Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty’s raft of system overhauls have fans planning fresh playthroughs

The fresh trailer for Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty Expansion that players got to see at yesterday’s Xbox Showcase delivered a great look at what can be expected from V’s quest to cure their condition by delving into the political minefield of Dog Town.

For veteran players who’ve already shot their way through all of the existing gigs in their quest log, scoured the underbelly of Night City to unearth all of its hidden secrets, and taken in the stunningly-rendered vistas of the game’s Ray Tracing Overdrive Mode, the broadcast was music to their mercenary ears.

That said, while the trailer offered plenty of information on the fresh adventure set to arrive in the game in September, it didn’t touch on the raft of changes that are set to be made to the base game’s systems and features alongside it, which have already convinced many players to pre-empt their trip to Dog Town with a fresh playthrough of the entire game.

Are you planning to start a fresh Cyberpunk 2077 playthrough ahead of the Phantom Liberty expansion?

As reported by VGC and GameSpot, Phantom Liberty will come with an array of changes designed to completely overhaul the base game’s features and mechanics, in order to leave it in a much better state ahead of a shifting of focus towards its already announced sequel.

With everything from skill trees to cyberware and even car chases having received some attention, the overall experience offered by the game is set to undergo a pretty drastic transformation, an idea which has players reacting to the news on the subreddit r/cyberpunkgame both excited and a bit concerned.

“This is insane, it's almost like a sequel. I thought they'd change the game up a bit but not this much,” said user bow_to_tachanka, while Cs1981Bel declared: “I'm extremely happy if this is all included in the patch and expansion, [I’ve been playing] since day one and enjoyed it a lot, but found the game to [be lacking in] some content or options.”

While the thread saw many players announce their intention to drop their current or previous playthroughs, the saves of which will still work in the new version of the game, in favour of starting afresh.

On the other hand, a number on PC expressed concern that their heavily-modded saves might not be able to cope with the array of revisions, possibly forcing them to go back to the beginning regardless of whether they actually want to.

That said, hope for these players may not be lost, depending upon what the game’s incredibly dedicated modding community can do to update their works.

Regardless of whether you’re now planning out how your next adventure in Night City is going to create the ideal merc to take on Phantom Liberty, make sure to check out our coverage of Cyberpunk 2077 modding and our mods of the month.