I'd like to start by saying I consider myself a huge fan of the base Cyberpunk 2077 game. While the game was under attack from pretty much every front, general consensus being "game bad", I played it day one and quickly fell in love with it. I believe it's an improtant tidbit before the things I'm about to write. I have two main issues with this DLC. In a vacuum "Phantom Liberty" is not a bad game, far from it. The story is well written and gripping, the characters are interesting, it definitely delivers on the "spy-thriller" promise. But here's where the first issue rears its head. It's not a vacuum, it is a Cyberpunk 2077 DLC, and as such feels incredibly out of place. The tonal change is so jarring, you'd be excused for thinking you're playing a different game. While in Cyberpunk you're put in shoes of a mostly regular person trying to survive, in Phantom Liberty you'll be playing a secret spy tasked with saving the president and stopping a war outbreak. It's honestly ridiculous. The characters, while well written, lack the human factor and approachability that made the original cast so memorable. Which brings me to the 2nd point, and it's the more important one. PL is the first and last DLC for Cyberpunk, making it essentially the send-off for V and the cast. And dear God, what a massive middle finger it is. People who fell in love with the original game, despite it's many flaws, did so mainly because of the story and the characters. Yet Phantom Liberty chose to practically ignore the base game, giving barely a mention in the new ending. I mean, Panam gets 9 voiced lines. Nine. Fucking. Lines. On the holo no less, and she's absent from said ending. This truly feels like the devs abandoning Cyberpunk 2077 to serve a disconnected story and show off the 2nd big actor they managed to get. So if this is the send-off we get after 3 years, I only have two words for you. Bet you can guess them.
