Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

Including the free upheaval of the base game's content in this little analysis, Phantom Liberty is mostly a reinforcement of what made the original game almost great with only a few missed details. It's hard to get a full gauge on the gameplay rebalance without another full playthrough, but in nerfing damage hacks and ramping up RAM requirements, we lost the ability to snipe people with lightning from miles away but the combat gained a lot of utility and malleability as a result. With a unique and complex set-up of hacks, consumables set to recharge instead of just hoarding piles of health packs, and skill trees that generally incentivise mixing and matching your playstyle, it gives the combat a sense of kinesis and energy pretty unique to other immersive sims that silo systems off. It makes combat a lot harder because time to kill is still so low, but it's arguably more exciting and lends well to spontaneous tactical play. Pure stealth unfortunately feels almost neutered as you're really punished for even basic hacks now, and the divide between lethal and non-lethal play is even worse now, but other than that, it's an across-the-board improvement to the basic gameplay flow and really makes Cyberpunk stand out from its peers where it was once a bit lost in the shuffle next to Dishonored and Deus Ex. And the more said about the inventory revamp, the better. Bloat was a huge problem, as was constantly swapping clothes for armor upgrades, and they're both gone (although money still holds no purpose in the endgame except new cars, which are still pretty bad).

As for the new story itself, it reaffirms what I do and do like about Cyberpunk's writing. It is exceptional at painting vivid character portraits where even the smallest details about their likes and dislikes inform their personalities, and with the extra layer of being a "spy thriller", it makes all the double-crossings and plan Bs and ulterior motives hit harder. It's a lot shakier in tying it all together through its setting, where the hacking goes back and forth between being a mystical superpower and a grounded facet of the world with limitations and penalties to its use. Combined with a byzantine power dynamic between three or four factions, it makes the progression from one mission to the next feel disconnected at times, and while the game's atmosphere, performances and pacing carry the story through most of its plot holes, they arguably stand out more here than in the main game because the climaxes aren't quite as gratifying. Add on top what I'm fairly certain are big retcons to the main game in this update, and the story is at once too simple for a huge spy thriller and too complicated for fun pulpy action. It gets close to wholly satisfying but it's too rocky a ride to call brilliant.

The experience being just shy of greatness and not quite living up to the base game's best bits is a common thread throughout the expansion's content. There are some pretty great main missions here, some big spy heists with equal parts meticulous planning and off-the-cuff reactivity, but there aren't enough of them, and there are still constraints to its systems and choices. Parts where you think you could make some kind of moral choice to have V compromise with the enemy just don't exist. Similarly, the best side quests in the original were the ones with no combat, just talking and experiencing the setting and characters, and there are a few of those still, but most will whack you into a short fortress to infiltrate or ambush to shoot through, which is less interesting even if it's more holistic. And while the addition of Idris Elba is fantastic, Keanu as Johnny sadly doesn't have much to do in this one. It's still an unforgettable experience, and one of the more emotive AAA games in recent memory, but my opinion of 2077 as a whole has dimmed over the years even if Phantom Liberty is an objective improvement in its core systems if nothing else.

Cyberpunk had a rough start, it launched buggy, missing features and was way too ambitious for its own good. It took years of fixing and polishing to reach its current state and what better time is it to expand on the story.

Phantom Liberty is an expansion to Cyberpunk featuring V going into a Self Governing district in Night City, a combat zone; Dogtown is a mess and we can see that the moment we arrive there, its a war zone, unoriganized and very dangerous, the game reflects on that well with its great enviromental art design, Dogtown is the place murderers flee to so that they can have a new start, new opportunites. The district is ruled by a clever man named Kurt Hansen, a ruthless character that rules with an iron fist.
Phantom Liberty features an engaging story with the premise of getting a new cure for V and having an important mission as the Air Force One of the president Myers crashes into this dangerous zone.

The story of PL is highly cinematic, well directed and perfectly paced, each main quest has its own theme and splendidly compliments the spy-thriller nature of the story. The story is full of twists and turns with difficult choices to make, by playing the main quest you will get to visit the highly detailed district of Dogtown and its various landmarks. Contrary to the base game, the story here is an improvement as CD Projekt Red team has stepped up their game, directing, pacing and the stakes all feel much higher.
The characters of Phantom Liberty are complex, well designed and well acted, each character is their unique archetype, handled with care by the actors that did a phenonmal job, even the side characters had a lot of care put into them, their design, their behavior and their dialogue, as you play through the expansion you will notice characters opening up to you, changing and coming to terms with themselves and the situation they are in.
The level design is as intricate as the base game, each levels give the player multiple paths that compliment whatever builds they have, the levels are fun to explore, packed with loot, enviromental storytelling and spectacles to behold.

Moving to presentation..
The soundtrack is splendid, each section of the game has its own track that fits so well and adds to the mood, the composer team did a phenonmal job at capturing the right emotions for the right moments, combat, stealth, epic, emotional, all of the feeling were evoked correctly.
The audio design is great, shooting with the new guns feels super satisfying.
The animations do a good job of immersing the plyaer in the dialogue, you can notice character shivering, laughing, suspecting, scared, worried, surprised, and the facial emotions change depending on your dialogue choices, this greatly enhances the dialogue immersion and makes the scene better.

The expansion introduces new gigs and side jobs, they are an improvement over the base game as now the levels are more intricate and the stories are better, you also get to have choices on each gig's end and the consequence can vary and land some iconic loot in your pockets.
The gameplay system has been massively overhauled with 2.0 and PL which adds new weapons, relic skill tree and complete change of the previous skill tree, making character progression much better and meaningful, fleshing gameplay further and making it more satisfying to diverse your builds.
Boss fights are better, you now get to expeirnece a Ghost in the Shell like boss fight in the introduction missions and its super epic.

And in typical Cyberpunk fashion there is no happy endings.

In conclusion Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty is one of the best expansions ever made, it completely overhauls gameplay systems thanks to the 2.0 update, it adds a new district which realizes its full potential in the setting, a completely new engaging story with great and memorable characters, top tier art direction and soundtrack, production values that made my jaw dropping.

I have pretty much no gripes with it, only one and thats Aurore which i believed to have more potential to her, she is one of the best designed, voiced and acted side characters i have ever seen and to see them not realizing her potential left a sour taste in my mouth.

10/10 A must play expansion.

The game is mostly fixed now, but it still has some base issues with enemies being spongy. The shooting and combat are the main staples of gameplay and both are sort-of lame and low-stakes at all points of the game. You're really playing Cyberpunk for the atmosphere of the world and the follow-the-leader story cues (which are both well-done).