Completed
Researched alternate endings (I got King of Wands apparently and cannot personally do Tower Ending because of that)
Reviewed

---------- LOG

As I inch my way through major Main Story missions, Im seeing the ways in which some of those Side Gigs I was praising are even more relevant than I realized. In some ways it feels maybe a lil bit like Im a frog being slowly boiled - its hard to distinguish when the game is being silly old Cyberpunk and when its being a vision into a more stable and engaging experience.

I think my concern might be that, even if Phantom Liberty pulls it off and turns out to be a solid package, I still feel like that only returns the game to the level of "Acceptable" most video games should be reaching by default right now. Would it really be "Impressive" or "Innovative" to only barely reach the satisfaction and enjoyment people were getting from something like San Andreas damn near close to 20 years ago. Even in its best form I feel like Cyberpunk would still a long ways away from being something truly awe-inspiring.

.

---------- LOG

Ngl tho, some of these missions are just junk no matter which way it gets sliced. The last thing I did was complete the last leg in the Garry saga (I dont know if that was base game or added in the DLC, this game relies too much on timegating to be sure)

And it just feels like this quest was an excuse to make some commentary on "being conspiracy-obsessed isnt good". Which is fine and probably true but also just so..... inconsequential? The game is sometimes starved of meaningful things to do, and were gonna spend some of that precious real estate doing a lil "oh oh Garry was maybe right a tiny bit" bit? Idk, the vibes are weak here. Maybe Im jaded, maybe Im an asshole, idk this quest (and others) just didnt feel.... worth it? To make, to play?

.

--
------
---------- THE OPEN WORLD DIVIDE
------
--

.
Thinking more about yesterday, and thinking more about the advantage of an open world, I think the issue lies in the idea of having linear sequences in a non-linear space. The non-linear configuration necessitates that you fracture the linear parts into smaller "linear pieces" that you can scatter around to make better use of the space.

Which means, to me, Cyberpunks core issue is in fact that its a story game. You might think "Well wait, the storys the good part tho" - but I guess what Im saying is this might be an Oil-And-Water situation. Open world games want you to "look around" and wander around their spaces, so basically any Main Story that isnt "go look around, go wander" is gonna have this friction and identity issues. The oil and the water are gonna always struggle to mix here.

It seems to me that Cyberpunk might have been a more intuitive, cohesive game if it was only all the merc stuff. In alot of ways the Side Gigs and Side Quests are usually interesting on some level, I feel like the only thing really causing dissonance is the fact that theyre so irrelevant to the Much More Important Thing happening in the Main Quest. Everything is in contrast between those two things and Im seeing the ways in which that might be a bit of a shame to both halves of this game.

.
And I feel like theres examples of this notion in practice. It seems to me that one of the things that makes Elden Rings open world so effortless is that theres no real "Main Quest" other than "Beat The Game". The only thing the game really wants you to do is to "go look around" and wander. It feels like giving an open world a specific directive is the thing that hijacks your focus, youre given conflicting signals. Its like trying to use a ball as a paper weight - it wants to roll but you want it to stay put.

.

.

--
------
---------- "QUEST TOURISM"
------
--

.
I think something that really hurts Cyberpunk, both in the base game and continuing into the DLC, is the focus on "shotgun content".

By that, Im refering to the way that theres small nuggets of content blasted onto the map, a "spread" of things where any single piece of content isnt all that compelling on its own. Tbf, it seems like Phantom Liberty makes an attempt to connect this content in a more cohesive fashion than the base game does - the main story includes Militech as the relevant megacorp in the area and so one of the Side Gigs involves a small foray into an old (unrelated) Militech structure. Another quest might flesh out Kurt Hansen and some aspects of BARGHEST as an organization. A few more focus on painting out the Dogtown living experience, etc etc.

Those are good things, they are improvements - but while they are thematically more relevant, they arent actually more relevant. At the end of the day, it still feels like Im some golden boy who gets to tour Night City as some sort of external 3rd party even tho V lives in this world - and the random "flavor quests" that Cyberpunk insists on, the type where you try to help a grown man meet his favorite brain-youtuber, dont help this feeling at all. V is technically in excruciating pain fairly often due to the Relics rewriting of his neuro pathways - but hes got enough time to make some extra money and do some Quest Tourism. CD Projekt didnt do enough to diminish this issue I think, and it seems like they even turned down V's complaining to help people ignore the fact that he probably shouldnt be spending his time hunting notable cyber-criminals in dank access tunnels and abandoned chateaus.

Idk I just wish the games world was treated less frivelously. Less disposable, less commodified, less like a playground.

.

.

--
------
---------- THOUGHTS ON WRITING
------
--

.
Something that really impacted my experience of the base game, and which doesnt seem to be much different in the expansion, is the fact that: these characters are written to be the socially illiterate people I have ever met.

Like, the words that are written down? They are fine most of the time. Everyone shortening every single word in a sentence feels a bit like a boomer trying to be "hip" with the kids, but thats not all that big a deal. What I have a problem with is how disconnected the responses these characters have for each other.

This is always easiest to see between V and Johnny. It doesnt matter how much time youve spent with Johnny, it doesnt matter how much a normal person would relate to Johnny in a particular situation, it doesnt even matter if you even select an option that sounds like an affirmation, every single interaction with Johnny is written to be a disagreement. The game wants your relationship with Johnny to be an antagonistic one regardless of (and really, in spite of) if thats how the player actually feels about it or not.

.
And I dont mean this in a "The Game Disregards Player Choice" kind of way (tho of course thats a byproduct). Im saying the game is incoherent about it. To use an analogy, its like this:

An understandable response to a series of actions and interactions would be like "2 + 2 = 4", the outcome results from the factors at play. Your situation + your reaction = the games response.

