Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Review

Cyberpunk 2077: Patch 2.0 Update Overview

Cyberpunk Review

Cyberpunk 2077 Builds Now Live!

About Cyperpunk 2077 ♦ Phantom Liberty ♦ BUG & CRASH FIXES ♦ Patch Notes ♦ DLC ♦ Controls ♦ Combat ♦ Reviews ♦ FAQs

Character Creation ♦ Lifepaths ♦ Classes ♦ Perks ♦ Stats ♦ Skills ♦ Builds

Weapons ♦ Armor ♦ Weapon Upgrades ♦ Armor Upgrades ♦ Accessories ♦ Consumables ♦ Quest Items

Locations ♦ Factions ♦ Jobs ♦ Gigs ♦ NPCs ♦ Merchants ♦ Enemies ♦ Bosses ♦ Story

New Player Help ♦  Walkthroughs ♦  Game Progress Guide ♦ Trophy and Achievement Guide

Cyberpunk 2077 Review

Cyberpunk 2077 Build Creation Guide

When Was Cyberpunk 2077 Released?

Cyberpunk 2077 was released on December 10 2020. The game was initially projected to be released on April 16 2020. This announcement was made at E3 2019 and presented by Keanu Reeves. It was however delayed twice, first to the 17th of September, then 19th of November of the same year, before finally being released on December.

What Platforms are Cyberpunk 2077 available for?

On it's initial release, Cyberpunk 2077 was available on PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Stadia. From February 15 2022, the game is also now available on the PS5 and Xbox Series X & S.

Cyberpunk System Requirements

Recommended Specs

• OS: 64-bit Windows 10
• Directx Version: Directx 12
• Processor: Intel Core i7-4790 or AMD Ryzen 3 3200G
• Memory: 12 GB.
• Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 6GB or AMD Radeon R9 Fury.
• Storage: SSD (70GB)

Minimum Specs

• OS: 64-bit Windows 7 or 64-bit Windows 10
• Directx Version: Directx 12
• Processor: Intel Core i5-3570K or AMD FX-8310.
• Memory: 8 GB.
• Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3gb or AMD Radeon RX 470.
• Storage: HDD (70 GB).

Phantom Liberty, an upcoming major expansion release for Cyberpunk 2077, is projected to be released sometime in 2023. The announcement was made on September 6, 2022 by Cyberpunk's game director, Gabriel Amatangelo, during the Night City Wire Livestream. The DLC will be available to players on PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5. It is the only planned expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 for the moment.

"Get ready for Phantom Liberty — a spy-thriller expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 set in an all new district of Night City."

The new expansion will feature some additional story, a new district to explore, new NPCs and Enemies, and more Equipment such as Weapons, Armor, and Cyberware to add to your arsenal.

A teaser trailer for the DLC shows V swearing an oath to the New United States of America and Johnny commenting how the move was a bad idea afterward.

Another video was released on October 14 announcing a music contest for the game. The video teased a new character, Ash - a presenter for an upcoming Mox-controlled radio station, 89.7 Growl FM. Participants have until the 30th of November to submit a music track inspired by the contest announcement video. The 15 winners will have their music featured in-game on 89.7 Growl FM among other prizes.

On December 9, an exciting development occurred as another video was released to provide a teaser for the highly anticipated Phantom Liberty expansion. This captivating video not only captivated fans but also introduced a significant character named Solomon Reed. The portrayal of this intriguing character is skillfully brought to life by the talented actor, Idris Elba.

During the Xbox Games Showcase held on Sunday, a significant event organized by Microsoft to showcase upcoming games, the third trailer for "Phantom Liberty" was revealed to the public. This particular trailer serves as the first and only planned expansion for the widely popular game Cyberpunk 2077. Its purpose is to expand and enhance the gaming experience for players. This latest trailer not only offers a fresh and exciting look at the renowned actor Idris Elba but also provides additional valuable information about the new gameplay features that will be included in the expansion. However, what truly sets this trailer apart and captures attention is its political theme. The storyline of "Phantom Liberty" delves into the realm of politics and revolves around V, the protagonist, and their daring mission to rescue none other than the President of the United States of America. This unique and unexpected twist takes players away from the familiar and gritty streets of Night City that they became accustomed to in the original game. In "Phantom Liberty," the narrative takes a different direction, focusing on espionage and intricate political intrigues. As players progress through the storyline, they will find themselves constantly faced with challenging situations that force them to question their own loyalties and make difficult decisions. The stakes are undeniably high, not only for V, who embarks on this dangerous mission, but also for the dedicated development team at CD Projekt Red. They have undoubtedly put their heart and soul into creating an expansion that will captivate players and leave a lasting impression in the gaming community.

