How to start Phantom Liberty in Cyberpunk 2077

To start Phantom Liberty in Cyberpunk 2077, you have two options. One involves playing through the story organically until you hit the point where the expansion comes into play; the other allows you to avoid the base game entirely and skip ahead to Phantom Liberty.

We’ll walk you through both ways to start CD Projekt Red’s latest expansion for Cyberpunk 2077, Phantom Liberty. For more help navigating the mean streets of Night City in Phantom Liberty, check out how to get Relic Points in Cyberpunk 2077 and have a peek at the Cyberpunk 2077 Relic Perk Tree.

How to play the Phantom Liberty DLC in Cyberpunk 2077

There are two ways to access the Phantom Liberty content in Cyberpunk:

• Start a brand new game from the main menu and choose ‘Skip Ahead to Phantom Liberty’.
• Progress through the main story until you complete the Transmission Main Job and wait for Songbird to contact you.

Skipping ahead to the start of Phantom Liberty with a new save gives you access to all content for Phantom Liberty and the base game. Before jumping Dogtown, you can choose your lifepath, select a difficulty level, and then have a play with the character creator. Your character will start at level 20 with attribute points allocated automatically. You’re given the option to reset and redistribute them once to mould a character and build that suits you. Jump to the character menu and choose ‘reset attributes’ to do so and choose your path down the skill trees you want.

Alternatively, start a new game, select ‘Regular Start’ and play through the main story missions of Act 1 and part of Act 2 until you complete the Transmission Main Job. The same applies for an existing save file. If you’ve already finished the game, you can access Phantom Liberty immediately. After the quest, a new character called Songbird will get in touch. Accept their offer and head over to Pacifica to start the expansion.

In an ideal world, you’ll want to start a new character and playthrough until you stumble into the Phantom Liberty content naturally. This gives you a chance to sample all the changes and new features woven into the game in the 2.0 update. But, if you’re pressed for time, the new game option will save you time and get you into the meat of the paid expansion much quicker.

If you’re after some more Phantom Liberty goodies, we have a Phantom Liberty quest list, and, if you haven’t already, have a read of our review, which praises the expansion as the culmination of Cyberpunk 2077 three-year redemption arc. You may also want to take a look at our picks for the best gaming PC for Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion.