Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

I find it really hard to write a proper review for this expansion. Rating for me: 5 stars, easily. But explaining the why is hard. The main game has been a mixed bag for me. On one side, I had a lot of fun playing it. But I still found it hard to recommend. Many parts felt empty or shallow. Some parts have been fixed with updates. Others are probably unfixable, and suffer under design limitations. Now as for Phantom Liberty: I guess, similar to the patches, people sat down and evaluated the situation carefully. What parts are good, where are the limitations, how to improve or bend them, and what is not possible at all. And I think they did a phenomenal job. The weight of the issues and limitations of the main game are almost unnoticeable. The expansion is nicely integrated into the main game. Main story is great, side missions are very well made. The new district looks and feels very nice. I found all of the main characters (and most minor ones) very likeable, and relatable. Even V and Johnny. Dogtown feels more alive, thanks to the repeatable quests, but also because the detail density is much higher. While maybe not offering the most hours of playtime, it's still massive, if you factor in all other aspects: Design, dialogs, music, animations, voices... Everythings's top quality. I would have preferred more freedom developing V's character myself. But that's just not what Cyberpunk 2077 is. At least it's something I didn't miss as much as I've missed it in the main game. The V in Phantom Liberty is much more relatable, and the decisions you have to make don't feel that artificially limited. All in all, I can recommend Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Liberty to most people. I have huge respects for the people that were building it, and for determination fixing it after the problematic launch. I'm a bit sad that this will be the only expansion, but I'm excited for what's coming next.

This is more of a review for 2.0 than the actual DLC, but seeing as it's required to play the DLC I think it's fair to treat it as a feature. While CP77 was far from perfect before, it had a pretty addicting gameplay loop, complimented by an engaging class building system and a decent difficulty curve. The only catch was that is was somewhat limiting with it's potential, with a tendency to push players towards either a Hacker God, Ninja Master or Bullet Sponge build with little synergy or room to maneuver between them. However, nobody who stuck with CP77 long enough to properly engage with these systems saw that as a major flaw, so it baffles me that CDPR saw fit not only to revamp these systems, but to simplify, homogenize and flat out nerf them in order to appeal to a broader range of playstyles. They succeeded, you're no longer limited to a handful of god-like builds, instead you now have a wide range of mediocre builds, none of which are that fun to play. This is the type of thing I would expect them to do in the first post-release update to try and stop the reviews from tanking, not years after the game's release after people have learned to appreciate the game for what it is, 2.0 was a massive middle finger to those people. The DLC is about on par with other similar expansion-type DLC, by which I mean the kind you would see in Fallout 4, it doesn't hold a candle to The Witcher 3's expansions.

And I'm not even exaggerating. The amount of content of this package is so big, it rivals even "main" games. You might only get one new area to explore and enter, BUT this area is stuffed with side quests, its very own and unique decor style, new enemies, new cars, new weapons, very much new stuff actually. And all of the aforementioned stuff is of excellent quality- the new cars aren't just re-skinned cars you already know and own, for example. Each mini-quests is professionally scripted; there are also some new regular jobs (car theft and (loot) box retrieval) that will be doable again and again. The main story of PP is also excellently delivered. Again, you will have to choose between different paths and outcomes, just like in the main game. Each introduced NPC has its own story to tell, even those from the side-quests. I already finished the story-arc and am still enjoying Dogtown. I fully recomment this DLC, it's worth the money.

In Update 2.0 (aka Phantom Liberty) CDPR decided to remove all the fun aspects of the game and push the players the way they wanted them to play it. No longer are the players allowed to have fun and express themselves. Before 2.0 I like playig stealth a lot. This was what the game sold me on. I could pretty much have the watch dogs hacking experience in a propper sci-fi RPG game. I could dispatch an entire location by just getting access one camera on the network, and no alarms would be triggered. I could infiltrate into a base knockout the boss grab him and leave the location without anyone knowing. Coming to 2.0 netrunning was properly ruined. Now your hacks can be traced even without a netrunner on the opposite side. Sometimes when not using quickhacks the game just lets all the enemies know where you are even without the hack tracing excuse. Everyone just knows where you are. The other thing that impacted me are quality of life features. No longer can you upgrade a weapon of your choice and no more removable mods. It goes as far as not allowing you to remove scopes from certain weapons. WHY CDPR!? Many weapons have been nerfed and their identity stripped off just because they were adding another weapon with similar stats later in the game. Who cares, CDPR? The more choice the better! Retroactive nerfs of gear... So let's put aside the situation where you had an old save with a lot amazing equipment that got nerfed. Fine! Let's assume you need to rebalance things. But why nerf equipment obtained on a fresh save? Long story short I really wanted a tier 5 weapon before act 2. So I worked my butt to craft a T5 unity which I got the specs from a vendor. Also found a T5 silencer, and scope. I was having a blast. Along comes Update 2.01 and nerfs them to T3... T3!!! All because the game thought it was too early to have this gun. There are more bad things but I'm running low on char limit. PS: Version 1.6 still available for download on the site for now. ;)

happy ending? for folks like us?... wrong city wrong people This game has left me with an empty existence, and worse after watching edgerunners and finishing the dlc... I hope we have more content, in dlc, in new games and in series, I need more of this city, of V, of all the characters