Becoming an Espionage

Enter the shadowy world of spycraft and become a government secret agent — infiltrate high-security buildings, take out enemies, and go toe-to-toe against seasoned professionals. Espionage is a high-risk game, and failure isn't an option. Choose your allies with care as you unravel the secrets at the heart of this expansion.

The Lawless City of Dogtown

Watch your back in Dogtown, a ruined city-within-a-city ruled by a trigger-happy militia. Its crumbling structures hold secrets and opportunities that can only be seized by those willing to do whatever it takes. Within its walls, discover high-octane gigs and quests with stakes like never before.

Master New Abilities

Power up with a new skill tree and craft a unique playstyle — use every new weapon and piece of cyberwar at your disposal to survive in a fractured world of desperate hustlers, cunning netrunners, and ruthless mercenaries bent on profit and power.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty DLC Overview

Players will once again step into the role of V, pledging allegiance to the New United States of America in the Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty expansion. The adventure includes exploring an entirely new district called Dogtown, tackling fresh Jobs, and uncovering new Weapons, Cyberware, Armor, Vehicles, and Upgrades, while also facing new threats and challenges. Keanu Reeves will reprise his role as Johnny Silverhand, lending his voice to the character once again.

New Relic Skill Tree in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

The Relic Tree is a special perk system that uses Relic Points instead of standard Perk Points. Some Relic Points are earned by completing Phantom Liberty’s main missions, while others are found by locating hidden Militech Terminals scattered around Dogtown. They will appear on your map as you get close to them with the following icon . By interacting with them and downloading old Militech operational data, you will earn a relic point.

Please click on the image above to enlarge it.

The tree contains 9 powerful perks that significantly enhance combat effectiveness. The upper section is dedicated to boosting Arms Cyberware, offering specific upgrades for Mantis Blades, Gorilla Arms, Projectile Launch Systems, and the Monowire. On the lower left, two perks provide a quick way to disengage from combat, even when detected — ideal for espionage missions. On the lower right, there's a perk that lets you detect enemy vulnerabilities. These weak points can be targeted for extra damage and trigger a small EMP area-of-effect.

Please visit the Relic Perks page to view all available Relic Perks.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Key Features

• A New District to Explore
• An Expansive DLC featuring a new story
• New NPCs, Locations, Enemies, and Factions.
• New Equipment such as Weapons, Armor, Cyberware, and more.

The New District of Dogtown in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty

The Phantom Liberty expansion takes place in Dogtown, which is a ruined part of Pacifica that falls outside of Night City’s jurisdiction. This district is ruled by Kurt Hansen, a former high-ranking Militech officer turned arms dealer, who maintains power with his gang, the Barghest, which also serves as the local law enforcement. Entry to Dogtown is restricted, and only those with proper clearance can pass through the heavily guarded gate.

Dogtown offers a unique atmosphere, distinct from other areas of Night City, with towering walls surrounding the district and a lack of order beyond Barghest's rule. Public executions are common, and armed convoys regularly escort illegal weapons shipments. To access the DLC content, you'll need to first complete the Transmission quest from the base game.

Night City, California. Year 2077.

The world is broken. MegaCorps manage every aspect of life from the top floors of their sky-scraping fortresses. Down below, the streets are run by drug pushing gangs, tech hustlers, and illegal braindance slingers. The in-between is where decadence, sex and pop culture mix with violent crime, extreme poverty and the unattainable promise of the American Dream.

About Cyberpunk 2077

The game follows the story of V — a hired gun on the rise in Night City, the most violent and dangerous metropolis of the corporate-ruled future. A robust character creator will allow players to choose V’s gender, visual appearance, character class, as well as historical background — all of which may influence the shape of the game.

Cyberpunk 2077 blends first-person shooter (FPS) elements with those of the role-playing game (RPG) genre, making it something of a hybrid. While some cutscenes and driving portions switch out to a third-person perspective, most gameplay is first-person, and with both a lot of shooting and a strong focus on character progression and advancement as well as exploration and character interaction, it's an elegant example of blending two genres.

Gameplay and Combat in Cyberpunk 2077

With dozens of hours of main story arc quests and many more additional activities, there’s always something to see and do in Night City. Players will experience all of it entirely through V’s eyes, with an interactive real-time dialogue system that gives them greater narrative agency. A fully interactive environment with no load times between regions, Night City provides an immersive RPG experience. Fast-paced gunplay, high-speed car chases on the freeway, and situations that call for a slightly sneakier approach combine to create gameplay that spoils the player with options. A variety of environments, from tight corridors to wide open spaces, makes every fight and every quest a new obstacle to tackle. 

