Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty Is CDPR’s Next Huge Spy Thriller Expansion
by
Zak Killian
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Saturday, January 21, 2023, 03:42 PM EDT
Cyberpunk 2077 had one of the most disastrous game launches in history. A lesser game company might have abandoned the title and left it to rot, but CD Projekt Red has been continually crafting updates for the game and has it beaten into a pretty solid shape by this point. The upcoming expansion, Phantom Liberty, will apparently add a ton of content to the game, as it's the largest expansion (in terms of budget) that CDPR has ever produced.
That information comes from Marek Bugdoł, who is with the Polish developer's investor relations department. He was speaking to Polish-language business outlet Parkiet, who wrote that CDPR doesn't have a set release date for the expansion, but also that work is going according to plan. Bugdoł says that the studio "feels comfortable with the current state" of Phantom Liberty, and that it will be the most expensive expansion the company has ever made.
While Cyberpunk 2077's launch left a lot to be desired, it got a new lease on life thanks both to the major free updates applied to the game as well as the launch of the Edgerunners anime created by the popular Studio Trigger. Cyberpunk Edgerunners came nearly two years after the original launch of the game, so new fans it attracted that decided to give it a try experienced the improved and updated version of Cyberpunk 2077.
As a result, buzz around CDPR's biggest game yet is running largely positive these days, and a lot of people are looking forward to the expansion. CD Projekt's previous DLCs, especially the Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine expansions for The Witcher 3, are generally well-regarded for blending into the original game relatively seamlessly rather than feeling stapled-on like a lot of single-player game DLCs.
To be clear, it's fairly unlikely that Phantom Liberty will finally deliver the immersive experience that a lot of players were hoping for based on CDPR's pre-release promotion for the original game. Still, now that we know the score, Cyberpunk 2077 is a good game in its own right these days. For fans invested in the game world and story, Phantom Liberty should deliver another big dose of Night City when it arrives later this year.