Warning: The main questline of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty may fail permanently at the beginning

Anyone diving into Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion should be warned: it’s possible to find yourself locked out of the entire expansion in one of the opening missions.

As described by PC Gamer, the fourth mission in the DLC, titled “Lucretia My Reflection,” gives you the choice to either follow the plan of Solomon Reed (played by Idris Elba) or back out. Then you have to make a choice. Minor spoilers ahead.

If you choose the “You’re right, I’m out” dialogue option the first time, you won’t be immediately locked out of the expansion. You’ll get another chance to change your mind when NUSA President Rosalind Myers says, “Get out of here and the deal is null and void – understand?” Selecting “My Decision Made” fails the mission fail and you will not be able to continue with the rest of the expansion’s main quest.

A few days later, Reed sends you a message to let you know how things went without you. However, attempting to reply to the message results in an error message saying “The account you are trying to reach does not exist.”

There are different ways to actually start the “Phantom Freedom” quest series. The first method is to continue the core game’s main quest to the Transmission mission, which requires you to travel to Pacifica to deal with the Voodoo Boys. Then you will meet Songbird. Anyone who has an existing save file, has already played through the main story and completed “Transmission” can still access the DLC. After a certain amount of time, such as after sleeping, you should receive a message from Songbird. Those starting with new characters also have the option to jump to Phantom Liberty after selecting “New Game” from the game’s main menu.

Phantom Liberty and the free 2.0 update for Cyberpunk 2077 appear to complete the year-long redemption arc for CD Projekt Red’s RPG, which launched in 2020 in a notoriously buggy state and was even pulled from the PlayStation Store for sale as a result. Since then, CD Projekt Red has continued to improve Cyberpunk 2077 and overhauled numerous in-game systems with the game’s latest update.

The results seem to speak for themselves. Shortly after Phantom Liberty’s release, Cyberpunk 2077 shot to the top of Steam’s concurrent player rankings, reaching numbers not seen since shortly after the game’s release. In GameSpot’s review of Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, we gave CD Projekt Red’s latest release a 10/10, saying it “embodies the best of Cyberpunk 2077” and is “an exciting RPG shooter with an impressive story, captivating side content and unforgettable conclusions.”