Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Cinematic Trailer Shows Off Mind-Blowing CGI

Let's get some names out of the way: "V" is the name of the customizable player character in Cyberpunk 2077, and naturally, that's the character you'll take into the game's expansion called Phantom Liberty. Idris Elba appears in the add-on as retired spy Solomon Reed, and Minji Chang plays top-tier netrunner Song So Mi, better known as Songbird. The interplay between these three characters is at the center of the story of Phantom Liberty, it seems.

CD Projekt Red did a special Night City Wire livestream yesterday that revealed a bunch of details about the upcoming 2.0 update for the game as well as the Phantom Liberty expansion. The focus was on the expansion, of course, with a new cinematic trailer for the add-on as well as behind-the-scenes content with Idris Elba and the company's music team, particularly composers Jack Paciorkowski and P.T. Adamczyk.


Elba says that his character Reed is a professional and secret agent who has worked in Night City "for a long time," keeping his head down until now. He emphasizes that, like most spy characters, the question of whether he's trustworthy or not is always up in the air. He also notes that while Reed isn't a character who opens up easily, the center of his personal life is his work, which he loves.

The new cinematic trailer focuses first on Reed some seven years before the events of Cyberpunk 2077. In the gorgeously-animated CGI clip, Solomon Reed is riding a train out of Night City while talking over wireless comms with Song So Mi—a woman better known in 2077 as Songbird, the right hand of the president of the NUSA. They reminisce about old times, and then Reed realizes something is off just before he gets ambushed on the train in brief but brutal fight scene.

The clip flashes forward seven years and a considerably more-augmented Songbird is distracted, staring out the window of a spaceborne shuttle as NUSA president Rosalind Myers tries to get her attention. Immediately after she finally responds to the former Militech executive, a missile streaks out of nowhere and slams into the shuttle, bringing it Earthward, and that's the end of the short trailer.

Despite that the trailers are clearly a higher quality of render than you'll see in any current-generation video game, it's not hard to believe that many assets from the clip are taken directly from the game. Cyberpunk 2077 stands at the forefront of modern video game graphics, and that's borne out by the fact that the other trailer released yesterday looks nearly as good despite being entirely in-game footage.

That's the trailer for the game's version 2.0 update. It's extremely brief, clocking in at less than 44 seconds after you account for logos and the ESRB rating display, but it's also entirely gameplay, showcasing some of the new abilities in the 2.0 version of the game.

The main purpose of the micro-trailer for the 2.0 update is in fact to reveal the launch day: September 21st, or next Thursday. That's just one week before the launch of Phantom Liberty, but we suspect that the expansion is likely intended for already experienced mercs, or possibly even players who are near the end of the base game's storyline already. A week gives you the perfect window to start a fresh save and get ready for the expansion.

If you're already a fan of Cyberpunk 2077, we expect that we don't have to tell you to give it another shot, but if you bounced off the game during its rocky launch period, or if you held off on it altogether (perhaps citing a desire to wait for updates to 'fix' it), there will never be a better time to dive in than after the 2.0 update. It's bringing massive re-works and mechanical changes to almost every part of the game. We've already written extensively about those changes, so if you're interested to know which new content is coming with version 2.0 and what will require Phantom Liberty, head over to that coverage to find out.