When Mike Pondsmith first came up with the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, he wanted to make sure the punk- appropriate Punk – at its core. “It’s not just the philosophical attitude of the punk scene, it’s not just the music — everything about punk originally inspired cyberpunk,” he told me in a crowded room at E3 years ago.
As development continues on games based on his beloved property, and Cyberpunk 2077 Launched at last, the original cosmic seed is easily forgotten. A world designed to interrogate corporate greed and reflect the ugly realities of capitalist culture, only to be ruined by some of the things it was meant to satirize.
As a result, perceptions of Cyberpunk 2077 have turned bad. Upon release, the game became more or less a totem for everything gamers currently loathe about the industry; relegations, broken promises, inconsistent messaging — the list goes on. Class action lawsuits, games being pulled from storefronts, mainstream press coverage of such sloppy behavior, unsatisfactory launches… what could have gone wrong did go wrong with Cyberpunk 2077. Even after years of refinement and refinement, and the game’s potential being patched after patch releases, public sentiment toward Phantom Liberty has been tepid at best. Hostile, at worst.
But, it’s worth remembering that CD Projekt Red isn’t just Cyberpunk 2077 — it’s The Witcher 3, one of the most beloved games of all time. Modern classic. It’s also the site of two major expansion packs for The Witcher 3 (Blood and Wine and Hearts of Stone) – DLC packs widely hailed as some of the most valuable additions we’ve seen. A complement to vests and battle passes proliferating elsewhere.
“We’re creators and we want to make the best expansions for the game, and we can’t include everything at launch,” game director Gabriel Amatangelo said when I noticed To Phantom Liberty holds those still cynical gazes in Cyberpunk 2077. “For the past two years, we’ve just stuck our heads down. ‘Let’s do more, let’s add stuff, let’s really figure out what opportunities this world can offer’ — that’s what we’ve been thinking about.”
And, take it from anyone who has played it, Phantom Liberty is good. Fast, furious, neon and bloody, with the kind of performance you’ve come to expect from one of the most compelling games in our industry. Production value is through the roof. All the voice acting, all the environmental design, all the exaggeration… all intact. Maybe even shinier and better looking, as the PS4 and Xbox One-shaped albatross around CDPR’s neck finally falls into the ocean.
The premise is simple: you have to team up with NUS President Rosalyn Myers after an attempt on her life. Songbird will brief you and provide support, which is a very pretty name for someone whose skills are really ugly. Beyond that, details are scant, but suffice it to say this is a spy thriller — part Archer, part Alpha Protocol, part Ian Fleming. It will take you into a closed area of Night City that is home to jerks and thugs, dare you get out. That’s your goal; survive and figure out what the hell happened. Your actions in the DLC will also have an effect on the end of the full game.
You might find it odd that a game whose genre is obsessed with being anti-establishment and harnessing the righteous rage of rebellion revolves around the president of the Not-quite-United States. “Miles is a realistic character with complex emotions and agendas, and we want players to be able to navigate it and triangulate it with everything else in the world,” teases Amatangelo. “Of course, we’re not afraid of a challenge, we want to be bold with characters, settings, dynamics and characters, we don’t want to take easy shortcuts. We want to go for something that opens people’s eyes and challenges the way they think. How about spoiler-free answers? !”
In terms of gameplay, the two most meaningful updates I’ve found are changes to armor/clothing, and the new Relic skill tree. Combined, these new elements expand the depth of the RPG systems in the game. By themselves, they add more granularity to the way you develop and refine your builds.
Relic serves as a skill tree that adds things like Vulnerability Analysis (see enemy weaknesses in the HUD), Emergency Stealth (activates camouflage mid-combat), Space Mapping (increases the likelihood of critical hits and dismemberment with the Mantis Knife), and Sensory Protocol ( Slow motion detected when crouch is activated). It’s all about combat utility and interacting with whatever build you’re running and giving you more non-combat options when you do get into a shootout. I’ve only had a chance to play “Fast Solo” – think Raiden from MGS and you’ll get an idea of the build.
I say, there’s no question that Phantom Freedom’s combat feels better than the main game’s; doomed bullets to hired thugs for support as you slice and dice doomed bags of meat ? Rush into the vanguard and slit their throats while they’re still in shock? When you’re overwhelmed, put on your camouflage, flank these bastards, and come in with a shotgun they stole themselves? It feels more like something like Bulletstorm or Shadow Warrior – Cyberpunk wasn’t designed to be that kind of game, but built right, it feels at home in the genre.
“Visceral, that’s one of our key words here,” Amatangelo nods when I mention Bulletstorm in our conversation. “We want, when you play our games, that fantasy can come true. In Cyberpunk 2077, a big part of fantasy fulfillment is being this Cyber Superman—so in Phantom Freedom, we have all these new Skills, traits and abilities that allow you to live out that fantasy. Combining those abilities and skills to enable emergent gameplay? That’s at the heart of what we want to do.”
With Phantom Liberty, CDPR seems to be back to being what it used to be; passionate about bloodlines, committed to delivering something of value, and respecting your time and your wallet. The DLC may cost more than The Witcher 3’s two sets of DLC combined, but it also promises to inject meaningful content into the base game at the same time – a mouthful of spit and a handful of polish.
see confidence [Game director Gabriel Amatangelo] and his team have come out, so far, the fluidity and fanaticism of the DLC, I don’t care about the value proposition of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Freedom. “Listening to punk music, at some point you realize it’s not about the world, it’s about how you relate to the world on your level,” Pondsmith once told me. “It’s important. [Punk’s] The national anthem wasn’t ‘Let’s save the world, we’re all friends’, it was ‘Bump the fuck up in my face’…and then head banging. Phantom Liberty looks like it will follow that philosophy and deliver on the promise of cyberpunk that many have been craving for the past three years.
Cyberpunk 2077 is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. The Phantom Liberty will be available on September 26 for £24.99.
