Welcome to a casual review of Cyberpunk 2077 and the Phantom Liberty DLC. This review is completely spoiler-free.
The character customisation in Cyberpunk 2077 is incredibly detailed. You can customise nearly every part of your character’s body, including private areas, though this is strange because most of these customisations are never visible during game play. The game is played from a first-person perspective except when you’re driving something like a motorcycle. I spent 66 hours in the game and explored six different endings, but much of the character customisation was hidden. Despite this, facial customisation is important, as you can see your character’s face when looking in a mirror.
The graphics are stunning, especially on a base PlayStation 5. It’s truly impressive to see a game look so good on a standard console, which makes you wonder what it looks like on a high-end gaming PC. The graphics are some of the best I’ve ever seen, but the game is superb in nearly every other way as well.
Without giving away any spoilers, the story is complex and hard to explain. You begin the game by choosing one of three different paths. I chose to be a “street kid,” someone who grew up on the streets and knows their way around the various gangs.
You’re given the chance to take on a major job, but it backfires. You end up befriending another mercenary, and the story fast-forwards six months. You are then offered a new, big-time job, but your handler is known for screwing over mercenaries. The corporation you’re tasked with infiltrating is one of the most powerful in the world, so naturally, things are bound to go wrong. And they do. But that’s all I’ll say about the story.
It’s crazy that despite being a dystopian future game, Cyberpunk 2077 has some of the best human elements ever seen. The dialogue and voice acting are phenomenal. The characters feel real, portraying emotions like sadness, happiness, fear, and love. This incredible human depth exists within a cyberpunk setting, making the acting and emotional storytelling stand out.
The game is now one of my all-time favourites. It has a fantastic story, superb voice acting, and great graphics and game play mechanics.
Upgrading your character can feel overwhelming at first. You can customise weapons, use a skill tree, and modify your body with cybernetic implants. These cyber-modifications, or Cyberdeck implementations, let you improve things like your legs for better movement or your eyes for enhanced vision. It seems like a lot, but you’ll quickly get the hang of it after a few hours of game play, easily figuring out how to tailor your character to your play style.
I focused on side quests and general game play, eventually maxing out my health and hacking upgrades. By the end, my character was a walking tank. I could take out a dozen enemies in an instant with hacking and barely take any damage. You can become god-like by the end of the game, depending on your build. You can be a melee fighter, a hacker like me, or a weapons specialist. The game lets you customise your build to perfectly suit your play style.
The sound design is top-notch. Beyond the radio stations, the game’s soundtrack is phenomenal. The song “The Rebel Path” is so good that I have it on repeat on Spotify. It’s a key theme for the character Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves.
Keanu Reeves is always awesome and is best known for roles like John Wick and Neo (from the Matrix series), both being one-dimensional characters. However, in Cyberpunk 2077, his voice acting and motion capture deliver one of his best performances. His acting gets even better as you progress and build a relationship with his character, Johnny Silverhand.
While I have praised this game, it is not perfect. When I first installed it, the game crashed after three hours of play, and none of the auto-save files worked. I had to restart the first few hours of the game. My advice is to restart your PC or console after a fresh install and use manual saves frequently.
I also encountered a critical mission bug where none of my weapons or hacking skills would activate, making it impossible to progress. This bug, which has existed for years based on some forum threads, seems to affect players randomly. I had to go back to a save file from 20 minutes earlier, replay the mission, and it worked fine. It seems that the developer, CD Projekt Red, is no longer releasing major patches for this game as they are focusing on new projects, such as The Witcher 4.
In total, I played through five different endings of the main campaign. Some of the endings were okay, but others were phenomenal. You can easily replay the final two hours of the game to experience multiple endings.
Is the DLC worth it? Yes. The developers integrated it so seamlessly into the main story that I didn’t even realise I was playing it at first. The map expanded naturally, and the new storyline flowed effortlessly from the main campaign. I really enjoyed the DLC, though I found its ending just okay. You have the option to complete the game with the DLC ending and walk away, or you can go back and play the main campaign endings.
A major benefit of playing the DLC first was the significant experience boost. This made some of the main campaign endings, which are much harder, more manageable. For example, a certain boss fight became easier. Idris Elba’s acting as a key DLC character was also fantastic. He did a great job, and I didn’t even notice his British accent. The side characters in the DLC were also well-written and evoked a lot of sympathy.
Overall, while the game has some bugs, it’s one of the best I’ve ever played. The story, graphics, music, and combat are superb. I’m glad I invested the time, and I highly recommend it.
