Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty Beginner Guide: Where to Start

Phantom Liberty drops you into Dogtown, a walled-off chunk of Pacifica run by a militia boss, and the road in has a few forks worth knowing about first. There's a level question, a story gate, a glitchy chip in your head, and a whole new set of build rules that came riding in with the free 2.0 update. None of it is tricky once you see the order. Show up around level 15, take Songbird's back door, and don't spend anything rare until you know what kind of V you're playing.

Level Requirement Before Starting

There's no hard level requirement for the expansion. The gate that actually matters is story progress. Finish the main job called Transmission - the Voodoo Boys meeting late in Act 2 where things go sideways with Alt - and before long a mystery caller named Songbird rings you up. That call starts Dog Eat Dog, the first Phantom Liberty mission, with a marker sitting in Pacifica.

So how far away is that? Mainlining the story, you're looking at roughly 10 hours to reach Transmission. A normal run with side gigs mixed in lands closer to 20. Either way, you'll hit it well before the base game's final act, which is why most people say the sweet spot for the DLC is about halfway through the main story.

The level that actually feels right

The community-recommended minimum is level 15, and that's a fair number. Dogtown is not a gentle place. Plenty of enemies there show up with a skull icon, meaning they're above your level - tankier than usual, and they hit like trucks. A level 15 V can handle it, but a fresh-off-the-heist V is going to get flattened in a few firefights.

The nice part is that leveling inside Dogtown is fast. Between the gigs, the side jobs, and picking fights with Barghest patrols, going from 15 to somewhere in the low 20s doesn't take long at all. And finishing Dog Eat Dog alone pays out 888 XP and 130 Street Cred, which is a decent chunk right there.

Don't overdo it in the other direction either. Walking in at the level 50 cap with endgame gear turns most of the expansion into a shooting gallery. Fun for power fantasy, kind of a waste for a spy story that wants a little tension.

The skip-ahead option

If you'd rather not touch the base game first, the main menu gives you a shortcut. Hit New Game and pick "Skip Ahead to Phantom Liberty." You choose a difficulty and a lifepath, build a face, and land in Pacifica as a pre-made level 15 V with about €$20,000 in cash, a preset spread of attributes, and a starter kit of gear. The base game stays fully playable afterward - you're skipping ahead, not deleting anything.

Two things to do before you walk toward Dogtown with that character. First, open the character menu and look at what the game picked for you - the presets are fine but they're generic, and you get one free attribute reset to shape the build you actually want. Second, don't assume old knowledge carries over. If you're loading a save from before patch 2.0, all your perk points get refunded on arrival, so you'll be re-spending those too. Take the five minutes.

Entering Dogtown Safely

Follow the Dog Eat Dog marker down to the district border. The front entrance is a no-go - blocked off and watched - and that's on purpose. