Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Review – Chromatic Redemption

Everyone loves an uplifting story of rebirth and redemption. It doesn’t matter if the protagonist is a pile of compiled code rather than a human, it’s the feeling of inspiring atonement that counts. Three years ago, one of the most overhyped games in recent memory was released in such a crappy state that it made a lot of people very, very angry. Cyberpunk 2077 was a dumpster fire that broke all the promises. Its long and arduous development suffered from the malady that was notorious within the R’n’R and metal band scene in the eighties – how to follow up on the breakthrough album?

Using the Guns and Roses analogy, The Witcher 3 was the Appetite for Destruction and Cyberpunk 2077 was Lies. You needed to Use your Illusion to make sense of that Spaghetti Incident. But instead of breaking up and pointing fingers at irrevocable differences within the company, CD Projekt Red rallied. They promised they would make everything right. Eventually. CDPR toiled in silence, burning the fuel distilled from overpromising and underdelivering. It took a better part of three years, but their redemption storyline is now complete.

The beautiful Phoenix

The curious case of Phantom Liberty, the first (and last) expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 is tightly interwoven with the biggest and best update to the original game. Version 2.0. is the ultimate CP2077. Its core systems were redesigned and, in some cases, reimagined from scratch. The game, finally, became what it was meant to be, the fulfillment of the original vision. Revamped loot and crafting, completely refreshed progression system, redesigned cyberware and a myriad of smaller changes made Cyberpunk 2077 radically better. In the same vein, as No Man’s Sky changed after its disappointing launch, CP2077 emerged as a slowly reassembling Phoenix. It’s now doubly or triply worth your time, no matter if you plan to get Phantom Liberty or not.

If you do, you are in for a treat. This expansion interjects itself with the main storyline, providing a unique story that skillfully dabbles with espionage and politics. It brings new people, quests, and a new city district, the warlord-led dystopian Dogtown. It also stars Idris Elba, a British actor made famous with the role of Stringer Bell in The Wire. You know, that little TV show considered the best in history. Keanu Reeves is also here as Johnny Silverhand with new lines and the same anarcho-annoying vibe. I didn’t like Johnny in the core Cyberpunk, and he gave me no reason to start liking him now.

One more chance for life

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty begins with someone other than Johnny poking your relic chip and talking to you. A young woman, Songbird, says she knows what ails you and can help you, provided you assist her. You know she’s serious due to the nature of the contact. Pinging the Arisaka prototype biochip that’s slowly killing you is far out of bounds to generic scammers. She’s NUSA’s president Myers edgerunner/confidante, and she’s in trouble. In a manner not dissimilar to Escape from New York, clandestine force downs the presidential plane into hostile territory. Myers is alive but the forces loyal to Colonel Kurt Hansen are swiftly converging to the crash site.

Despite the similar backdrop and a shared balding physiognomy, Colonel Kurt is the antipode of Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now. They are both disgruntled ex-patriots gone rogue, but Kurt evolved into a successful and extrovert business/warlord hybrid. He molded the Dogtown district into a micro equivalent of Rio de Janeiro, with favelas and concrete projects rotting in the shadow of skyscrapers where his rich friends thrive. Dogtown is a militarized dystopia, physically separated from the rest of the Night City. Police aren’t welcome here, and it doubly goes for any federal authority.

Nice to see that the CIA is still around

Lucky for you and the madam president, NUSA (New United States of America) has sleeper agents in Dogtown. FIA (CIA from the future) operative Solomon Reed, played by Idris Elba, activates after a seven-year hiatus, assisting with the exfil. The story starts with a bang, but after the dust of the fiery first mission settles, the complexity of the situation becomes apparent. President Rosalind Myers and almost everyone else involved carry hefty baggage of past mistakes, disappointments, and personal betrayals. It would be a crime to spoil the direction the story takes, but it contains few surprises and one very hard decision. This is a prime storytelling, the best one CD Projekt Red ever created.

The main quest enriches Cyberpunk 2077 in various significant ways. Apart from its own two endings, which are radically different, it enables one more potential finale for the main storyline, provided you fulfill certain conditions. Dogtown is also a home for quite a few interesting NPCs, chief among them being Mr. Hands. He’s the fixer/entrepreneur with a lot of ambitions for Dogtown, some of which he can achieve with your help. Optional quests you could do for him wildly vary in tone and theme, but they are universally good. The sub-story of two corrupt but hopelessly intept policemen was the highlight for me.

The first, biggest, and the last DLC

Content offered in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty can easily gobble up thirty hours of your time, but you won’t feel like you wasted it. I would have liked the game to offer some recap for the relapsing players like me, who completed the game in 2020 and never looked back. I decided to start a new game with Phantom Liberty installed, which teleported me into the literal midpoint of the whole experience. For the first few hours, I felt utterly lost, unable to separate old and new and to make sense of the new and improved systems. Inevitably, everything eventually clicked into place, but I wish I had more time for a truly fresh start.

If you have been holding out on CP2077, waiting for the promised fixes, now is the perfect time to play it. You don’t necessarily need Phantom Liberty to marvel at its greatness, but if you decide to get it, you’ll up the experience to extraordinary heights. In the superficial, filler DLC era, having something substantial like this is a beautiful anomaly.

Review platform: PC

Developed by: CD Projekt Red

Published by: CD Projekt Red

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