Phantom Liberty – not new novels, but with guns on cars

Phantom Liberty is a story expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 is out September 26, 2023 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. The developers promise an interesting storyline with the participation of secret agents and the president of the NUSA, a new Night City district and many gameplay innovations. And during the recent gamescom 2023, we got to see a spectacular trailer and share details about the upcoming DLC. We will talk about it in the article.

The main events of Phantom Liberty will mainly take place in Dogtown. This is a separate area of ​​Night City, where there is no corporate power. Most of the territory is controlled by the Barghest gang, which consists of former military and Militech people. And in some streets complete anarchy reigns. All this makes Dog City an extremely dangerous place. However, it can provide unique opportunities for those involved in illegal trade. Arms dealers in particular sell special types of firearms here, which are prohibited in other parts of the city. And V herself, if desired, can buy housing in Dog City.

In addition, we were promised that the open world will be more vibrant than before. For example, representatives of enemy gangs can start a firefight with each other. Such random events are one of Phantom Liberty’s innovations. In this case, the criminals will actively respond to your actions.

The action of the add-on takes place in parallel with the Cyberpunk 2077 story mode. The shuttle belonging to the President of the United States of America, Rosalind Myers, crashed into Dog City. Her assistant, known as Jay, contacts V asking for help. And we must not only protect the woman from the bandits, but also find out the traitor. To complete this assignment, you’ll need to team up with FRU agents Alex Xenaxis and Solomon Reed. As a reward, they promise to provide a medicine that will save our hero or heroine’s life. Complete completion of the add-on opens the way to a new ending to the main game.

The DLC can be supplemented with the same character you had in the original Cyberpunk 2077. The most important thing is to load the save before choosing one of the finals, which is called the “point of no return”. It is possible to take a new hero and limit yourself to the Phantom Liberty story campaign. Keep in mind that during the performance of the main tasks you will have to go to other parts of Night City.

Johnny Silverhand will play an important role in the plot of Phantom Liberty. Keanu Reeves has been known to include new lines for his character. But no new novels will appear.

Of the innovations of the add-on, first of all it is worth noting the battles on cars. Now they can be equipped with various weapons such as heavy machine guns and rocket launchers. If you want, you can just lean out the window and take targeted shots at the tires or gas tanks of enemy SUVs. And netrunners will be able to hack into opponents’ transport and then take it under their control or simply destroy it.

Your enemies will be both bandits and policemen. In addition, law enforcement officers will behave much more actively than before: pursue to the last, transmit data about your location to each other, find shelters, set up cordons and even call Max-Tak fighters, who are armed with the latest technology. It is impossible to bribe the police, but allies will help you in the fight against them.

Note that the game will have additional missions related to the theft of vehicles and fights on cars.

In the original Cyberpunk 2077, your defense score was based on the outfit you chose. In Phantom Liberty, jackets and raincoats are only necessary for beauty. The main character’s armor will only depend on the activated implants. At the same time, it is necessary to keep an eye on the size of humanity, which grows when new augmentations are connected. If you exceed a certain value, you will experience symptoms of cyberpsychosis. We saw something similar in the anime series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. There will be several Easter eggs in play that are directly related to him.

Now each skill branch is like a tree with active skills in the middle, passive upgrades on the sides, and ultimate skills at the very top. Additional benefits appear. For example, you can deflect enemy bullets with a katana or throw the bodies of dead opponents at enemies. Your hero’s max level is increased to 60. You can redistribute skill points once per playthrough.

Special relic skills will also appear in the game. They enhance your combat arm implants: Mantis Blades, Gorilla Arms, Projectile Launcher and Monostring. These skills are pumped for special points that you receive in the Militech terminals. You can only find them in Dog City.

We already mentioned that in Dog City you can find weapons that are not available in other parts of Night City. Among them are especially powerful pistols, shotguns, machine guns and sniper rifles that work on the principle of a rail gun. In total, they promise about a hundred new types of equipment, including weapons and clothes.

Many of Phantom Liberty’s new features will also be available in the main game with Update 2.0, which will be released shortly before the update. We’re talking improved artificial intelligence, aggressive policing, a redesigned interface, a new pumping system and other changes. The patch will not appear on the PS4 and Xbox One versions of the game.

Phantom Liberty is not just a set of new content for Cyberpunk 2077, but a total overhaul of the entire game. CD Projekt RED knows how to make high quality story DLCs – we were convinced of that from the add-on “Blood and Wine” (Blood and Wine) for the third “The Witcher” (The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt). We can only hope that everything will be fine this time with the technical condition of the project.