CD Projekt Red did a special edition of their Night City Wire livestream series to give us some more information about the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, Phantom Liberty.
Hosted by CDPR’s Senior Communication Manager, Paweł Burza, this special edition of Night City Wire gave us an epic and somber CGI trailer, an interview with Idris Elba where he discusses his character in Phantom Liberty, Solomon Reed, a chat with the composers of the new score for Phantom Liberty about the 3 new radio stations, and a presentation from some of the gameplay designers about some of the builds you’ll be able to make with the game’s overhauled skill tree system.
CGI Trailer Starring Idris Elba and Interview
CDPR shared a new CGI trailer (not gameplay footage) starring Idris Elba as Solomon Reed and Minji Chang as So Mi (AKA Songbird).
The CGI trailer depicts Reed attempting to escape Night City with what he thought was the help of his protege, So Mi/Songbird. Unfortunately, she betrayed him and it looks as though he wasn’t meant to make it off that train alive.
This scene is followed by a 7-year time jump to So Mi sitting across from NUSA President Rosalind Myers and depicts the missile launch that shoots down Space Force One so it crashlands into the Dogtown district of Night City where the Phantom Liberty DLC takes place.
After the trailer, we get to see a prerecorded interview with Idris Elba, who gives us a bit of detail about Solomon Reed’s backstory, relationship with Songbird, and initial interactions with V.
Solomon Reed is a pivotal character in the Phantom Liberty storyline. Meeting him can go one of two ways, and just as a spy would do, you can’t be sure if he’s trustworthy or not. They refer to the relationship between Reed, Songbird, and V as a triangle.
Reed’s personal life is filled with trauma, but he’s dedicated his life to his work. He spent many years working as a spy in Night City. Seven years prior to the events of the game, he was trying to get out of Night City with the help of Songbird, someone he treats like his daughter, only for her to stab him in the back.
Elba is a big fan of CDPR’s work, and while it was an “easy yes” to work with them, this was his first major project as a voice actor, so he said he really had to “get into the imagination of the character” in the mocap studio and that it was a challenge to put so much more life and spectrum into the voice compared to regular acting.
Idris Elba described Dogtown as “the most deadly place in Night City” and a “labyrinth of crumbling infrastructure”. He appreciated the area as an “open canvas” for a storyteller since you can go just about anywhere. Elba also praised the writing in the expansion, especially regarding the quality and complexity of his character as well as the dialogue.
It’s unclear at this time if Dogtown will take more advantage of the verticality that Idris Elba refers to or if it will remain like the rest of Night City, where the traversable area is on the ground level and mostly flat with a bunch of elevators in the tall buildings.
Be sure to check out the trailer if you haven’t already.
Brand-New Score and New Radio Stations
Paweł Burza sat down with Composer Jacek Paciorkowski and Senior Composer P.T. Adamczyk to discuss the new musical score and each of the three new radio stations in Phantom Liberty.
The composers explained that it was a challenge to cram so much detail from a rich, character-driven world into the new music. They wanted players to feel like secret agents behind enemy lines and really get a sense of the gravity of the danger around them, so they emphasized spy thriller themes that have been spiced up with Cyberpunk vibes.
They also brought in Polish singer and songwriter Dawid Podsiadło, who worked on and teased the main theme for the expansion. The original score for Phantom Liberty is out now on all the music streaming services!
Radio Stations
The 3 new radio stations that players can listen to in their cars and apartments are Dark Star, Impulse, and GrowlFM.
Dark Star
Songs from Dark Star are meant to be moody, dark, and gritty. The station features 2 tracks rapped and produced by Idris Elba himself, but it also combines music by artists from around the world.
Since it’s so global, it feels diverse within those themes. It sounds like they leaned more toward letting the musicians create music they love. The devs didn’t want to micromanage, but they still tried to make it fit within the Cyberpunk world, which seems like a pretty good balance to have. You don’t wanna have a bunch of songs nobody likes, but you can’t just have random music either.
Impulse
Some of you may know that apart from acting, Idris Elba performs as an R&B singer and DJ. Impulse is his DJ set that he put together from unreleased tracks for the game. The station has lots of electronic and club music.
Growl FM
Growl FM is a community-driven station. It features music created by members of the Cyberpunk community, so each song is a lot more unique and something that Adamczyk said they wouldn’t be able to come up with. As a result, the station doesn’t focus on a single genre like many of the others, and they refer to it as more of a melting pot.
CDPR teased a documentary about GrowlFM and listed some of the music that the artists contributed to Growl FM, including:
- Going to Heaven by St. Aurora
- Flatline by Red Dead Roadkill
- Killshot by Frost, Justtjokay, Dubbgotbars, Knyvez
- El Tiempo by Skin on Flesh
- Slipstream by Kiba
- Afterlife by Thai McGrath (FT. Justcosplaysings)
- Fumes by Shinray Ghosh
The documentary chronicling the creation of the Growl FM station will air on Monday, September 18th, 2023.
Gameplay and Builds
After the segment on the new music coming to the game, Game Director Gabriel Amatangelo, came in to talk about the gameplay.
