Phantom Liberty has a terrifying Alien: Isolation inspired mission

You can also find out more about the following: Cyberpunk – 2077, there are few problems that can’t be solved with either a bullet, a blade, or a colorfully worded variation of “F you.” In Phantom LibertyThe first and only game expansion, CD Projekt Red, throws the curveball to the player with an optional last mission, which is inspired by one of the best survival horror games from the eighth console generations.

[Ed. note: Spoilers for the endings of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty.]

When I completed my first playthrough, Phantom Liberty: Cyberpunk 2077I went back to an earlier save to see what else the expansion offered. After choosing to side with Idris Elba’s Solomon Reed during the mission “Firestarter,” I was led on a series of missions that saw me escaping from the Dogtown warlord Kurt Hansen’s clutches, mounting a coordinated ambush on a MaxTac prisoner convoy, and descending into the bowels of Night City to infiltrate a secret Militech research facility dating back to pre-DataKrash era.

Image: CD Projekt Red

So far, so ordinary; nothing out of the usual for Night City’s most in-demand merc. It’s during the “Somewhat Damaged” mission where the game takes a steep detour into full-on horror, introducing a challenge that can’t be conventionally defeated. Cerebus MK-II: a horrifying experimental spider-mech, impervious of ballistics, quickhackery or witty bon mots. The Cerebus has a predilection for loudly crawling in and out of air ducts while screaming vague threatening shit, and grabs the player to show them the business end of its many, many drill arms.

Essentially, the mission resembles one of the many encounters in Creative Assembly’s 2014 survival horror game Alien: Isolation, except instead of being hunted by an acid-spitting Xenomorph across a derelict retro-futuristic space station, you’re being stalked by the cyberpunk equivalent of System Shock’s Shodan in a mech suit from hell. The whole situation is made even more horrifying by the fact that the closer the Cerberus mech gets to you, the more a cacophony of velvet static seizes the corners of the player’s field of view, accompanied by a sound queue which could only be described as an off-the-rails Philip Glass horror score.

Image: CD Projekt Red

Image: CD Projekt Red

It is one of the most memorable and nerve-wracking experiences, not just in Phantom LibertyBut not in its entirety Cyberpunk 2077If you’ve played “Somewhat Damaged”, then it is clear that the players have really taken to it. Players who have experienced “Somewhat Damaged” have really taken to the mission, as GamesRadar pointed out in a recent article. Patrick Mills, a Franchise and Lore Designer at CD Projekt Red, tweeted, “I love Alien Isolation and the Frictional Games style, but they are too scary for me. So I decided to make one.”

The rest of his family and I are all in agreement that the Phantom LibertyTeam succeed. It is a great addition to Cyberpunk 2177CD Projekt Red has managed to sneak one of the most chilling videogame horror experiences this year.