Everything We Learned About Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty And Update 2.0 During Today's Night City Wire
Today, CD Projekt Red announced during a special Night City Wire that Cyberpunk 2077’s Update 2.0 will go live on September 21, for free, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. It also revealed new cinematics, gameplay and music details, and more about Cyberpunk 2077’s upcoming expansion, Phantom Liberty, which is out September 26. The entire Night City Wire ran for about 40 minutes but fortunately for you, we have everything you need to know about it summarized below.
Cinematic Trailer Starring Edris Elba’s Solomon Reed
Today’s Night City Wire started with a new cinematic trailer for the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, Phantom Liberty, and it’s gorgeous. Featuring the high-fidelity visuals of the rest of the game’s cinematics, we see Idris Elba’s retired spy Solomon Reed boarding a train out of Night City. On it, he speaks to Song So Mi (you might recognize her by her pseudonym Songbird), a new Cyberpunk 2077 Netrunner that players’ V will encounter during Phantom Liberty.
Reed quickly realizes his leave has been compromised, potentially by Song So Mi, and after a short fight with various guards, he’s shot. We then flash forward seven years and see Songbird on a ship in space with the President of the New United States of America, Rosalind Myers. Out of nowhere, a missile crashes into the spaceship as it’s over Night City, and the ship goes down. And that’s where this trailer ends and, presumably, where players’ Phantom Liberty journey begins.
Elba spoke a bit about his character afterward, explaining that he’s a complicated spy. You might know what he’s capable of, but you don’t know if you can trust him. He also teases that with Phantom Liberty being a spy story, players must watch everything happening because not all is as it seems. Elba describes Reed as someone who is extremely dedicated to his work, and he loves his job.
He also talked a bit about Phantom Liberty’s new Dogtown district of Night City, describing it as the most dangerous part of town thanks to the militia and criminals that control it. He also says it features an impressive scale.
The Music Of Phantom Liberty
CD Projekt Red says the team created a new score for Phantom Liberty, including additional radio stations coming to Night City. Composer Jack Paciorkowski says the score is more “cyberpunk” but with more “spy themes.” Senior composer P.T. Adamczyk says the music reflects the triangle dynamic between V, Reed, and Songbird in Phantom Liberty.
Adamczyk says the original Phantom Liberty score is now available on all streaming services.
Dark Star Radio, Impulse, and Growl FM are three new radio stations coming to the game. Paciorkowski says Dark Star Radio is all about “moody, dark tracks,” combining music from around the world. It also features two tracks from Edris Elba – he produced both tracks and raps on each. According to Adamczyk, Elba also has a DJ set on Impulse Radio put together from unreleased tracks. Growl FM is a player-created radio station with tracks coming from the community.
CDPR also revealed that it has created a documentary about Growl FM, and today’s Night City Wire gave a quick glimpse of what to expect. The team then shared a teaser with some behind-the-scenes footage of musician Dawid Podsiadlo creating the theme song for Phantom Liberty. Podsiadlo also made the excellent “Let You Down” song from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, an anime you should watch whether you’re a Cyberpunk 2077 fan or not.
The Gameplay Of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty And Update 2.0
Game director Gabriel Amatangelo spoke about the action of the upcoming 2.0 update and Phantom Liberty during today’s Night City Wire. He says you can be a stealthy netrunner or someone who just wants to blow everything up before diving into the new Relic skill tree, which is tied into the new Phantom Liberty narrative.
Songbird reaches out to you through the Relic and, to show you she’s the real deal, clears out some of the bad data in the Relic and sets up your cyberware to use it better. It allows you to both enhance your abilities but also disrupt enemy cyberware. After this, Amatangelo and lead gameplay designer Karlo Matyasik showcased three possible builds in Update 2.0.
He said his favorite build is “bullet time ninja,” which lets players utilize dashes and air dashes to get close to enemies without taking any damage. He uses a ninja sword to deflect bullets before taking out a low-health enemy to gain health. This build can also jump out of cars and off motorcycles to attack from the air, with a neat slow-mo effect, of course. With this build, he says your enemies won’t know what hit them.
Gameplay designer Yuliia Pryimak highlighted the “hack-and-slash netrunner” build. She says the hacking in Cyberpunk 2077 is now more powerful than ever, thanks to a new quick hack queue that allows you to stack up to four quick hacks on a single enemy. New hacks allow players to overtake vehicles and make them explode remotely.
Lead gameplay designer Filip Downar showcased the “savage slugger solo” build, which is for players who want to hit things really hard, whether that’s with a hammer, shotgun, or your arms, which you can use to pick up enemies and throw them at others. Plus, you can supercharge your gorilla arms to send enemies flying.
This section of the Night City Wire concluded with a quick look at the Maxtech security forces players will encounter in Cyberpunk 2077 after Update 2.0 goes live next week. And that look at Maxtech closed out the showcase.
Cyberpunk 2077’s Update 2.0 goes live on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on September 21. It’s free for everyone who owns the game on those platforms. Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty launches less than a week later on September 26.
While waiting for Update 2.0, check out our interview with the Phantom Liberty team where we learned about lessons learned from Cyberpunk 2077’s terrible launch after going hands-on with the expansion. Read our breakdown of the 2.0 overhaul from earlier this summer after that, and then read our thoughts on Phantom Liberty after going hands-on with it back in June.
Are you excited for Update 2.0 and Phantom Liberty? Let us know in the comments below!
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