The team at VULKK.com got to play and present our Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty expansion Review before its release. Here you can read everything about our impressions on gameplay, story (no spoilers), and new features in this expansion!
We would like to thank CD Projekt Red for providing us with free early access to the expansion for our review and coverage of Cyberpunk 2077’s Update 2.0 and the Phantom Liberty Expansion. This article represents 100% our own thoughts and personal experiences.
This review is completely free of story spoilers.
The Phantom Liberty Story
For me, one of the most important things about a game is the story. Even if the gameplay isn’t great, a good and compelling story can compensate for this. The journey of “V” and the evolution of the character was my favorite thing when I first played Cyberpunk 2077.
The possibility of having multiple approaches to a big problem is always fun, but what makes it stand out is how it’s impacted by all of your previous decisions. Even completing a side quest that might not appear to be important can affect the course of your gameplay.
Phantom Liberty’s main quest is a great spy-thriller that absorbs you in a way that’s different from what you’ve experienced with Cyberpunk 2077 so far but that still feels familiar.
There are many new characters but the entire story basically revolves around two, Reed and So Mi. As I mentioned above, the main quest in Phantom Liberty is a spy-thriller. What begins as a standard mission quickly evolves into a series of chaotic and unexpected events. You don’t know if everyone’s intentions are sincere or if there’s something you’re not being told.
After just a few hours of playing Phantom Liberty, you’ll realize how big the stakes are and the implications of what success or failure will mean for you, your closed ones, and the unsuspecting people of Night City.
There’s a total of thirty brand-new missions. Thirteen are part of the main quest and seventeen are sidequests/gigs. There isn’t a single main quest that was boring, not all of them had the same level of intensity but all felt different. Extraction, infiltration, assassination, or protection, everything was key to achieving the ultimate goal.
Inevitably, the time will come when a vital decision must be made. Regardless of what you choose, it will severely impact the course of the story and therefore, the gameplay. I’d advise you to commit to the decision you make until the end, at least on your first playthrough. After that, you can explore all the possible twists that the story can take.
We have a helpful guide to help you start Phantom Liberty and gain access to Dogtown. You have several ways to approach this new part of the game.
Dogtown vs. Night City
Dogtown is a new district that is independent from the rest of Night City. It is connected to Pacifica but it has its own set of rules and not even the NCPD goes inside. It arguably has the most visually intimidating entrance of any place in Night City, and the local “law enforcement” are no pushovers.
It has a very well-defined identity and it doesn’t take much time to figure out that just because this place is out of NCPD’s jurisdiction, you can’t simply do whatever you want without facing some consequences.
Dogtown is the most chaotic area in all of Night City, but this chaos is controlled, as weird as that sounds. Shady business, settling things up with a rival gang, or acquiring valuable items by force is more than encouraged in this district, but everything has its limits.
Kurt Hansen is the face of this nest of scum and villainy, he’s a smart and relentless man who has managed to build an empire. His power and influence have grown to the point where no one would dare to interfere in his business without thinking it very carefully.
You’re now in the big leagues and this means beating the toughest contenders, no matter how. Cyberpunk provides many ways to do so but that’s for you to find out.
Everything Is New or Redesigned in 2.0
In addition to this expansion, Cyberpunk 2077 is also getting its 2.0 update. Practically every previously existing system is being changed a lot or completely redesigned and it can be very overwhelming even if you’re up to date with the game.
It’s impossible to talk about Phantom Liberty without addressing some of the changes implemented with 2.0. We will have guides that give more in-depth explanations but I still want to mention some of them.
Items And Resources
How crafting works has changed significantly. I won’t go too deep into it because this topic has its own guide (linked above) but it’s good that it feels more “accessible”. On the other hand, clothes no longer have stats and it feels so strange that they’re basically just cosmetic items. Every now and then you’ll find a piece with a bonus stat but that’s really it.
Weapon’s stats are now displayed in a different way. Showing only DPS was misleading because things like range, rate of fire, and reload speed are important variables that affect how much damage you can inflict. This new visualization of stats addresses that issue.
When I first started playing Cyberpunk, money was a resource that I had to use very conservatively. This is no longer the case, disassembling stuff to get crafting components is now what can limit you. Don’t get me wrong, being able to spend a ton of eddies on things like apartments, cars, and weapons is nice but you get to a point where disassembling crafting materials matters more than earning money.
Skill Trees And Combat Changes
I remember playing the game for the first time and being completely lost about how to spend all my skill and perk points. It was difficult to figure out how different combinations work and it took a lot of playtime to finally start getting a proper grasp of how it all translated into the gameplay.
The new skill tree system solves this problem. Now, we have “main perks” that are placed at the center of the skill tree and “secondary perks” that are next to them. This makes everything a lot easier to understand.
