantly, she can help the protagonist. But now there is a small nuance: the ship of the President of the New United States of America is about to crash over the city. It would be great if we could save her, because Songbird works for her and asks for rescue, and who else but us should get into another adventure?

Then, together with the president, we will have to look into the eyes of death, deal with the problems of the Dogtown, meet new characters, create our own spy team, understand what traumas of the past do not allow each of those present to continue living, and, most importantly, make a choice that will determine the fate of other people and ours. Before the release, I thought that we were going to get something like Mission: Impossible, but in the Cyberpunk universe. However, CD Projekt Red hid one important detail from us - first of all, this is a story about people. It's a story about their lives, a story about friendship, a story about choices, but does this life even have a choice, or is it all an illusion?

Due to the fact that we have only 12 main missions, the plot is intense. Most of the tasks are interesting and memorable. The developers don't artificially stretch the timing, and this is a big plus. In some places, I liked the story of Phantom Liberty better than the main story of Cyberpunk 2077, because events are gaining momentum, we are rushing in an unknown direction, then we take a break for a while, and later we fly into a whirlwind of events like a spaceship, and it is impossible to stop. So, if you appreciate games that have an interesting, intricate, sometimes sad story that doesn't take up your time to perform completely unnecessary tasks, Phantom Liberty is worth checking out. Personally, I sat at the end credits with a feeling of emptiness and I still can't let go of the DLC events, and I've rarely experienced such emotions from games lately, so I have no choice but to praise CD Projekt RED (although I'll have to scold them later, but I can't do it without it).

Characters I'll Remember for a Long Time

No matter how cool the story is, it won't work without interesting characters, and Phantom Liberty has it all. I would like to mention secret agent Solomon Reed, played by Idris Elba. Although he is sometimes a clichéd adult who has seen it all in the civil service, you want to understand him. Why is he like this? What's going on in his head? Why does he want to do things this way and not that way? Yes, sometimes he plays his own secret games and doesn't tell us everything, but you get to know him better and already want to carry out an important mission side by side with him, Idris's charisma is so captivating.

We shouldn't forget about Songbird either. This character plays even more secret games than Solomon. But it is she who can offer what we have been looking for for so long. It's up to you whether to trust her or not. Still, this is an interesting character who is on the verge of despair and just wants to escape from this world. And despite all the distrust, you feel sympathy for her. And you feel the same way about Solomon, and this makes the story even better when you have two sides to sympathise with and have to choose one. In my case, because there are 4 endings in DLC, I felt so sorry for Songbird that I'm going to go back to the final mission and see how the scenario would have developed differently.

And where without Johnny Silverhand. Keanu Reeves, as always, is on top of his game. And although there is not as much of him in the expansion as in the main game, we learn something interesting about his past life, and every appearance of Johnny on the screen is either a funny line or a reason to think about what we are doing. By the way, his face has been changed and now Johnny looks more brutal and realistic, and such changes are only good for the game.

We should also mention the secondary characters. Sometimes in games, they are not good, but not in Phantom Liberty. Most of the characters, even if they appear in only one task, and not even a mandatory one, are interesting, and some of them may be remembered for some time. And the other main characters in this story turned out to be quite good, but I can't tell you everything.

The Dogtown - a Cloaca of Poverty and Banditry

A few words about the Dogtown. It's a very contrasting neighbourhood to the rest of Night City. A separate faction of the Barghest seized power here, blocked the entrance and now it is a city within a city. It vaguely resembles what we saw in Batman Arkham City. There are people around who have not found themselves in a good life and are trying to survive, and constant shootings on the roads are commonplace. But at the same time, there are plenty of places where people spend millions of euros in one evening. This is how unfair cyberpunk is. Although there are still locations where people try to live normally and even create cosy corners. I wouldn't say that I was very impressed with Dogtown, but it's small and that's its advantage. You can usually get from point A to point B even without transport. Everything is close to each other, which also creates a concentration of content. Making a new district of this size is a very good decision, because no one would benefit from extra buildings, locations, and hundreds of question marks with chests.

How to Play It

Fundamentally, Phantom Liberty is the same Cyberpunk 2077. Although if the last time you played the game was back in 2020-2021, there are many surprises waiting for you, but first, we should tell you what the expansion offers. In addition to the storyline campaign, there are 10 additional tasks and 10 contracts. The contracts have become longer, and after completing some of them, we will receive a quest that will complete the story of the character we rescued. Although I liked the additional quests the most. For example, in one of them, we get to a flashback of one of the characters, where we play as a colonel who manages everything in the Dogtown. Or you can come across a task where a man started to believe that he is a famous actress and we need to find this real actress to convince him that something is wrong with him. And we have add-ons where there is enough additional content, but it doesn't feel like there is too much. After all, it is better to do only 10 interesting tasks than 30 trivial "fetch and bring".

The add-on has also added another optional activity - cargoes that are dropped on the neighbourhood. Given that the Dogtown is practically cut off from the rest of Night City, weapons and other items are obtained here by dropping cargo from a drone that you can take away. If you hear a buzz in the sky, look up and see the red smoke - that's where the cargo is. But in 90% of cases, it's already guarded by bandits, so you'll have to deal with them, open the cargo, and take what you like. There are an infinite number of these cargoes in the game. After 8 cargoes, I stopped collecting them, but at the beginning of the game, this is the best opportunity to get new weapons and various modifiers for free, spending up to 10 minutes on it.

What's New in the 2.0 Update?

A week before the release of Phantom Liberty, Cyberpunk 2077 received a major update 2.0, which changed some elements of the game. To tell you about each of them would require a separate article, so I'll briefly mention the most important ones that affect the expansion pack.

