Phantom Liberty features an ambitious storyline that involves rescuing and protecting the president of the game’s fictional “New United States of America.” Based on a recent hour of playing time, the new extension appears to challenge players with lots of interesting decisions, such as whether to trust a pair of drifters who show up at the safe house in which the president is hiding.
Following the blueprint of the company’s previous hit game,
The Witcher 3, CD Projekt had originally planned to release at least two expansions for
Cyberpunk 2077. But after its poor reception, the company scrapped the original strategy, pivoted to free content updates and eventually decided to focus on
Phantom Liberty.
In May 2021, top director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz left the studio following an internal investigation into
accusations of bullying, which he denied. Shortly afterward, his brother Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz, who was leading
Phantom Liberty, stepped down too and was replaced by Amatangelo, an industry veteran who had joined CD Projekt the previous year.
Amatangelo went on to lead the development of
Cyberpunk 2077’s well received patch 1.5, which was released in February 2022. He and his team are now finishing the new expansion. CD Projekt’s board of directors, he said, has given them carte blanche to “make it right,” including all the time and resources he requested.
Whereas the expansions of
The Witcher 3 were released within a year of the game’s arrival,
Cyberpunk 2077’s
Phantom Liberty has been in development for more than two years. “The commitment to it from a board level is something else, really,” Amatangelo said. “I was struck by the humility and willingness to change.”
By contrast, people who worked on the initial release of
Cyberpunk 2077 said that they had expected to keep improving the game for at least
two more years of development. Instead, the rushed release has become a cautionary tale for the industry and a reference point when other companies delay games.
Despite its problems,
Cyberpunk 2077 has been commercially successful, selling more than 20 million copies. But it was also marred by so many glitches that Sony Group Corp. ended up pulling it from the PlayStation digital store for more than six months.
