Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty – all new and all different (Picture: CD Projekt)

GameCentral goes hands-on with the paid-for DLC expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, as it tries to put the legacy of the original’s bugs to rest.

Probably the biggest surprise during Summer Game Fest was CD Projekt’s announcement that they would be in attendance but then not actually showing anything during the two-hour live broadcast. You’d think they were deliberately trying to keep a low profile, with their booth hidden at the back of the hall at Play Days, which is odd because they were there to promote one of the most anticipated releases of the year, with Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.

The one and only DLC expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 did turn up at the Xbox Games Showcase, including a pre-recorded message from Keanu Reeves and the first public glimpse at Idris Elba in his new role, where, disappointingly, he’s doing an American accent.

Although infamous for its disastrous launch, Cyberpunk 2077’s reputation has been rejuvenated over the last few years, not only by a flurry of patches and updates but by the highly popular Netflix series Edgerunners. It’s taken a while, but the franchise is now exactly where CD Projekt would have wanted it originally and the demand for Phantom Liberty is unaffected by the parent game’s launch.

Idris Elba plays Solomon Reed, an FIA agent who works for the NUSA. The focus for Phantom Liberty is conspiracy and covert action, with CD Projekt branding the expansion as a spy thriller. The expansion adds new districts such as Dogtown, within the city’s Pacifica region, which is where our demo took place. Here you meet other new characters, such as the powerful netrunner Songbird, righthand woman of the steely President Myers, former CEO of Militech.

‘The role of these new characters we’re introducing is a different angle on the relationship with V. And so this allows us to get new dynamics as these are some big players like the President… we’re talking mysterious netrunner, we’re talking Intrigue. These are big players. And Johnny, of course, is echoing your thoughts of like, holy c***. Look, who can we trust? How do we deal with this? And who do we believe versus not? And this is espionage. This is cyberpunk,’ game director Gabe Amatangelo told us.

‘So it allows us new kinds of narrative angles, but all the characters are human. You know, like, as in they are complex, it’s not simple. It’s not just straightforward. And this is part of the story. This is part of the journey, figure it out.’

We were thrown straight into the action as protagonist V, after an initial meeting with Songbird high above Night City, at the top of a decaying stadium, we witness a missile strike on Space Force One, with President Myers on board. We then had to make our way through the gritty new territory of Dogtown, to the crash site, to battle it out with Colonel Hansen’s soldiers, while picking up clues of how this takedown might have come about. All of which is very obviously influenced by Escape From New York.

Choosing to play as a Nomad we could always fall back on our Gorilla Arms perk, if a firefight became too furious, or sneak/sprint past mercenaries to reach Space Force One. This short demo quest was frenetically paced, so we didn’t really get much of a chance to see Dogtown or talk to Solomon Reed.

‘There’s an excitement about being on a new adventure, and a genre twist. Some new characters, you’re only being introduced to a couple here and they are the main characters, we have a whole cast. We love making characters that make you think as well as being complex, that you’ve got to make decisions about with the intriguing twist. It allows us to make different types of characters and explore more kinds of narrative themes. And so that’s a big part of our assignment,’ says Amatangelo.

Recognising the issues that plagued the initial release, developer CD Projekt Red has worked to address the technical shortcomings and bugs. Phantom Liberty arrives with a comprehensive array of updates and optimisations, although that didn’t stop our PlayStation 5 build from crashing during a particularly furious firefight at a checkpoint in Dogtown. That’s not particularly unusual for an unfinished game (although it’s certainly not common) but given Cyberpunk 2077’s history it’s more concerning then it might have been.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty – the question is not if it’s any good but if it works (Picture: CD Projekt)

‘I could talk about a number of different features or improvements here and there. But they all add up to one thing, which is growing the world to feel more and more alive. For example, Kurt Krauser, one of the big new characters, who is kind of a military tyrant and the dictator of this new district… one of his plays for power is weapons; so there’s weapons deals, there’s caravans, there’s air drops that come in, and things are going on in these transactions. And they’re dynamic, they’re not like pre-canned spots, and you can interfere or not,’ explains Amatangelo.

‘There are gangs fighting gangs, and they might just be driving by and you get caught in the crossfire. You can go pursue or not; there’s cops pursuing criminals, you can go intercept or not; you can also engage in the militia, the ruling militia, and have sort of like dynamic encounters that even escalate. So our main technical goal is to create a more believable, living world.’

Phantom Liberty will also give players access to a vast arsenal of new weapons, cyberware, and vehicles. From cutting-edge technology to brutal close quarters combat tools, the expansion ensures you have even more options to approach encounters in your own way. Whether you prefer stealthy infiltrations or blazing gunfights, Phantom Liberty includes an expanded set of tools to suit your playstyle, including a new Relic skill tree.

‘There’s so many little things we could talk about with the details of the different things. You’re a cyberpunk. You can be like a Terminator and you can just like run through people, knock them over, pick them up, throw them, you can do that. You can literally pick up bodies and throw them at other people. But maybe you are wanting to be super agile and fast? You can jump and dash through the air and land on someone and finish them off with a melee attack. You can deflect bullets with melee weapons,’ says Amatangelo.

‘We’ve changed how cyberware works in a lot of ways, as well. So we have all these different things that allow you to kind of just be like, ‘Okay, what fantasy do I want to fulfil?’ We’ve unlocked a bunch of new ways you can do that. And even emergent gameplay where I think players are going to combine stuff in ways that we don’t know yet. It’s like a sandbox of fantasy.’

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty looks great, and the demo did well to lead us through a small peek at what Dogtown has to offer. It will be the final major addition to the game but now that it’s managed to shed its controversial reputation there will definitely be sequels and other spin-offs after that, with Phantom Liberty pointing the way forward for the franchise as a whole.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty will be released on for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC – but not Xbox One or PlayStation 4.

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GameCentral goes hands-on with the paid-for DLC expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, as it tries to put the legacy of the original’s bugs to rest.