Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Cinematic Trailer Shows Off Mind-Blowing CGI
CD Projekt Red did a special Night City Wire livestream yesterday that revealed a bunch of details about the upcoming 2.0 update for the game as well as the Phantom Liberty expansion. The focus was on the expansion, of course, with a new cinematic trailer for the add-on as well as behind-the-scenes content with Idris Elba and the company's music team, particularly composers Jack Paciorkowski and P.T. Adamczyk.
Elba says that his character Reed is a professional and secret agent who has worked in Night City "for a long time," keeping his head down until now. He emphasizes that, like most spy characters, the question of whether he's trustworthy or not is always up in the air. He also notes that while Reed isn't a character who opens up easily, the center of his personal life is his work, which he loves.
The clip flashes forward seven years and a considerably more-augmented Songbird is distracted, staring out the window of a spaceborne shuttle as NUSA president Rosalind Myers tries to get her attention. Immediately after she finally responds to the former Militech executive, a missile streaks out of nowhere and slams into the shuttle, bringing it Earthward, and that's the end of the short trailer.
Despite that the trailers are clearly a higher quality of render than you'll see in any current-generation video game, it's not hard to believe that many assets from the clip are taken directly from the game. Cyberpunk 2077 stands at the forefront of modern video game graphics, and that's borne out by the fact that the other trailer released yesterday looks nearly as good despite being entirely in-game footage.
The main purpose of the micro-trailer for the 2.0 update is in fact to reveal the launch day: September 21st, or next Thursday. That's just one week before the launch of Phantom Liberty, but we suspect that the expansion is likely intended for already experienced mercs, or possibly even players who are near the end of the base game's storyline already. A week gives you the perfect window to start a fresh save and get ready for the expansion.
If you're already a fan of Cyberpunk 2077, we expect that we don't have to tell you to give it another shot, but if you bounced off the game during its rocky launch period, or if you held off on it altogether (perhaps citing a desire to wait for updates to 'fix' it), there will never be a better time to dive in than after the 2.0 update. It's bringing massive re-works and mechanical changes to almost every part of the game. We've already written extensively about those changes, so if you're interested to know which new content is coming with version 2.0 and what will require Phantom Liberty, head over to that coverage to find out.