Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Review: An RPG's Redemption

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty and the free Update 2.0, have made me really like a game that I previously hated – something I suspect will happen to a lot of other people in the coming weeks. Phantom Liberty takes us back to Night City and places us back in the middle of Cyberpunk 2077's core story. V's Relic is still killing him and Johnny Silverhand is once again along to provide some fun color commentary. This time, however, you're not getting up to any criminal hijinks. A ship carrying the President of the New United States has been hacked and forced to crash land in Night City's slums, a district known as Dogtown. V is then contacted by a secret agent working with the President and is told to rescue her from the crash and keep her safe if V wants to live, all while Dogtown's warlord leader Kurt Hansen begins a manhunt for the President.

Despite the fact I had issues with the original Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red almost always delivers on its story and characters, and Phantom Liberty is no exception. It's a pretty high-stakes story, and one that opens with a bang. CD Projekt Red wastes no time in flexing its showmanship with a bombastic set piece that feels like it belongs in a Modern Warfare 2 campaign mission. From there, you're plunged into a world of espionage as you become involved in a larger FIA (Federal Intelligence Agency) operation which is a sharp contrast to the criminal escapades you're more familiar with. You quickly realize that this is a job that requires you to be cold, unemotional, and logical in order to succeed as things like empathy are a weakness.

Mission Impossible

The first third of Phantom Liberty is explosive and has the vibe of something akin to a Bourne film which makes for a really strong impression. By priming the story with so much energy out the gate, it felt much more engaging than the vast majority of Cyberpunk 2077's main story. However, I was surprised how quickly that changed. The President plotline is resolved way faster than I expected and it happens off-screen. The story continues to unravel other plotlines established early on, but it comes at the cost of killing the momentum of the story. The main quest slows down too much and takes a while before it picks itself back up. If Phantom Liberty didn't have such a big, loud opening, it probably would've been easier to handle, but it ended giving me some whiplash. It also doesn't help that the game instructs you to go do three side missions in order to progress the main quest around this time which seems to largely be for padding the length. Once it regains its footing, however, it becomes one of CD Projekt Red's expansions to date.

In the last half, you are properly enveloped into the world of spies and get to experience all of the tropes that genre contains with a Cyberpunk twist. You're going to big extravagant, dangerous parties while undercover, pulling off heists, utilizing disguises, and more. It's a blend of classic James Bond and Mission: Impossible moments, even letting you lightly flirt with people you need to get information from. Spy stories aren't just about the big action or the gadgets – and Phantom Liberty does have all of that – it's also about those tense dialogue scenes that feel like verbal minefields. Any wrong thing you say could blow your cover and destroy the entire operation, making a simple conversation feel as dangerous as any gun fight you'll get into.

One of the best quests in Phantom Liberty has you donning a Mission: Impossible-esque mask of another person's face. Before you go in, you're given a file on the person you're posing as and are told to remember specific details from the dossier (i.e. they don't indulge in substance abuse). As you put on this act, you'll have to sustain the facade by remembering these micro details so you don't seem too out of the ordinary to those who know the real person.

New Friends

You'll be working with the likes of Reed (played by Idris Elba), Alex, and Songbird in order to complete your elusive operation. All of these characters continue to highlight CD Projekt Red's strong writing skills as they're all very different from each other, despite the fact that they're close colleagues. Each one comes with their own baggage, ulterior motives, and it's pretty likely you'll never fully trust any of them. They are veteran spies, after all. All three of these characters are haunted by what their job has asked of them, the consequences of carrying out those commands, and the thankless nature of it all. For some characters that may not return after Phantom Liberty, they're extraordinarily fleshed out, and you're given multiple moments to connect with them and understand them. 

Given Cyberpunk 2077 is filled with so much action and pizzaz , it's really impressive that CDPR has the awareness to slow things down sometimes and allow you to have a heart-to-heart with a character on a couch or at a bar counter. Everyone from Johnny to Songbird gets a moment like this, and they're all increasingly thoughtful and meditative moments that also makes you feel very conflicted about some of the choices you're going to have to inevitably make. There are several conversations about soldiers being abandoned by their country after risking their life and the price of war on its survivors. None of it comes across as overly preachy either; it all feels nuanced and puts you in the headspace of your layered companions.

Illusion of Choice

An element that divided fans about Cyberpunk 2077 was how linear it could feel. For an RPG, players expect the ability to guide the story in different ways based on their decisions. However, the base game really only had a few paths and a lot of the branching stops once you finish act 1 of the game. Phantom Liberty feels kind of the same in that sense; it's pretty linear up to a point. There appears to be two major branching paths which will change your story quite a bit and the game makes it glaringly obvious when that decision is going to be made, but it doesn't feel like you're given a ton of choices that significantly alter the story. There are smaller choices to be made, but nothing that will probably make an impact that makes you think "Wow, I wonder how different things would have been had I done X instead."

However, just like the base game, the side quests do allow you to utilize more choice. There are a plethora of side quests in Phantom Liberty, and they are once again best in class. As you'd hope, they shine a light on some of the wackiest characters in Night City (particularly Dogtown) and let you decide their fates. One of the more bizarre side stories I stumbled upon was a man who was convinced their Braindance had become reality. Unfortunately, instead of this being something really cool, they became convinced that they were a pop star. It's on you to help them break free of this or you can help the entranced man's partner make contact with the real pop star for a collab, allowing everyone to make some money in an unethical way.

Cyberpunk 2077 Redeemed

A good expansion should show you a new side of a world you're already familiar with as opposed to just giving you more of the same. Phantom Liberty does that with exceedingly flying colors. By marrying the spy genre with Cyberpunk's world, CD Projekt Red gets to offer players a fun detour that also layers this universe with rich new characters and stories.

While some of Cyberpunk 2077's issues still linger, and the new content isn't without its own flaws, CD Projekt Red has done a commendable job at making me like a game I previously had disdain for. Phantom Liberty continues to prove CD Projekt Red has a deft hand for high-quality storytelling and has now shown it can provide strong RPG gameplay to match. As CD Projekt Red moves on to the next Cyberpunk game, it has a strong foundation to build off of which should hopefully result in a noticeably improved sequel should all the right lessons continue to be learned.

Score: 4 out of 5

A review copy of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty was provided by the publisher for this review. The review was conducted on PC.