REVIEW - Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty rights the ship and restores faith in CD Projekt Red’s ability to deliver
Set a course for redemption.
By Jonathan Garrett
24/10/23
Reviewed on Xbox Series X.
Review copy provided by CD Projekt Red.
Phantom Liberty is the personification of a redemption arc. It’s a polished and ambitious narrative expansion that successfully course corrects the disastrous original launch of Cyberpunk 2077. It retains a few of the things that never worked in the first place; the vehicle handling is still ropey, and menu navigation trades clarity for a thoroughly low tech sci fi design. But at its core, this is a game that has completely course corrected its reputation. While the original missteps and dreadful last gen versions remain inexcusable, CD Projekt Red have refused to wash their hands of it, and have made good on their promises.
Buoyed by gruff and tonally spot on performances from both Keanu Reeves and Idris Elba, the presentation feels premium in every sense. Cutscene direction, animation, and voice acting across the board are outstanding. You have the option of loading up a fresh character buffed save that allows you to jump straight into Phantom Liberty, but there’s significantly more payoff when you build on the choices and encounters from your original playthrough.
There’s a renewed sense of flexibility to the level design, which also eschews the tendency for everything outside of neural link shenanagins to look like a grimy warehouse. Variation is key, especially when the cyberpunk aesthetic is so well established across wider media. An entirely new region is added in the expansion, which is an important choice that avoids any unwanted repetition from the off. You’re encouraged to poke around, with Deus Ex style optional content peppered throughout the world.
Choice remains central to experience, with a whole mess of side quests, alternate endings and dialogue options both big and small that enhance your sense of agency. It’s every bit the all encompassing RPG you’ve wanted from this studio, albeit in a state that is more than playable. Performance mode is still the way to go on console; the Quality mode at 30fps is too choppy for our taste, and lacks the inherent smoothness of the 60fps option.
Phantom Liberty is a resounding success; a substantial addition to an already expansive title, and one that builds on what works while largely leaving the missteps of the past behind.
They sure know how to make saucy key art.
WORTH IT?
At the bottom of every game review, we ask the question: Worth it? And the answer is either “Yeah!” or “Nah”, followed by a comment that sums up how we feel. In order to provide more information, we also have “And” or “But”, which follows up our rating with further clarification, additional context for a game we love, or perhaps a redeeming quality for a game we didn’t like.
YEAH!
Phantom Liberty is a feature rich and comprehensive expansion that executes the games original vision with confidence and polish.
BUT
There are a couple parts that retain their wonkiness from the base game, which is a small but notable drawback.
TARPS?
At the bottom of some of our articles, you’ll see a series of absurd looking images (with equally stupid, in joke laden names). These are the TARP badges, which represent our ‘Totally Accurate Rating Platform’. They allow us to identify specific things, recognise positive or negative aspects of a games design, and generally indulge our consistent silliness with some visual tomfoolery.