• You can shoot from a car. Either you do it with your own small arms, or you buy (or find) a car with machine guns and grenade launchers and become the king of the road. Driving a car in the game is still not very comfortable (only a motorcycle saves you), but now you can wreak havoc on the streets of Night City without leaving the vehicle.
• Clothes do not give any indicators. Now it is a "cosmetic" that only affects the appearance of the character. Those who liked to look for unique costumes that made you stronger will not like this change.
• Restrictions on implants. Now each cyber implant has its own number of "points". For example, a leg implant takes 20 points, and you have used 80 out of 90 possible points, then you won't be able to install it. You need to upgrade your character to get more implants, but if you exceed the limit, the character will receive negative effects and the game will become more difficult.
• Redesigned skill tree. Finally, the skill tree has become clearer and better, because before that it was one of the worst elements of the game. We also added an additional branch - relics. There will be chests scattered in the Dogtown that need to be opened to get one relic. This opens up access to new superpowers. For example, enemies' weaknesses will be highlighted or you can become invisible for a second to leave the battlefield. There are not many of these superpowers, but they are enough to make the gameplay varied.

1) Updated skill tree; 2) New skill branch - relics

Thanks to all these changes, Cyberpunk gives a breath of fresh air, because even those who have spent more than a dozen hours in the game will have something new to explore. And Phantom Liberty only makes you want to return to Night City and understand how quickly the virtual and real worlds are changing.

Optimisation, Visuals, and Audio

I played the expansion on PlayStation 5 and didn't notice any major optimisation issues. Once during a boss battle, the fps dropped to 5 and this "slideshow" lasted about 10 seconds, and then it never happened again in 15 hours. A few more times on the roads of the Dogtown there was a loss of frames up to 45, but these situations can be counted on one hand. In other cases, the game maintains a stable 60 fps and there is a feeling that the game has started to work much better than before the release of the expansion and update 2.0. Also, during the entire playthrough, the game never crashed, I didn't fall through the textures, so no complaints here. Although a few patches to fix the problems described above wouldn't hurt the game. But if you were afraid that the game would start to crash again with the release of Phantom Liberty, you don't have to worry about it.

A detailed analysis of optimisation on PlayStation and Xbox from Digital Foundry

Neon Visuals in the Most Violent District of Night City

Cyberpunk 2077 was a very beautiful game before, and it remains so in Phantom Liberty. There is a wide variety of locations - from shabby houses on the streets that have been engulfed in flames to luxurious casinos. There are many small details everywhere, which immerses you even more. In some locations, I just stopped to look at everything. I also liked the landscapes, especially in the evening when everything glows with neon. Although in the morning it's also very beautiful when the sun's rays are trying to break through the skyscrapers. And if you're still playing on a PC with a powerful Nvidia graphics card, then turn on DLSS 3.5 and get one of the most beautiful games that exist today.

Breathtaking visuals of the Dogtown

The Soundtrack You will Keep Listening

It wasn't the visuals that took my breath away the most, it was the soundtrack. A new album with 15 tracks was created for Phantom Liberty. Most of them were composed by P.T Adamczyk (who also wrote the music for Cyberpunk 2077) and Jacek Paciorkowski. And most of the soundtracks are unique. There are dramatic, epic, tense, cheerful, and calm ones. In general, the whole spectrum that is needed to enhance the emotions of a spy thriller. I would also like to mention the song that plays during the final credits. It just broke my heart. Therefore, Phantom Liberty has zero problems with the atmosphere. You can check out the soundtrack here.

What We didn't Like

In one of the finals, on the last mission, the game turns into a horror, where you can't use weapons, and something is hunting you, from which you have to hide. And it lasts about 40 minutes. The problem is that Phantom Liberty is a spy thriller, not a horror. I'm not a fan of this genre and didn't expect the game to make me crawl through corridors and play with switches. Although in the second finale, players will have a mission with a lot of shooting. I just don't understand the decision to turn the end of the game into a horror story, when there was no hint of such an element throughout the game. Of course, this will not be changed, but the decision is strange and it slightly spoiled my impressions. And the last mission itself was a bit too long, it could have been shortened by 20-30 minutes and it wouldn't have been worse. And if you don't want to play horror either, but want to know how to avoid it without serious spoilers for the game, I'll just hint that at a key moment you need to forget about male solidarity (if you play as a male character).

The second point is that the antagonist is not fully revealed. Our "enemy" is Colonel Kurt Hansen, the leader of the Barghest faction. We are told so much about him, but we meet him for the first time at the end of the game, and after that we see him one more time and that's it. This character has a serious impact on the entire story of the expansion, and we see him twice. I understand that the plot focuses more on the internal problems of our agents, but I would like to see more of Kurt. He is a rather interesting and powerful guy who was not given enough screen time.

I didn't find any more cons in the game. This is a good addition that gives a lot of emotions, and if you like Cyberpunk 2077, then Phantom Liberty will not leave you indifferent. I definitely recommend it.

5 Things to Know about Phantom Liberty

• You can start playing Phantom Liberty even without the main story, just select the appropriate item in the "New Game" section
• We were introduced to new characters, areas, weapons, and activities
• It will take up to 20 hours to complete the game
• Together with the 2.0 update, Phantom Liberty will be interesting even for those who have played more than 100 hours of Cyberpunk
• Phantom Liberty is one of the best storyline additions in 2023

Phantom Liberty
Genre.	Spy-thriller adventure
Platforms.	PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, PC
Number of players	Single-player
Developer	CD Projekt Red
Publisher	CD Projekt Red
Time to complete	10-20 hours
Release date	26 September 2023

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