Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

Sad to say that even after 3 years, a big 2.0 patch, and expansion, this game still has keyboard binding issues that the simplest indies don’t suffer from. I can’t fathom how this is still a problem

I have been playing Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 + Phantom Liberty DLC, and including the latest NVIDIA patch, the game has never run so smoothly. My only FPS drops are when I switch from the menu (map, character screen, etc) back to the game. I always need to wait a good 15 seconds for everything to load again, and then I'm good to go. Granted, I'm using a GeForce 2070 Super at high performance settings. The game runs smooth, the campaign is engaging, especially the DLC, and you definitely feel immersed into the world. Skill trees are far better, there's no more instant power creep, but rather a gradual climb in progression, crafting is simpler and more easy to understand, and the various abilities and quickhacks are more realized than at launch. What truly hampers the experience though is the hard locked keybindings. I am an ESDF player. WASD hurts my partially deformed left hand, and being forced into using WASD limits my play time to about 30 minutes before I need to take a break. There are so many keys that are hard bound all over the keyboard, it's as if they hired a bunch of 6 year olds and asked them all to pick a random key on the keyboard for an action. 2023 and this is still a thing with CDPR?? Once CDPR finally addresses and fixes this terrible issue, I can give this game the proper 5 stars it deserves.

Phantom Liberty's main story is silly and out of place in the context of the base game. The game mechanics it introduces are tedious and not fun. They should have left well enough alone with the 1.63 version of the game, this DLC isn't good and the game version 2.0+ changes are a step backward. I'll give Phantom Liberty this: the new zone looks great and the additional missions Mr. Hands gives you in that zone are pretty fun. But the rest of it is just bad.

I wasn't enjoying games anymore. At the urging of friends, some who were quite passionate and eager to discuss the story without spoiling things... This expansion and the base game cured my video game anhedonia. On the surface, it is 'just' the best Far Cry inspired title I've ever played. It's the BEST Far Cry-like, better than ANY Far Cry I've played. In this alone, Cyberpunk 2077 stands supreme as of this review era. It may not be the dynamic free-form game you were expecting; you are on more of a theme park narrative RPG ride than a traditional freeform one. During a period when I needed something deep, personal, and affecting to remind me of the importance of fighting for what you dream of and care for, resolving the disparate parts of the core of your psyche and so on... You really can't go wrong. It might not hit as hard my next time around but I can't wait to play out more builds and try different decisions, and... Well... I never thought a 'linear experience' game would make my choices so hard... but, this game played and roped me in every turn, and I'm a jaded stubborn cynic. If only I had trusted certain people more... and others less. It is an ode to transformation and consequence and how we adapt, or don't. It may not ever be the game you wanted it to be, but the game it is is... one of the few times the industry has produced literary quality material. It is one of the few times that I feel the industry has achieved genuine art in the past decade.

The game is amazing don't get me wrong but after the push of this DLC I have noticed some more bugs. In the story line when you go into the hotel to steal that chip jackie has guns some how. Broken animation? Anything he picked up turned into the guns he was holding I watched this man stick the gun through his throat instead of him putting the chip in his slot. Some Enemies around the map shoot up into the sky when you hit them or when you shoot them. Cars spawning inside the floor and some npcs in the wall. As for the police I think there is just too many of them everywhere. I can be in the middle of a side gig and fighting off goons and for some reason the police show up and just start attacking me. Maybe give us an option to be hidden from the cops for an hour? or 30 minutes to be able to do our side gigs. A couple times I have ran into an issue where a cop would walk through my car then become hostile when I was just sitting there doing my own thing. As for the DLC you put in all these abilites and stuff but made it a free update. I'm not understanding everything I am getting. The game is worth it but some of these things could be fixed. I would recommend you test these things out with a dedicated team before pushing them. I cannot deny that some of the bugs are funny but sometimes they get a little too much to where I don't wanna play.