Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

The revamp came with the expansion, so it's why I'm commenting on both here. Story wise, it is still top notch. If you want to load an old save and go to Dogtown, you can. If you want to start fresh and get boosted up to go to Dogtown, you can do that too. Basically if you enjoyed the story before, you'll enjoy this. There is more of a spy-thriller vibe, but it's still solidly Cyberpunk. Idris Elba was fantastic too. The revamp, however, is... mixed. While before you could spend points in Cool to be a stealthy assassin, that isn't going to happen anymore. Cool just helps buff how your cyberware "reduces detection" and only on some cyberware. Quickhacks almost ALWAYS lead to a trace and detection by every hostile in the area. You're now limited as to how much cyberware you can equip based off your Tech attribute and cyber capacity skill. So if you plan on speccing into a non-Tech build, don't expect to have a lot of cyberware installed. This can be crippling as cyberware is the primary way to boost armor, damage, etc as clothing is mostly cosmetic. I have found a few items giving some stats, but they are few and far between. Oh and the NCPD are out in force. Make sure to drive CAREFULLY cuz if you tap anything and they see it, you get 1 star wanted level and they start shooting. I know before they were scarce, but CDPR kinda went overboard on their presence. If they had left the base gameplay alone, this expansion would of been 4.5 outta 5. However, they broke a lot of potential builds so hence my new rating. Still enjoyed the story though and didn't regret the $30 I spent.

Played and loved the base game from the start (pre-ordered), through all the mess at that time. Phantom Liberty is mid at best, but adds to the base game some awesome stuff - although many of these should have been in the base game from the start. The writing feels very weak. - from the get-go, the writers try so hard to make you think the way they want you to think about the new characters - this even goes to trying to force you by some lines of V (non-choice ones) - when a character whom not just you but also V barley know more than 30 min gets into danger V starts to hyperventing and babbling... - then sometimes A-B dialogue choices - it's either "I belive you and will follow you" or "I think you are lying but will never reveal why" - later it becomes obvious that those are there because almost all of the "twists" of the main story wouldn't even make you raise your eyebrow if you (or your V) just simply remain sceptical - the only really good parts were when you talk with Johnny about the stuff thats happening - because of these, I couldn't care less about the new ending if I wanted to Some of the characters had great potential, but they never go beyond some well made sketches. Idris Elba and his awesome performance (loved every minute with him on screen) are sooo wasted in this mimic of a story. The girl-who-is-the-key-to-everything feel... fostered (for the lack of a better word) by the writers for the whole story, with lackluster dialogue options - talking with her was a chore to get through from the start, regardless how hard the game was trying to tell me how amazing she was. The new gameplay elements are very good! - the new zone is awesome, feels really alive - Fun side quests! - the Air-drops are very fun, they feel rewarding - the car stealing mini-s should be in the base game, they feel like missing starter content (also very good) If you like the base game, the DLC is worth buying, at least on sale - but only because of the base game.

I am currently playing this DLC, and it's awesome. It seems like CDPR has a clearer view of the game now, what works and what they had to work on: everything seems more cohesive and coherent. I do hope that for the next Cyberpunk game they will follow this path. Defintely buy it and you will not regret it!

Using same RTX 3080 at 5760 x 1080. Game is slow to load from SSD. Frame drops during cut scemes. Upgraded machine th 128GB RAM. Maybe minimum now is RTX 4000 series.

In many ways this fleshes out Cyberpunk adding a shiny new ending, it doesn't expand the game - not really (seeing as how all the main gameplay revisions are included in the free downloadable patch - although first person drivinng is still atrocious). Dogtown is dark and murkey with little to explore outside the main quest- which for me took a while to get going. There's 9 new gigs - and the pitched street battles to wrestle control of dropped crates with goodies can be fun. But it's lacking. The atmosphere is there but playability can be limited - how to approach some missions is a little too prescriptive and the section ripped from "alien isolation" on one of the branching paths is nothing short of irritating. In places - the agency is removed a little too much for storytelling purposes. And the platforming at the start of the DLC -a huge mis-step. So why 5 stars? In a word - narrative. In the base game characters were a means to an end. True, there were some choices along the way but I didn't really care about any of them. Vox pops giving you gigs to do, other characters merely a means to move the story on. With Phantom Liberty CDPR have managed to write characters that I actually gave a damn about and a story I could get immersed in. Once you're past the initial presidential rescue things get a lot more interesting with a decision to be made about who to trust and who to betray later on (oh if only there could have been more of this in the main game). The narrative branches - with somewhat bittersweet endings (one that ends the game in a satisfactory way from a storytelling point of view) - made me feel I was truly in a sci-fi epic and its with this I can overlook all the other minor annoyances and gameplay quirks. And yes, there were moments when I wondered it the eddies had been worth it. Overall, I think the pay-off was woth it. Is it essential? no, but it is a worthwhile experience - when it gets going.