HomeFeaturesCyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion totally transforms the game’s combatIdris Elba is top tier, too
Idris Elba is top tier, too
Image credit:CD Projekt Red
Image credit:CD Projekt Red
I’ve spent around an hour withCyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, the one and only expansion forCyberpunk 2077starring your boy Idris Elba. Yes, I saw him in the game, and yes, he fits in great. But what really struck me about the new DLC was how it had morphed the overall combat into a chunkier, more flavoursome affair. Whereas before your guns had about as much impact as the buzz of your phone in silent mode, they now feel like they’ve got some real weight behind each trigger pull. The new area of Dogtown is pretty sweet, too.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty — Official Teaser #2Watch on YouTube
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty — Official Teaser #2
From the off, I found myself in the doldrums of an old stadium, repurposed to fit a chaotic community of grifters and copious stalls. Songbird, a companion beamed from my skull like Johnny Silverhand, guided me up and out of the stadium. It’s revealed that she’s actually in a plane with the President - mostly because the plane gets shot down and her AI self ominously blinks out of existence while I’m speaking to her. Without spoiling too much else, I end up shuttling the president to a safe location in a fairly linear sequence of story beats and explosions.
For the most part, the DLC’s opening is what you’d probably expect from Cyberpunk. A lot of chatter, some fights, the odd moment where you either “talk it out” or beat a couple of dudes into submission (I ended up getting too close, they panicked, I panicked, then I bludgeoned them to death). None of it’s going to bowl you over, but it’s certainly a strong setup for what’s to follow.
Image credit:CD Projekt Red
It’s a bit further into the DLC’s intro where you’ll meet Idris, a sleeper agent assigned to protect the president. Where Keanu Reeves' Johnny Silverhand is abrasive in every aspect of the character, Idris struck me as far more believable. Like, he’s voice acted well, and it didn’t take me long at all to get over the novelty of Idris Elba being in Cyberpunk and accept him as a key part of the main story.
Image credit:CD Projekt Red
The most impressive parts of the demo were CD Projekt’s obvious efforts to improve the baseFPSexperience. While it wasn’t exactly Halo’s shotgun levels of oomph or Call Of Duty’s perfectly balanced ratio of arcade to military sim, Phantom Liberty genuinely elevates Cyberpunk’s shooting to trigger pulls which finally feel like the guns each spit bullets with some venom behind them.
And while I didn’t really have time to sit down and have a proper nosey at the menus, I got the sense they’d reworked the levelling system and its perk distribution. From a brief skim read, I’m pretty sure they’ve made the branching point trees a little more meaningful with clear pillar abilities you’re to aim for, like a Lv.3 adrenaline boost that you can then bulk out with extra points if you’d like, either leaving it at that, or connecting it with another pillar in some capacity.