Just like with the Phantom Liberty August 2023 Livestream, Gabe showed absolutely incredible energy and enthusiasm for the game. You can tell he’s Cyberpunk 2077’s biggest fan and truly cares about the game as well as its players.
He explained that they want players to mix and match the skills and really lean into the customization. When overhauling the skill trees, the devs focused on expanding V’s capabilities so you can do new things as you level up rather than just giving a bunch of stat increases, though those are definitely still around.
Gabe reiterated what we learned from the “New Ways to Play” trailer that the Relic skill tree is unlocked very early on in the Phantom Liberty, so you won’t get access to it unless you pay for the expansion. The tree is smaller than the others and focuses on utilizing the biochip to scan other enemies’ cyberware while enhancing your own.
CDPR also released a Build Planner website that contains the full skill trees coming 2.0!
Skill Tree Builds
Three of CDPR’s gameplay designers each had a unique skill tree build to show off, each of which focused on a different attribute and included a different type of arm cyberware. The builds showcased are called Bullet-Time Ninja, Hack-and-Slash Netrunner, and Savage Slugger Solo.
Bullet-Time Ninja
Lead Gameplay Designer Karol Matyasik showed off his personal favorite, Bullet-Time Ninja, which is a melee build that incorporates the Sandevistan (I assume), Kerenzikov, Katana, and Mantis Blades to slice and dice enemies in slow motion.
The footage included them using the ground and air dashes that seem to have new animations that are more reminiscent of enemies that use the same sort of kit. The dashes seem like they make you go farther and faster compared to now.
He also mentioned a couple of perks, including one that slows down time enough to let you deflect and even reflect bullets with a katana and a finisher available when you’re at low health that heals you.
The build incorporates guns, too! Matyasik explained that you can combine 3 perks called Stuntjock, Airdash, and Air Kerenzikov to leap from motorcycles and shoot guns in the air in slow motion.
Finally, he showed off Jailbreak, which is in the new Relic skill tree and lets you leap at an enemy with the Mantis Blades from super far away after you do a finisher.
Yes, Jailbreak will actually let you leap to that sniper up there!
Hack-and-Slash Netrunner
Yuliia Prymak, a Gameplay Designer, presented the Hack-and-Slash Netrunner build (Gabe mentioned the pun was absolutely intended). It seems to be a pretty pure Intelligence build that involves both Quickhacking and the Monowire.
Quickhacking now has a queue, allowing you to load up to 4 hacks to each enemy at the same time and pull off cool combos by queuing up multiple specific Quickhacks on the same target. One such combo is a poison fire explosion from combining Contagion and Overheat on the same target!
There’s also a new perk called Overclock that lets you spend HP for Quickhacks when you run RAM at a 1:1 conversion rate. It should offer more flexibility and freedom, but make it riskier to assault the enemy directly. On the subject of close-range engagements, Intelligence now buffs the Monowire, which you can use to apply Control Quickhacks to targets it damages.
Of course, you can also just whip it around to deal ridiculous amounts of damage too!
Don’t forget you can now hack vehicles! Prymak showed V applying 2 hacks to the same vehicle, one that offered remote control and the other triggering a delayed explosion, causing the car to drive into the enemies and then blow up!
Savage Slugger Solo
Another Gameplay Design Lead, Filip Downar, presented a build called Savage Slugger Solo, which wields a hammer and can send enemies flying with ridiculously strong throws and punches.
This build leans heavily into the Body attribute, so you’ll be super hardy and sturdy, so you can tank a lot of hits and stay standing. The Wrecking Ball perk lets you charge at enemies and knock them down, so it lets you get in close gives you a safe window with which to bap your foes.
Speaking of bapping, there’s a perk called Quake that causes blunt weapons to send out a shockwave that knocks enemies over when you slam the ground.
This build also makes use of other Body perks to buff shotguns and machine guns including a perk called Obliterate that gives a chance to automatically finish off enemies at low health while buffing your guns in situations that you’ll find yourself in if you’re using a lot of blunt melee attacks.
Last but not least, you’ll be able to finish enemies off by launching them at other enemies or yeeting them ludicrously far away with cyberpowered punches and throws. Moments ago, the guy in the picture below was just standing on the building.
Cyberpunk 2077 DLC Release Date
The 2.0 Update for Cyberpunk 2077 is coming out on September 21st, 2023, while the Phantom Liberty expansion will release on September 26th, 2023. You’ll unlock access to the Phantom Liberty questline in Dogtown after completing quest with the Voodoo Boys in Pacifica, so you have 5 days to advance that far in the game with all the gameplay improvements.
CDPR made a handy dandy comparison chart to show what’s coming with the free 2.0 update and what you’ll have to pay $30 for with the Phantom Liberty expansion.
Stay tuned for future Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty news coverage and guides! We will have a full review of the expansion in a few days and take it to the next level. In the meantime, check out our Phantom Liberty Preorder Guide!
UPDATE: You can now read our in-depth review of Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty.
