Review: PHANTOM LIBERTY Delivers a Solid Story While Update 2.0 Gives a Welcome Refresh
Credit: CD Projekt Red
At the end of September CD Projekt Red released Phantom Liberty, the DLC expansion for Cyberpunk 2077. If you’ve ever talked to me, you know that I’ve genuinely enjoyed my time in the base game and back when I could play it on Google Stadia, it was a fantastic experience. Since Stadia closed though, I’ve had to change platforms to Xbox Series X|S and CD Projekt Red has been kind enough to supply me codes so that I could complete this review. All thoughts below are my own. You can play Phantom Liberty now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S (affiliate link).
Before we get started, let’s lay some groundwork. I loved Cyberpunk 2077 from launch. Sadly, I never got to finish it until earlier this year when I was able to replay it from the start on Xbox Series X. All throughout my playthrough, I greatly enjoyed the game and stand by my previous review. Just before the launch of Phantom Liberty, Cyberpunk 2077 got the 2.0 update that changed a lot. Below you will get a review that’s a mix of thoughts regarding the Phantom Liberty DLC and the free 2.0 update changes.
Overall, I think both updates are solid. The 2.0 changes helped Night City feel a bit more alive overall and things like the skill tree feel much more streamlined. Meanwhile, Phantom Liberty delivers a different feeling storyline that is 100% worth it. The game has definitely come a long way since its admittedly disastrous launch.
What do I not like about the new Cyberpunk 2077? For starters, I still am not a huge fan of driving in the game. Using a controller is better than a keyboard, but it’s still not my favorite experience. I don’t like how there was more thrown into the driving experience to make it a bit more of a focus. They added combat, specific perks for vehicles/vehicle combat, and there are some missions that seem to be designed to highlight the updates. If you like the driving and all the updates for it, I’m happy for you. I just don’t like it.
A massive change that I’m torn on has to do with your V’s armor. Originally in Cyberpunk 2077, your clothing provided armor and other bonuses sometimes. With the 2.0 update, your armor is tied completely to your Cyberware with it being very rare for clothing to be anything except cosmetic. On the one hand, I think that it makes sense for your Cyberware to be your main source of armor. However, wearing a leather biker jacket should give me a small boost compared to a crop top. Clothing was also cool because you could modify some of it to further customize your build, but you don’t have that same kind of control now. There was already the Wardrobe feature (courtesy of Update 1.6) that let you adjust the appearance of your clothes without changing stats, so now clothing just feels pointless. Especially since this game is in the first person and thus you only see your V in very rare circumstances.
Credit: CD Projekt Red
Another change that I’m not a fan of is that you can’t remove weapon mods. You can remove parts like scopes, but mods can’t be removed. This forces players to try out new weapons, but it also sucks because if you find a weapon that you really click with, you won’t be able to upgrade the mods installed.
My final nitpick has to do with the Stamina system. I love the fact that running no longer costs Stamina. It makes traversal so much more seamless. However, they made it so that shooting your gun drains stamina instead. Stamina was already drained from using melee weapons which makes sense, but it seems odd for shooting ranged weapons to drain Stamina. The push and pull of ranged weapons has always been about your ammo consumption. To be fair, I don’t know that I ever really noticed a problem with my stamina being depleted while in a firefight.
While these changes are not my favorite, I was still greatly enjoying myself while playing Phantom Liberty. One aspect of Phantom Liberty that I think would’ve made a world of difference would have been giving V a freaking flashlight! There are so many areas that are very dark that you have to traverse during the new story and you have no flashlight or anything to help you see. There were a few areas that I got lost in just because I couldn’t make out certain ledges or other parts of the environment simply because of how dark the area was. It could easily be a part of your Cyberware to have a flashlight in your fingers or whatever or just have night vision be a part of your ocular parts.
Those really are my major complaints. I already mentioned that I like the new design for the Perk system, but I also like the simplification of the Skills which have been emerged into five and the ability to collect progression shards to help improve your character. I also love the new system for health items and grenades. Instead of having a stock of items, you go to your inventory to select which item for each category you want to have equipped and then each has a number of charges that reload over time. In my experience, I had 3 charges of my healing item and 2 charges of grenades as my max. I really liked this rework.
Credit: CD Projekt Red
When it comes to Phantom Liberty specifically, I really like the story. It’s billed as more of a spy-thriller story and I think they did a really good job. Even the end credits feel like they belong in a spy-thriller film. I don’t want to spoil too much, but it did feel like V got sucked into something like The Bourne Identity. You end up in contact with a top-tier netrunner who works with the NUSA president Rosalind Myers and you get sucked into a giant mess not knowing who you can truly trust and who is just playing their angle. There are also 4 possible endings with half of them being able to impact the main game ending. The key choices you have to make feel massive. Unfortunately, I forgot to save just before the first of the key choices so I can’t speak to how good those two endings are, but the two that I did get are solid. The last couple of missions are extremely intense and lean very hard into the thriller aspect bordering on horror. In fact, there’s a section that feels very heavily inspired by Metroid Dread (a huge compliment from me as I love that game). I also really like how they explored one of the new characters’ backstory in the ending that I did get. It gets sprinkled throughout in a way that feels more immersive instead of just an info dump. There are info dumps here and there throughout the expansion for sure, but the way that a particular character was handled felt so good.
I do want to put the disclaimer out there that for my playthrough of Phantom Liberty I created a new V and chose to start her at the Phantom Liberty content (another feature that I greatly appreciate). After finishing it though, I definitely want to load up my main V and play through the DLC with her and choose the other endings.
As a final note, I did run into a couple of bugs, but it was nothing major. First, there were a couple of scenes where the subtitles were doubled for some reason. Second, there was a driving section where I was going into a parking garage and it appeared to visually stutter. Finally, during a big boss fight, I ended up inside of a giant statue base and couldn’t get out or hurt the boss, but they did end up killing me (I wasn’t going to win anyways). I know that the team is working on fixing bugs with some already done, so you may not encounter them.
I really liked Phantom Liberty. The storytelling is very well done in my opinion and it sucks you in. Combined with many of the changes from the 2.0 updates, I really recommend giving Cyberpunk 2077 a go. It really does feel like a completely different game compared to launch and the new content was a lot of fun to play through.
