UPDATE
Do these review scores make you excited for the expansion? Will you give it a try and see if it salvages the main game? Let us know below!
ORIGINAL STORY
There’s an expression in life that many video game companies take to heart, “Never put all your eggs in one basket.” After all, where will you be if you put all your hopes on one thing, and then something happens to that one thing? Gaming companies tend to try and focus on more than one game at a time if they have the ability. Or, they know that they can do multiple DLC packs and expansions to keep their game growing. For CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty was an example of “putting their eggs in one basket.” The difference is that they made it work for the better.
Originally, their Cyberpunk title was supposed to have multiple DLC packs to flesh out Night City and its citizens. But after the disastrous launch that could’ve sunk the company, they had to scale back their DLC plans in a significant way. Suddenly, Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty was all they were going to make. But as Metacritic will attest to, critics love what CD Projekt Red has done with this content, and they feel it’s what the game should’ve been right from the start.
The PS5 version of the DLC stands at 88 with over 35 reviews, with only one being “mixed” in rank. Most of the reviews praise the dev team for taking their lumps early on, listening to the fanbase, and then improving on virtually every aspect of the title. Many agree that almost every element of the game has been improved or overhauled, making the title feel more alive.
The story was another consistent element that reviewers praised. They loved the spy-style narrative, the new and familiar characters that helped push it forward, and how the locale of Dogtown helped make everything feel special. Plus, there are new kinds of side quests that bring out the “flavor” of the world even more, so fans will definitely have an engaging experience. When you add that to the upgraded combat and systems that make this part of Night City more engaging, some gamers will be in this DLC for some time.
It’s good to see CD Projekt Red get this win, as it will restore some of the faith that gamers lost in them. But there is also the question of “what would’ve happened if the original game had been this way from the start?” Sadly, we’ll never know, so we should appreciate what we have now.
