Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty delivers on the promises the base game failed to deliver at launch – hands-on
When Mike Pondsmith first came up with the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, he wanted to make sure punk – proper punk – was at the heart of it. “It’s not just the philosophical attitude of the punk scene and it’s not just the music – everything about punk inspired Cyberpunk originally,” he told me, years ago, in a crowded room at E3.
As the development of the game based on his beloved property continued, and Cyberpunk 2077 finally launched, this initial seed of the universe was easily forgotten. A world designed to interrogate corporate greed and reflect the ugly reality of capitalist culture, it turns out, was undone by some of the very things it set out to lampoon.
So sentiment towards Cyberpunk 2077 soured. Post-release, the game became a totem of more or less everything gamers hate about the industry at the moment; downgrades, broken promises, inconsistent messaging – the list goes on. Class-action lawsuits, the removal of the game from storefronts, mainstream news hits about this slipshod, unsatisfying launch… what can go wrong did go wrong for Cyberpunk 2077. Even after years of refinements and improvements, and the game’s potential being eked out patch after patch, public sentiment towards Phantom Liberty is tepid at best. Hostile, at worst.