3.5/5 ★ – THRILLSON's review of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.

CDPR did a good job bringing 2077 to the roots of cyberpunk. I was afraid that bringing in the President of the NUSA and the wider government into the fold would lesson the impact on V’s story. One of the core tenets of Cyberpunk is “to keep it personal” and they managed to do it here. While I don’t have a review up for 2077, those who know me know I have a unique distaste for it. I don’t hate the game at its core, I got it at launch and didn’t have many bug at all, and beat it the week it came out. I just felt it was hollow, like a Bethesda game. After Witcher 3 I was expecting New Vegas and I got Fallout 4. I didn’t want to be V. I wanted to be my own Edgerunner. Street kid isn’t even a class, and all V’s start as a netrunner. William Gibson compared it to GTA if it was sci fi and I get what he means now. And the combat is serviceable at best; very Borderlands esque. I got a combat rebalance mod as soon as I could and didn’t look back. Phantom Liberty doesn’t fix any of these issues, nor does it add any interesting weapons. Dogtown is barely a combat zone - another thing so intertwined with Cyberpunk that I was insulted when Night City lacked one - that being said it was a step in the right direction. But it does remedy my complaints about the plot. V’s choices matter more than ever, and none of those choses are anything more than different shades of gray. And V can’t ask friends for help, They’re on their own here. I like that they brought some more tech in this, tech hair, chem skin, Zetatech, and some more classic cyberpunk things make appearances here. There are some issues with pacing, and I think they should have leaned more into the Escape from New York story here. I think Maximum Mike had more input on the story here, considering it plays a lot like something I would write for a tabletop campaign. An extraction going awry is a very common, and useable campaign hook for Cyberpunk 2020, and I wouldn’t be Surprised if Mike was influenced by a game he ran 20 years ago. But I think they should have kept you in Dogtown, like in the aforementioned New Vegas DLCs. And Dogtown should have been more lawless, and sealed off from the ivory tower that is Night City. Moving into Spoiler Territory now. We get 4 endings here, and none of them are “good”, but a couple of them allow V and the other characters to face their demons. We also get a 5th (7th?) ending to the main game, which could be argued is the “good” ending to Vs story, but it comes at the biggest cost of all. V has to learn the hard way that the Main tenets of Cyberpunk are inescapable. I like this story a whole lot more than 2077’s, as it focuses on those original pillars. The secret ending shows V finally getting what they wanted, it costs them everything to get it. Always take it to the edge, man, because you know what? It’s better to burn out, than fade away, and you can never go home again.