Cyberpunk 2077 – Phantom Liberty

Cyberpunk 2077 as it exists now would have seemed unfathomable when the original game launched in 2020. The 2.0 update and Phantom Liberty expansion feel like actualizations of the game we wanted, and while it’s still missing stuff from that original gameplay reveal, CD Projekt Red has finally managed to get past the fixing stage of its once-busted open-world RPG and has turned it into an actually great game.

The Phantom Liberty expansion highlights the best parts of Cyberpunk 2077, and also reflects heavily on all the strife it took to get to this point. V and Songbird’s story feels like a reexamination of everything Cyberpunk 2077 wanted to say when it was launched in a broken state, and acknowledging that while it can’t entirely make up for all its mistakes, it can at least try to do right by its original vision. It is a perfect coda to Cyberpunk 2077, and makes me wish there was more V and Johnny Silverhand to look forward to. — Kenneth Shepard