To be clear, Cyberpunk 2077 is likely my favourite game of all time. It was deep, well crafted, and filled with real characters. I adore it. Then we get the most horrific update patch ever issued, and now this expansion. I'm not gonna harp on the pathetic perk changes in the game: you either like childish, power fantasy, class-based shooters or you don't I do not. The expansion pack managed to be worse. In Cyberpunk, you play V, a kick-ass, hard-bitten killer who becomes the literal scourge of Night City. You are the best of the best. Nothing can stand in your way. In Phantom Liberty, you are instantly hacked and invaded by someone who trashes your brain and forces you to spend the next 5 hours in a relic-malfunctioning haze, performing the most dull, boring and illogical tasks imaginable. V has *no response at all* to someone violating them, lying to them and nearly getting them killed a million times. Every one of the benign, asinine, trite phrases you are *forced* to trot out, makes V faun and whimper over the president (a basic human, who can also kick V's super-charged ass anytime she wants, cos 'gameplay). You then spend *literal hours* trapped in a corridor wave shooter, being yelled at to 'turn the generator on, V' over and over, before spouting yet more fawning garbage, then being attacked by a tank. The game CONSTANTLY seizes control from you, disables all powers, stops you doing anything at all. IN AN RPG WHERE CHOICE IS KING. I have given up. Unless in the next hour of gameplay I can shoot this President (as V would have done at the start, as she represents the reason the world is a wasteland), or Songbird for what she did to V, then this is getting refunded. I have seen better writing in episodes of Neighbours and had more freedom of gameplay in side scrolling SHMUPS. A total farce of an expansion that sits atop a hideous patch, now hung around the knock of my favourite game like an albatross. CDPR should be deeply ashamed at what they have done.