Players assume the role of V, an ultra-agile cyberninja. With full character customization and an exceptional range of weapons (both guns and other options, and even non-lethals) and playstyles available, it is up to the player how they combine abilities and equipment to complete quests and take out enemies. Bionic augmentations and technologically enhanced weapons, such as an optical implant that confers the ability to see enemies through solid objects, or a rifle that tracks enemies, assist the player in their exploration of Night City and completion of quests.

Choices and Consequence in Cyberpunk 2077

Returning in Cyberpunk 2077 is CD PROJEKT RED’s hallmark of choices and consequences. As they make their way through the streets of Night City and its sky-scraping megabuildings, players will face difficult decisions that will ripple through the entire game. 

A fully interactive environment gives players the opportunity to affect many things around them, sometimes with unexpected consequences to the further story and subsequent gameplay. Different opportunities will arise and be available to you depending on your chosen Life Paths and Attributes you have invested in. Not only that, expect to meet different faces and have access to a unique set of quests depending on the dialogue and optional quests you choose to do.

Health & Stamina

Cyberpunk 2077 features the quintessential stats found in any RPG game - Health and Stamina. Health is a measure of your vitality. There are multiple ways of increasing your maximum Health, including from levelling up, improving your Body attribute, and investing in certain Perks and Cyberware. Missing Health will regenerate up to 60% of your max Health outside of combat, and the rate of regeneration can be boosted to double when you are under the effect of the Nourishment status.

Stamina is the measure of your endurance. Like health, maximum Stamina can be increased through level ups, improving Body, and taking up certain Perks and Cyberware. Performing certain actions such as jumping, sprinting, dodging, and doing melee attacks will deplete Stamina. Completely depleting your Stamina bar will leave V exhausted, reducing the effectiveness of Stamina-dependent actions. Stamina will naturally regenerate back up to full when not consuming it. Being affected with the Hydration status increases max Stamina and it's regeneration rate.

Attributes & Perks

Attributes in Cyberpunk 2077 refer to Primary Stats that the player can level up to make V stronger. Through doing Quests, defeating Enemies, and reaching certain milestones, you gain experience points. When you reach the experience threshold, V levels up and you gain an Attribute point to spend on any of the 5 Attributes. Each Attribute provides certain passive benefits and levelling them gives you access to higher level Perks.

Under each Attribute are two or three skill trees you can choose to invest in. Each skill is called a Perk and requires a Perk point to unlock or rank up. Similar to Attributes, levelling up also gives you Perk points to use, but these points can also be acquired by using Perk Shards or through certain skill progression.

This is a summary of the Attributes and Perks you can expect to find in Cyberpunk 2077:

• Body - Increases max Health and Stamina, melee damage, and allows you to force open doors. Perks under Body improve V's physical prowess and ability to handle Blunt Weapons (including Gorilla Arms), Shotguns, and Machine Guns.
• Reflexes - Increases Crit Chance, Mitigation chance, and gives V more movement speed. Perks under Reflexes improve V's proficiency with Rifles, Pistols, Revolvers, and Blades (including the Monowire and Mantis Blades).
• Technical Ability - Increases Armor, and allows V to unlock doors and use Tech Weapons, weapons with special properties such as homing and the ability to shoot through walls. Perks under Technical Ability improve V's handling of Tech weapons and allows them to craft items.
• Intelligence - Increases Cyberdeck RAM capacity, quickhack damage, and quickhack duration. Perks under Intelligence improves V's ability to breach and quickhack Enemies.
• Cool - Increases Crit Damage, Resistances, and improves V's ability in stealth. Perks under Cool improve V's combat capabilities under stealth and provide both defensive and offensive buffs after killing Enemies.

Damage Types, Status Effects, and Resistances

There are four types of damage in Cyberpunk 2077:

• Physical - The default damage type for most Weapons and Arms Cyberware. No special status effect inflicted. Can be resisted with Armor.
• Thermal - Has a chance of inflicting Burn, continuously depleting Health while active. Requires Thermal Resistance.
• Electrical - Has a chance to inflict Shock, causing an extra instance of damage. Also has a chance of activating an EMP, disabling or severely limiting the effectiveness of Mech, Drone and Robot-type Enemies, on top of dealing damage. Requires Electrical Resistance.
• Chemical damage - Has a chance of inflicting Poison, reducing Armor, movement speed, and slowly depleting Health while active. Requires Chemical Resistance.

