After launching in late 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 became an example of why companies should be careful about getting too greedy. We might never know what really happened and why Cyberpunk 2077 was such a mess for a little over a year, but it’s clear that CD Projekt RED wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Fast forward to today and CDPR is preparing to say goodbye to Cyberpunk 2077 with one last hurrah. The Polish studio confirmed that Phantom Liberty will come out next year. Until then, CDPR promises to drop at least one more massive update for Cyberpunk 2077 and probably a few of the smaller kinds after, presumably to improve the performance of the next-gen version of the game. Regardless of what CDPR wants to do with Cyberpunk 2077, the single-player game is coming to an end after the company revealed to Polygon that “Phantom Liberty is the only planned expansion for Cyberpunk 2077 - i.e. there are no plans for more expansions beyond that.” For what it’s worth, Phantom Liberty looked and felt a lot like how Cyberpunk 2077 should have at launch. But, we’ve been conned before, so it’s best to reserve our hype until reviews have come in and players have gotten a chance to try out the upcoming expansion. At the end of the day, it’s a huge shame that CDPR couldn’t quite meet expectations with Cyberpunk 2077. The AAA title it preceded, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, got two pieces of DLC content that easily rival entire games. Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine came out in 2015 and 2016, respectively. History suggested that CDPR wanted to do the same if things didn’t go sour for Cyberpunk 2077. Now that we know it won’t happen, we can’t help but feel like Cyberpunk 2077 wasted so much potential. Had things gone the other way for Cyberpunk 2077, we could already be enjoying the game’s first expansion right now while looking forward to the next one. Hopefully, CDPR uses the lessons it learned from Cyberpunk 2077 for the next installment in the Witcher series, which will serve as the first in the new saga. As for Cyberpunk 2077, the first game should’ve at least done well enough to get a sequel. The series’ first (and probably only) anime spin-off, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, will premiere on Netflix on September 13.
