'm sitting in the CD Projekt Red booth at Summer Game Fest, and I'm playing the new Phantom Liberty expansion for Cyberpunk 2077. I'm blasting my way through bad guys, traveling around Night City like a total badass, and hanging out with Idris Elba which is pretty cool. As I'm playing, I'm thinking to myself, "hm, there's not a whole lot new going on here, it's pretty standard shooter stuff. Just feels like more Cyberpunk."
However, that's when it hit me: after the disastrous launch of the game at the end of 2020, CDPR had a ton of work ahead of it to get the game where the studio wanted it to be. I'm seeing the fruits of that labor right now, as it plays more like the Cyberpunk we were promised leading up to the game's launch. Gunplay is tight, movement is smooth, and there's nary a glitch to be found. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is shaping up to be the redemption story of the generation, as the beleaguered project is looking and playing better than ever.
Phantom Liberty takes place adjacent to the main storyline, as it will be plopped right into the experience whenever it's downloaded. The DLC adds a new section of the city in Dogtown, a sequestered and barricaded neighborhood that seems to be overseen by a brute named Colonel Hansen. Hansen somehow orchestrates a plane crash – with the plane in question carrying the president of the New United States Of America – and V must not only rescue President Myers, but then figure out how to deal with Hansen and his trigger-happy henchmen.
My demo took me through the early moments of the story, from the plane crash over Dogtown to the rescue of the president, and then eventually to my meeting with Solomon Reed, the stoic ex-military man who can help protect Myers. I particularly like the crash site section, as I can approach the rescue of the president however I choose. If I stealth, I can avoid combat and get in and out as quickly as I can, or I could choose to run in guns blazing and see how far that gets me. I went with the latter in this instance, and I'm glad I did.
Combat in Phantom Liberty feels incredibly good, with responsive gun controls and challenging enemies. I couldn't tell you how many times I got surrounded and defeated during that crash scene mission, but it never felt unfair. I knew why I was getting killed – to call my approach "reckless" is an understatement – but I was eventually able to break free and get to my target, but not before taking out some baddies with some well-timed headshots.
Later on in the demo, I got a taste of Dogtown proper, which admittedly is not as distinct from other areas of the game as CDPR might hope. I don't want to suggest it's not interesting, as there's plenty of people to talk to and locations to explore, but on the surface it looks like any other part of the city, just with more yellow dog symbols. Also, I only got about 25-30 minutes of open exploring in this demo, so I am looking forward to seeing more of what Dogtown has to offer.
Ultimately though, the most impressive part of this demo is how clean everything was running. I remember all too well the reports of glitches, crashes, and other technical mayhem that befell this game in December 2020, but I experienced very little of that here in my Phantom Liberty demo. I am hoping that this is a sign of an entire game's worth of a jump in quality, as a Cyberpunk redemption arc would make for one hell of a story.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty gave me a host of new and interesting content in my brief time with it, but the real excitement stems from the overhaul of everything else. No disrespect to Idris Elba, but no famous face would have saved this project if the downloadable content performed at the abysmal level of the original launch. If CD Projekt Red has done the necessary work to Cyberpunk's core engine, then we're in for one heck of a wild ride when Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty launches September 26 on consoles and PC.
