After an exciting, cinematic opening that reacquainted me with gunplay that feels tighter than the last time I played, I find myself at the center of a full-blown spy story where I’m forced to work with the very authority I’ve always fought against. And as luck would have it, V does have that reason as they’re roped into a political thriller that involves working with NUSA to protect the president. It’s not easy to get into either, as Night City citizens need a special reason to be there, otherwise, it’s off-limits to them. It’s a great, gritty change of scenery packed with little bits of environmental storytelling, like dense graffiti. Not only that but it was abandoned mid-development, which explains all the crumbling structures and machinery left hanging around. It’s a shady area run by an ex-military tyrant who rose to power making under-the-table deals. The team explains that Dogtown is a bit of a “ghetto” that’s detached from Night City, both physically and legally. There’s a specific narrative reason for that world design. It’s some of the strongest level design I’ve seen in Cyberpunk to date, sending me through an intricate maze of cranes and urban decay. I find myself crawling through a more industrial area that almost feels like a jungle gym. Before I’m able to get out to the open world, I walk through a more linear opening that gives me a sense of how different the slum is from the neon-lit Night City. My demo begins very early in the DLC as I walk through a bazaar within the expansion’s new area, Dogtown. Instead, it’s a good old-fashioned spy thriller that presents tough questions about when to trust authority. It all makes for what’s shaping up to be a sleeker expansion with narrative heft that’s not as bogged down with dense technobabble. Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty builds on everything I found promising about the base game, but seems to do away with a lot of its pain points.
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