Certain Enemies and Bosses can be weak or resistant to one or more damage types. As for V, besides equipping items that provide resistances and armor, they can avoid damage by increasing their Mitigation. Mitigation Chance is akin to 'Evasion' in other games in that it denotes V's chance to avoid damage. Unlike 'Evasion' however, V doesn't avoid all damage on successful mitigation. Instead, the amount mitigated is denoted by Mitigation Strength, with 50% being default.

Cyberware

Cyberware are special Equipment in the form of cybernetic implants that can be installed into V's body to provide active and passive upgrades. You can equip 1 to 3 pieces of Cyberware depending on the the part of the body it's for. Each piece of Cyberware has a different rarity ranging from Common to Legendary. Higher tier Cyberware have higher stats, provide additional effects, and have more Mod slots.

Mods are another type of Equipment that can be slotted into Cyberware, Weapons, or Armor. Mods allow you to customize your Equipment to better fit the build you are running.

Quickhacking with your Cyberdeck

Besides using guns or running into an encounter with a katana, another way of defeating enemies in Cyberpunk 2077 is through Quickhacking. This action requires you to have a Cyberdeck equipped. Cyberdecks are Cyberware that unlock netrunner abilities, allowing the user to breach into networks and perform Quickhacks on Enemies and devices. Each Cyberdeck comes with a certain amount of slots for equipped quickhacks, it's own base set of pre-installed quickhacks, and a certain amount of RAM. Higher tiered decks come with better stats, more RAM and slots for quickhacks, and are able to perform more advanced quickhacks.

RAM is a resource used when performing Quickhacks. Similar to Health and Stamina, used RAM recovers outside of combat. You can reduce the RAM cost of quickhacks and increase your maximum RAM through several means including from investing in certain cyberware abilities and Perks or increasing your Intelligence.

The pre-installed quickhacks on a cyberdeck can be swapped out for other quickhacks in your inventory and be cutsomized to fit the build you are running. New Quickhacks can be purchased from vendors, found throughout the world, earned as rewards for completing various activities, sometimes collected after uploading the Datamine daemon to network Access Points, and crafted if you have the necessary Crafting Spec.

Incapacitating Enemies

Enemies in Cyberpunk 2077 can be incapacitated rather than killed. These are the various ways to incapacitate an enemy:

• Non-lethal takedowns.
• Non-lethal Quickhacks.
• Non-lethal Weapons.
• EMP Grenades and some combat gadgets.
• Weapon mods that change damage to non-lethal.

If a given weapon, combat gadget or quickhack deals non-lethal damage, it will be mentioned in it's description.

You can grapple Enemies unaware of your presence from behind them. While grappling, you are free to move and the enemy will struggle to free themselves from your grip. Grappling onto them for a longer time increases their chances of breaking free and here are certain Perks you can invest in to lengthen grappling time. Higher-level Enemies marked with a red skull cannot be grappled. While grappling an enemy, you can choose whether to follow up with a lethal takedown or a non-lethal one.

While in stealth, it is important to note the locations of bodies left behind from takedowns. Enemies and security systems may notice and react to unconcealed bodies you leave behind. To avoid this, make sure to hide or dump bodies in marked containers, such as dumpsters, or in areas that are not easily visible to Enemies. Be aware that marked containers have a capacity of 2 bodies and a body cannot be removed from a container once placed. All loot from dumped bodies will be dropped to the ground in front of the container. 

Enemy Encounters

Most Gigs and Jobs in Cyberpunk 2077 will require you to infiltrate a heavily-guarded building or area. Scanning Enemies before engaging them allows you to figure out key information such as the type of damage they deal and resist, and their weakpoints. The quickhack Ping allows you to locate all Enemies connected to the network hacked. Some Enemies can be found patrolling an area in a certain pattern. Observe them and use this to your advantage. Electrical devices near Enemies can be quickhacked to distract enemies, diverting them from their routined path and giving you a chance to incapacitate them or another enemy near them quietly.

Creating noises from walking, shooting a silenced gun etc. will alert Enemies, who will then try to locate the source. Louder noises such as a combat-initiating shout or a dying shout or finding a body will cause Enemies enter an Alerted State. In this state, Enemies will adopt stricter patrols, making it more difficult to sneak and stealth around the area. When an Enemy finds you, Enemies will enter a Combat State. Enemies will begin shooting at you and chase you through the area. If you manage to hide after Enemies enter combat and they are unable to find you after reaching your last known location, they will return to an Alerted State.