The upcoming Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty DLC will be the "biggest budget" expansion developer CD Projekt Red has ever produced.
The news comes from a Polish interview with the studio which called Phantom Liberty the "biggest expansion in the studio's history", though the vagaries of Google Translate left some confusion over whether that was biggest in terms of budget or scope.
As community director Marcin Momot explains in a Reddit post, "this part is about the biggest budget when it comes to expansion packs we’ve released. We will be talking more about the game scope related details in the future."
In terms of scope, at least, CD Projekt's previous biggest expansion was The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine, which introduced a 20-hour campaign set in a brand-new region with loads of fresh characters to meet, enemies to fight, and gear to procure.
We know that Phantom Liberty will primarily take place in a new region of Night City, with a "spy-thriller" theme. Keanu Reeves is back as Johnny Silverhand alongside Idris Elba as a new character named Solomon Reed - so, you know, maybe some amount of that massive budget is going to the celebrity voice performances. We'll see the full scope of Phantom Liberty soon enough, as the expansion is supposed to launch this year.
Cyberpunk 2077 stumbled (and arguable tripped into a lengthy series of rakes) at launch with a pile of technical issues, but robust patches and a surge of new interest thanks to the Edgerunners anime seems to have largely turned the game's perception around.
There's plenty more coming out this year, so stay up to date with our guide to the biggest new games for 2023.
