Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Preview: A Brief Glimpse of Dogtown

By Logan Moore

After briefly diving into Cyberpunk 2077 at launch in late 2020, I'm one of many players who surely opted to put the game on the back burner until more improvements came about. In the nearly three years since, CD Projekt Red has brought its open-world RPG to a much better state and has continued to entice me to come back and finally see what Night City has to offer. With the new expansion, Phantom Liberty, right around the corner, though, I've opted to continue holding off until I'm able to play everything that the game has in store at a single time. And even though this might be a wise decision, I'm still not sure if Phantom Liberty alone will end up being a must-play. 

Recently, I was able to play about 45 minutes of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty. This short taste of the expansion gave me a better idea of the story it will tell, the new characters it will introduce, and also highlighted some of the new mechanical and systemic alterations. On the whole, though, I'm still not sure what to think about Phantom Liberty because I've only seen so little of it. 

For the most part, my demo of Phantom Liberty was very story-heavy. What I experienced gave me a glimpse of how the events of the add-on will kick off and also introduced me to Rosalind Myers, who is the U.S. president within the world of Cyberpunk 2077. Notably, Solomon Reed, who is the new character portrayed by actor Idris Elba, was nowhere to be seen in my short preview of Phantom Liberty, which was a bit of a letdown as he's been such a big draw in previous trailers. 

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When not engaging in dialogue with Myers or viewing cutscenes, though, I was able to shortly jaunt around Dogtown, which is the newest area of Night City that Phantom Liberty will introduce. Dogtown has its own unique vibe compared to the rest of Night City and is a region dominated by warring factions, scummy cops, and a bevy of secrets. I didn't see a whole lot of Dogtown overall, but it definitely seems like CD Projekt Red is trying to give this section of Night City more depth than anywhere else. 

While traveling around the streets of Dogtown, I also was able to get an idea of how vehicle combat will work, which is a brand new mechanical component introduced with Phantom Liberty. Vehicular gunfights played out in a pretty straightforward manner based on my own experience as I primarily just unloaded SMG rounds into foes that would try to fight me while heading down the highway. Those at CDPR told me that the vehicle combat will be far more engrossing in the full game as players will be able to use everything from melee weapons to rockets while having battles on the road. 

One of the best aspects of Phantom Liberty isn't even tied to the expansion itself and is instead associated with a free update that CD Projekt Red will be bringing to all Cyberpunk 2077 players later this year. This update is poised to overhaul a number of existing features in the game, all of which seem to be for the better. The skills and abilities system has been tweaked and is far more streamlined and less cumbersome than before. Additionally, armor statistics are now completely separated from cosmetic items that you find, which means your own version of V can rock the gear that you think is most aesthetically pleasing rather than donning what simply has the best stats. All of these changes seem to be for the better and should make Cyberpunk 2077 a more satisfying experience. 

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If nothing else, the most comforting thing that I experienced in my time with Phantom Liberty is that it doesn't seem to have many bugs or performance issues at this point. The team at CD Projekt Red told me that the version of the expansion that I experienced was the game itself in action, which means this shouldn't have been a specific build thrown together for me to play. Knowing that Phantom Liberty should be quite polished at release is comforting, especially for those like myself who put Cyberpunk 2077 down after its myriad of previous problems. 

I've only seen a small glimpse of what Phantom Liberty will be comprised of in Cyberpunk 2077, but it doesn't seem like this is going to be a game-changing expansion by any means. Instead, CDPR merely looks to be giving players more Cyberpunk content to chew on until the eventual sequel releases many years down the road. In some ways, that's about all that you can ask for and surely won't lead to disappointment from those who already love the base game. As someone who's still been trying to find a reason to play the entirety of Cyberpunk 2077, though, what I have seen of Phantom Liberty has yet to convince me to finally take the plunge. 

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty will release later this year on September 26 and will be available across PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. 

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