September 23 2026, 11:13am
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty
Went back to complete the expansion fully, trying out some different outcomes, a more aggressive tech-weapon build, and setting up an alternate ending for V.
This is a weird one for me as the expansion missions are excellent and fleshed out, but feel more like a linear, set-piece heavy, action-shooter campaign strung together by the Cyberpunk 2077 framework. For half of them, you're rewarded for different strategies and builds; for the other half, you play exactly the way the dev intended or the mission triggers the most negative outcome or even fail states.
It's always risky to take away choice in an RPG and more so to include so many set-pieces in which manual saves are disabled and checkpoints frugal. The sniper perch section felt like trail-and-error in the worst possible way and the stalker robot in the Somewhat Damaged mission turned horror into tedium quickly.
Overall a great expansion - if not quite at the Blood & Wine level - but I still wish they'd gone with one that expands the first act and sets up V's career earlier. The second act is already so bloated with investigation paths, companion quests, and side job chains that it's hard to remember V's life is on a timer.