Cyberpunk 2077 Players Accidentally Lock Themselves Out of Phantom Liberty DLC

Cyberpunk 2077’s massive expansion, Phantom Liberty, has arrived, and fans are loving the chance to check out the coveted Dogtown, and play through their tense spy-thriller. There’s been a lot of praise thrown around as fans return to the game following its original launch in December 2020, and some fans have discovered that they can purchase the expansion but lock themselves out of it.

The way they do this is through explicit narrative choices. Any player who purchases the Phantom Liberty expansion can prevent themselves from seeing the story through to the end through two methods in Cyberpunk 2077.

Cyberpunk 2077 Fans Cut Themselves Out From Playing Phantom Liberty Content

Players have discovered that there are certain points where they prevent themselves from continuing the Phantom Liberty storyline in Cyberpunk 2077. There are two distinct instances, one being more direct than the other. One of them is close to the beginning of Phantom Liberty when the New United States President crash lands in Dogtown. There’s a moment for V to choose to not chase down the ship, with Songbird screaming in their ear to chase it down. Eventually, if V never decides to go after the crashed ship, the President dies, and so does the rest of their Phantom Liberty progression.

The second way to do this is after the player has rescued the President. They would have met with the sleeper agent hiding in Dogtown, Solomon Reed, played by Idris Elba, and brought him to see the President. There, Reed will ask V if this is too much and if this is something they want to commit to right now in their Cyberpunk 2077 playthrough.

The player’s character can agree with Reed, pointing out that this entire operation is way over their head, and there’s no way they should be involved with this. The President will reiterate that they need you on this, but the player’s character can double down on not wanting to get involved, and the player will fail the mission and they can freely leave the area. This doesn’t lock out Dogtown in Cyberpunk 2077, but it does stop a player from seeing how Phantom Liberty ends, which might be a fun dialogue tree to see it happen in real time.

It’s a fun choice players can explore, given their choices, but for anyone who purchased the expansion, it doesn’t make sense to miss out on playing through Phantom Liberty. For many Cyberpunk 2077 players, it’s brought them back to playing the game alongside Update 2.0, which heavily changes the game and has been the main reason I’ve been rolling around Night City again.

These changes have been extreme, and I think the update propels the Phantom Liberty expansion forward, turning it into a beautiful experience, and one I talked about in more detail with my review.