Not only that but there’s true synergy between more perks and most of them add a more tangible value to the gameplay. Getting to the higher levels allows the player to fully commit to a unique playstyle. The new relic skill tree enhances this by unlocking one-of-a-kind abilities.
It doesn’t matter if you want to be a stealthy ninja that slashes every enemy before they can react or if being an unstoppable war machine is what you want, there’s an option for everyone.
Vehicle Combat
Vehicle combat is incredibly fun, you can use a pistol, shotgun, and even a katana when driving. Pulling off some things will be harder with certain weapons but it can also be extremely rewarding once you manage to do it. I kid you not, it’s like being John Wick for a few seconds.
Hacking vehicles grants the player the ability to use elements from the environment in his/her favor. This is extremely useful when being chased by vehicles with built-in weapon systems. Unfortunately, your vehicle is also vulnerable and can be neutralized after hitting the max Wanted Level. Vehicles with weapons are extremely strong so it’s a way to keep things balanced.
Revamped Police
All of the things mentioned in this segment apply to both NCPD cops and the local enforcement of Dogtown.
The Police are now smarter and act more “logically”. When creating chaos on Night City you’ll often hear the NCPD calling for backup, reinforcements will arrive from multiple angles rather than just spawn near to you.
As your Wanted Level increases, NCPD officers are going to be better equipped and often drive armored vehicles with weapons. The experience will vary depending on what difficulty you’re playing on but let me assure you that these cops are no pushovers.
MaxTac officers are now deadliest than ever, each MaxTac team carries different weapons. My first encounter with them was going relatively well until the guy with Mantis Blades jumped in front of me.
I wasn’t ready to fight a melee opponent while also having to worry about the officers with heavy weapons shooting from afar. Unless you’re fully geared and max level, going against MaxTac is not a good idea.
We have a detailed breakdown of all major changes and new features from Cyberpunk 2077 Update 2.0, including tips and recommendations on how to approach the game after updating it to 2.0.
Other Things Worth Mentioning
There are other points that don’t require their own segment but that is still worth mentioning.
There are three new radio stations, all of them play different genres and each song feels unique. Fun fact: Idris Elba produced some of them!
The attention to detail continues to be on point, even a newspaper found in a warehouse has a headline and picture on the cover. I could spend dozens of hours looking for cool things like this.
One thing that I found hilarious is that you can’t enter Dogtown when driving NCPD vehicles. The NPCs guarding the entrance will insult you and you’ll see this text when getting close to the gate. I guess they really don’t like cops.
I play in 1080p on a PC with an RTX 3060 TI and a Ryzen 5600 and got between 70-90 fps with almost everything maxed (RT off). The performance was smooth and I didn’t face many issues.
I had a few frame drops that were solved by pausing the game for a few seconds and a few of crashes every now and then when pressing Alt+Tab but nothing that severely impacted my experience.
Vulkk and Endonae played on 3440×1440 with an RTX 3080 (AMD CPU) and RTX 4090 (Intel CPU) GPUs. Vulkk shared pleasantly stable performance of 80-100 and above FPS with everything maxed and Frame Generation, and only one single crash. Endonae had numerous crashes. We played on an early version, so I will not go into details. Some of the issues will likely be patched and fixed before the launch anyway.
I experienced some bugs that individually didn’t matter too much but when combined they made the game unplayable.
The first one was the inability to use the phone, it didn’t matter that my current mission required me to use it. My health bar also disappeared and Photo Mode was completely disabled. The only way to solve this was by quitting the game.
The most annoying bug prevented the NCPD from engaging with me regardless of how much chaos I created. Even if I shot them, they’d instantly exit combat.
How to get the best out of 2.0 and Phantom Liberty
Cyberpunk 2077 has been out for almost three years, which means that most of the player base hasn’t been actively playing it for quite some time. As I mentioned above, pretty much everything is new. Returning to a game that has revamped so many of its systems and mechanics can be very overwhelming.
The best thing you can do is begin a fresh run, it’s truly a new experience and to have a better understanding of it, I’d advise you to simply start from zero. But don’t take just my word, even CD Projekt Red agrees with this.
Explore as much as you can, Dogtown has some very interesting places and lots of easter eggs in every corner.
Take your time to learn about the new game mechanics and systems. Especially if you play on higher difficulties.
The main story of Phantom Liberty has very interesting twists, many of which are caused by your decisions. Replay it as much as you can to know what happens when you make a different choice, I promise that it’s worth it!
This is just a sneak peek of what Phantom Liberty has to offer. You’ll learn more about it in all of our upcoming guides!
Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty releases on September 26th it is currently available for pre-order. Game Update 2.0 releases on September 21st and is 100% free for everyone who has purchased the base game.