But in Cyberpunk its very often like "2 + 2 = 5" where I guess the writers wanted the result to be "5" even if the situation doesnt warrant it - but its even more egregious than that, far too often its like "10 + 14 = 5" or "100 ÷ 70 = 5". The game is very, very often doing some indecipherable social calculus that Im often just left going "Wtf was that? Did I.... miss something??".

.
It might not seem very salient in the current age but it legitimately feels like the game was plotted out by an AI on some early rudementary model sometimes. The social animal in me senses how... off it is, and this is supposed to be CD Projekts strong suit right?? The writing?? Characters?? It feels like the Twilight Zone sometimes, with the dissonance surrounding this game.

.

.

---------- LOG

I think I have 2 small thoughts rn:

- I do appreciate and enjoy that it seems alot of this "radiant" side content is extremely lucrative, netting you several skill shards for maybe 5 minutes of work. It helps offset the fact that its generic and low effort.

- But it bugs my ass that, as a big chunk of Phantom Libertys content offerings, they couldnt even make sure there was enough variety in RANDOMIZED events. It seems to me like theres 3 or 4 permutations to pad all of the space between your 10 mini-missions (gigs) and your main storyline. Even when CD Projekt sets the scope real low (they only had to build a small slice of open world and not an entire map) they still couldnt spare an expense to make the actual content of that world any better. The driving missions are also buggy as hell, with assailants sometimes just dying in the loading transition or whatever it might be under the hood. I dont get why its so weak when they had every opportunity to see it coming.

.

--
------
---------- FIRST IMPRESSIONS
------
--

.
- Dogtown seems to be just more Night City, so my hope that they were gonna do something more inspired with level design will seem to go unfufilled. When I heard people say "cut off" from Night City, I thought they meant it was a separate instance, not that it was just a secure block with only one entrance.

- Story encounters have indeed been more fun and dramatic tho. They couldnt help themselves from spoiling some moments that could have been genuinely excellent with some "cinematic sequences" but its certainly more riveting than base game at the very least.

- It seems like having a more focused concise storyline instead of some loose open world one is gonna payoff for Phantom Liberty as I am, indeed, more interested in whats gonna happen. Maybe it wont keep that up tho, we'll see how that plays out.

- Cyberpunk was already an unexpectedly kinetic game - but Dashing almost gives you the ability to fly and greatly enhances my playstyle specifically (very good)

- I was able to find my Non-Lethal mods, theyre gun-side this time instead of cyberware-side now :)

.

.

---------- LOG

Im moving slowly, spending too much time recombing over 2.0 stuff. I miss my "Headshots Are Non-Lethal" mod :(
(But they added a small prompt to hiding bodies in boxes that says (Lethal) so maybe Ive accidentally been killing every person I knockout for the last 144 hours anyway)

.

--
------
---------- PRE-PLAYTHROUGH EXPECTATIONS
------
--

.
Some background on me:
- I havent really dug into any pre-release info, like trailers or interview
- I spent what I think would be a pretty thorough amount of time with Cyberpunk base game, but I didnt submerge myself in every detail about the game outside my own playthrough.
- I also am not familiar with the Witcher games or CD Projekts past development sensabilities so I can only speak on an experience with Cyberpunk.

.
So that being said, here are some thoughts:

- I anticipate the story of the expansion to be interesting but probably not crucially relevant to the events of 2077. I think some people delude themselves into a fantasy, nothing CD Projekt did in the base game (and also considering the challenges and logistics of designing a DLC in the first place, for any company or game) makes me think that CD Projekt would decide to start doing something compelling complex now, out of the blue.

- I expect basically no innovation on combat design, apart from the modest editions made in the 2.0 update. Itll be groups of baddies, hanging out in some sort of building, where your goal is to obliterate them with any number of your extremely OP god-like perks and equipment, in exactly the same fashion you did in every fight in the base game. Enemies will probably dress in some new aesthetic representing some new faction in the game but I entirely expect them to behave the same as everything else. (Wouldnt be too hard to make this happen tho, I could be surprised on this one)

- While not being fully informed, Ive heard a snippet about Dogtown being a separate discontiguous area from Night City. Some people see this as an issue, I think this can only be a good thing. CD Projekt has an opportunity here (and Im ambivalent if theyll pull it off) to make a much more dense and interesting series of set pieces when they dont have to worry about slotting it in to a world that is basically already boring terrain-wise. The worst outcome here, would be making a mini-Night City - this is an opportunity to really leverage the Kowloon thing they are trying to capture.

- In typical DLC fashion, I anticipate this to be an especially rewarding piece of content, where theyll push alot of value by giving me unique access and features, as well as incredibly potent items thatll be easier to acquire compared to the base game. This is always a lil bittersweet - its fun to get cool shit but it almost always trivializes the experience in the tradeoff. It also always feels like it incentivizes reversing design decisions just to make something an appealing purchase, or maybe like youre paying for something that ought to have been considered for the regular game. Its just a lil arbitrary-feeling I guess. It unfocuses the game - but this isnt a CD Projekt or Cyberpunk unique issue. Its just the reality of adding more game to a game I suppose.

.
Overall tho I think Im in for a fun lil romp. If I were to use Bethesda games as a benchmark:
- I suspect it wont be more better Shivering Isles from Oblivion. I dont think Cyberpunk has what it takes to outdo in drama what Sheoggorath does in comedy.
- I do think that Phantom Liberty has every opportunity to be better than Far Harbor from Fallout 4. In this case, both games are tackling a similar style of drama, and it could still be the case that Far Harbor does a better job there. But Id bet Dogtown as a location will be more engaging than Far Harbor was as an explorable location.

And thats not too shabby a trajectory tbh. Thats pretty good for a DLC, so lets hope its not somehow below expectation here.

.

.