Phantom Liberty might be CD Projekt’s last chance to redeem Cyberpunk 2077

A third trailer for Phantom Freedomthe first and only planned expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, dropped on Sunday at Microsoft’s Xbox Games Showcase. It features a new take on actor Idris Elba and a few additional details about the add-on’s gameplay. But what really stands out this time around is the political theme, which sends V out to rescue the President of the United States of America.

This isn’t going to be a story about life in the rough streets of Night City. It is a story of espionage and political intrigue, where players are repeatedly asked to question their loyalty. The stakes are surprisingly high, both for V and developer CD Projekt Red.

Cyberpunk 2077 arrived late – very late in fact, and in poor condition. After the game’s December 2020 launch (and acknowledgment that CD Projekt Red cracked its employees even after promising it wouldn’t), it wasn’t until February 2022 that the major version 1.5 patch was finally rolled out. And while the cars don’t launch themselves into orbit as often as they used to, the game’s storyline is still a bit of a disappointment for die-hard fans of the deeper Cyberpunk lore.

In our review of Cyberpunk 2077 as of April 2022, Cameron Kunzelman commented, “With this game’s long streak of updates, there are seemingly never-ending opportunities to go deeper, rethink some assumptions, and to are at least as fully engaged with the genre as the original texts. But none of these things were considered patch-worthy. It is apparently more substantive to ensure that there are new apartments and cars and weapons.”

Seen in this light, Phantom Freedom is CD Projekt’s last chance at a more complete redemption for its biggest video game ever. By appealing to the US executive, they’re going for the jugular vein of the franchise’s deeper lore – and the key to understanding it may be contemporary tabletop role-playing.

Cyberpunk 2077 is based on R. Talsorian Games’ iconic Cyberpunk tabletop role-playing game universe. First released in 1988 as Cyberpunk 2020it was later updated in conjunction with CD Projekt as Cyberpunk red. This latest edition of the “role-playing game of the dark future”, set in 2045, serves as a sort of prequel to the video game. While players are encouraged to make up the story as they go, the timeline from 2020 to 2045 is fairly well established. And that timeline, my friends, is wild.

The world of R. Talsorian’s Cyberpunk is a post-apocalyptic alternate future along the lines of the Fallout series. However, the big difference here is that instead of the timeline diverging in the 1950s, it takes a sharp right turn in the early 1990s. That’s when the Gang of Four – the National Security Agency (NSA), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – ended democracy in The United States. follows is a period of martial law that more or less extends to Cyberpunk 2077the current day.

Since it is these four heavyweight three-letter agencies that are pushing the US over the brink of true fascism, consider the introduction of Idris Elba’s special agent Solomon Reed – a member of the newly created Federal Intelligence Agency (FIA) – a major red flag.

As fascism becomes the new norm in the US, several large, wealthy states push back. Northern and Southern California, Texas, Alaska, and several smaller western states declare themselves free states – they are nominally part of the Union, but reserve the right to withhold resources and cooperation from the federal government at their discretion .

Around the same time, all hell breaks loose in every sense of the word.

“We like to say that Cyberpunk is real-world problems that surfaced until 11,” said Cyberpunk red line manager J Gray, in conversation with Polygon for background on this story. He’s not kidding. Disasters include, but are not limited to, a failed attempt at large-scale US military intervention in Central America; a neo-Soviet resurgence and renewed Cold War tensions; the use of tactical nuclear weapons in urban areas; massive disruptions in global energy markets; unchecked corporate warfare; meltdown; stock market crashes; orbital attack; even drought, man-made plagues, and asteroid impacts.

By 2077, that leaves the setting of Cyberpunk 2077, Night City, standing like a kind of futuristic Casablanca – an extraterritorial escape, a place where personal and private interests rule over civic norms. It’s not the place you want to lose sight of a great world leader, that’s for sure.

It’s easy to see why the residents of Dogtown – the largely lawless setting for Phantom Freedom, somewhere near Night City – may have it for new US President Rosalind Myers. Outside of Night City, both American society and the country itself have broken down. People are no longer primarily loyal to their city or their country. Those with money are loyal only to the company/warlord they work for, which provides them with security, food and shelter – similar to the corporate towns that sprang up in the US at the turn of the century.

“When mining operations owned the whole city, you worked for a company,” Gray said. “You bought stuff from the company store. You lived in a company home. You went to the company-sponsored entertainment and you were paid in cash from the company. So chances are, if you’re a good worker […] you are fine. You live. You may be able to start a family if you wish – or if the company allows you to. But you are actually more of a citizen of the company than you are the United States.

Image: CD Project Red

That’s what makes Phantom Freedom such a remarkable development. In 2077, the United States still exists, but it has been repeatedly broken and humiliated for the better part of a century – effectively reduced to developing country status, but with a much larger stockpile of nuclear weapons. The military-industrial complex no longer poses a threat to democracy, as the nationalization of the country’s largest arms dealer has helped make democracy a moot point. It got so bad that the US had to be renamed as the new United States. Free States still exist in 2077, but both they and the New US are still licking their wounds after a long and bloody war in the 2060s.

So why does V step in to save a toothless little oligarch? The residents of Dogtown are likely to be the biggest losers in this geopolitical scenario: a disenfranchised group insulated even from the rough norms of Night City, likely an isolationist in their own right and fearful of any government. And once scared, people tend to get violent.

My gut tells me so, just like R. Talsorian Games’ Cyberpunk 2020 capitalized on the economic and social uncertainties of the late 1980s, Phantom Freedom will similarly respond to today’s economic and social uncertainties. With world superpowers such as China, Russia, Europe and the US cranking up newly sparked populist fervor, global politics feels particularly tense. The situation is similar in many smaller countries, including Poland, the home country of CD Projekt. How those fears will play out in a game tailored to tell intimate stories set against a neon-lit urban dystopia is anyone’s guess.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty requires the original game to play. It is currently available for pre-order through GOG.com, Steam, the Epic Games Store, the PlayStation Store, and the Microsoft Store for $29.99. R. Talsorian Games still has plenty of new storylines in the pipeline Cyberpunk red. That includes a new set of missions based on Netflix’s Cyberpunk Edge Runners animated series. Fans can find out more at the official website.