GamesRPGCyberpunkCyberpunk 2077: Phantom LibertyAfter playing the scariest mission in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, I’m going to need CDPR to make a fully-fledged survival horror RPG right nowWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesRPGCyberpunkCyberpunk 2077: Phantom LibertyAfter playing the scariest mission in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, I’m going to need CDPR to make a fully-fledged survival horror RPG right nowWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)
Just like Johnny Silverhand, Somewhat Damaged has been living in my brain rent-free since I finishedCyberpunk 2077’s DLC last week. ThePhantom Libertymission comes seemingly out of nowhere, a consequence of not only turning your back on one of the most net-savvy people in the entire game, but for thinking there is such a thing as good deeds going unpunished here in Dogtown.
While sneaking through the abandoned Cynosure facility while evading a giant mech spidermight not be everyone’s cup of tea, my horror junkie heart was immediately in the zone. The nods to deep space terror Alien: Isolation are obvious enough, but I thinkCD Projekt Reddeserves a huge pat on the back for delivering one of the most well-designed survival horror levels in a non-horror gameever. It just shows another one of many tricks up the developer’s evidently roomy sleeves, and I’m here to gush over every last detail Somewhat Damaged has to offer.
Well, shit
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)
All for one(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)Phantom Liberty didn’t change my mind about the best Cyberpunk 2077 ending
All for one
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)Phantom Liberty didn’t change my mind about the best Cyberpunk 2077 ending
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)
Phantom Liberty didn’t change my mind about the best Cyberpunk 2077 ending
Unpleasant, brutal, and downright dark things are peppered across the world of Cyberpunk 2077, fromwould-be Mayor Peralez and his wife being mind controlledto that one Bloody Ritual cyberpsycho encounter. But Somewhat Damaged is the first instance where horrific themes become the stuff of actual horror games – right down to being unable to fight back. Trapped in Cynosure, V and Songbird’s presence triggers the facility to come to life again – as well as a giant, mechanical spider-like robot called Cerberus, intent on hunting down the intruder. Packing a one-hit kill attack, being seen is tatamount to instadeath.
Moments of powerlessness are few and far between, usually reserved for the odd mission where V is forced to relinquish their weapons to get into a nightclub. However, here in the presence of the newly-awakened Cerberus bot, we do have access to our weapons, quickhacks, or Sandevistans if we wish to use them. They’d just be utterly pointless, because the best thing to do here is hide from danger rather than confront it. Cerberus is a manifestation of all the techno-warnings you’ve heard on your Cyberpunk journey so far, the embodiment of man made technology superseding its maker and becoming a monster in itself. No amount of chrome can turn you into an impenetrable machine, after all – unless you’re Lizzy Wizzy – and now, all that’s left is the most human of emotions: fear.
Keep running
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)
Not only is Somewhat Damaged meant to be punishing, meant to catch us off-guard, it’s also a huge telling off from the powers that be.
Not only is Somewhat Damaged meant to be punishing, meant to catch us off-guard, it’s also a huge telling off from the powers that be.
But not only is Somewhat Damaged meant to be punishing, meant to catch us off-guard, it’s also a huge telling off from the powers that be. Choices made in Phantom Liberty stand out from the rest of Cyberpunk’s missions for the sheer fact that they are all so morally grey. There are no right or wrong answers in Dogtown, no pure good or pure evil – as there arguably is a lot of the time in the base game. Rather, the shades in-between are what matter the most in this warring city-state, as well as V’s interpretation of them in line with their own values, beliefs, and ideals.
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Somewhat Damaged jars against that ethos because it reads– to me, at least – like a clip behind the ear from CD Projekt Red. Putting players who chose Reed over So Mi through such an ordeal, stripping everything we knew about Cyberpunk away and throwing them headfirst into a horror game, it’s not hard to see why it can feel like being chastised for making a categorically wrong decision. Reed represents the might of the NUSA, after all, and handing a living breathing Songbird over to President Myers results in one of the most sobering and bleakCyberpunk 2077 endingsof all. Somewhat Damaged is comeuppance, giving a betrayed So Mi one last chance to show V why they made the wrong decision. We are then offered a moment of redemption when she asks to be put out of her misery. Whether V accepts it or not is part of the horror; you and Songbird are both doomed, looking down the barrel of your own ill-fated mortalities. Have you not been through enough down here with thatthing, or will you stick to your guns and put your faith in the NUSA?
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