More than just a DLC – Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty puts the crown on the base game (Review and Benchmarks)

Test scene and setup

I use a savegame of my own and run at normal speed from outside to the partially destroyed stadium, then across the whole market bustle for one round there and back to a fast travel point. This takes about 60 seconds in my interpretation. To stay somewhat reproducible in an open world, I use a special trainer that grants me a constant time (late afternoon) for the outdoor area, including all shadows, and that also makes me completely invisible. This really gets the job done and catches just about anything that might push the framerates into one of the many basements. Showing the benchmark scene would be an NDA violation, as I’m unfortunately not allowed to show my own videos this morning. Therefore, I’ve put together six pictures that can show the progression quite well. In, around, back.

 

For the benchmarks, I use my usual test system with the Ryzen 9 7950X and 32 GB DDR5 6000 on an MSI MEG X670E Ace and two fast PCIe 4.0 SSDs from MSI. The power supply is the Be Quiet Dark Power Pro with 1600 watts (yes, a bit more, but it runs) and for the CPU cooling a custom loop from Alphacool with the Core cooling block. That’s all you need to know about the system, because the graphics cards are constantly changing, of course. Of course, rBAR is always enabled for this.

Benchmarks

So, now we’ll break up and bring the suspense to a pleasant end. Of course, you can drive almost every graphics card into a technical emergency stop, but with a little bit of brains and sensitivity, everything runs a few levels lower. And the Radeon guild doesn’t have to mourn, because the Radeons perform quite well outside the radiation desert. Thus, the game isn’t an NVIDIA-exclusive spa, but just as well. For full blast in overdrive with pathtracing, ray reconstruction, DLSS Balanced (quality hardly looks better) and frame generation, you can only be happy with a GeForce RTX 4090 in ultra HD.

But you do not have to produce extra bar graphics with only one card for the 80 to 100 FPS. Yes, you can also enjoy the full splendor with DLSS in QHD and Full-HD, but first, we already had an article about DLSS 3.5 and second, we will also benchmark everything in detail again in due time. Only you don’t have to go in and sweat. The exterior view of the torture chamber can also be entertaining. After all, the game is primarily about content and not just the packaging (but for some it is, depending on the pixel ticket and the row of seats). And be it, in order to drink itself Ray and Pathtracing at one of the innumerable beverage shops dignified beautifully. Without also goes, only not so styleful and optically tipsy. And those who don’t want to financially will at least find a slightly different kind of ray tracing followed by pathtracing in Dogtown.

Anyway, today I first want to create an overview for everyone, so pick up Radeon and GeForce owners together, because it’s about the game, the patch 2.0 and a scene from the DLC, which is symbolic for Dogtown. Let’s start with the Ultra preset without ray tracing, which is still quite smoothly playable in Full HD even on an old GTX 1080 Ti with 60 FPS. In QHD, everything below the RTX 3070 already gets a bit jerkier and I saved the bars for Ultra-HD because only the first four cards were even capable of it. However, you do not have to play in Ultra to have fun. Here you should really stand on the stairs to the stadium once and run into the halls to find the best preset. If everything runs well here, you can also get along well with it elsewhere.

Raytracing or not, I still have a benchmark. I deliberately don’t use pathtracing in overdrive, because that would leave the Radeons out. Therefore, I deliberately use the QHD resolution and DLSS or FSR in the balanced preset for the last benchmark today. You gain a few FPS compared to the Quality Preset without big compromises. I don’t test Full HD because FSR looks horrible even on Quality and Ultra HD would again exclude most cards. The rest you already know: Do the stadium test if necessary and find the best compromise for you.

That’s it, and for all overdrivers and pathfinders among the richer GeForce owners: Today is just not your day, even if it looks nicer in many ways with Jensen’s really big cutlery box. After all, we want to play and not just stare around in amazement. And every now and then there is fog or smog anyway. Then an analog paintbox and a slosh of watercolor water will do. R.I.P Bob Ross, you are the best.

Conclusion and summary

The DLC “Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty” is more than just a paid appendix or the pointless accumulation of new but expendable items, but it is a terrific expansion that takes the best of the base game and presents it in new and exciting ways, implementing it seamlessly. While not reinventing the game from the ground up, the DLC still offers enough new things to excite and fully pick up both long-time fans and newcomers alike. In the end, with its compelling story, innovative gameplay, and stunning graphics, Phantom Liberty is arguably a true must-have for any cyberpunk 2077 fan. It’s an impressive testament to what’s possible when developers listen to feedback and strive to provide the best possible gameplay experience, and not just sell more useless weapons and clothing gimmicks for expensive money. What goes around comes around, and this time it’s really good.

This one is really pure plot and gameplay and not just an expensive overdrive for Jensen’s next leather jacket (which, by the way, I would have loved to see in the inventory as a humorous item). Even though I usually don’t get carried away with euphoric purchase recommendations for games, because a very special and well-paid profession already exists for it, which shouldn’t become unemployed either: There is a big thumbs up from me this time. No, you shouldn’t buy it, you really have to. That times in addition.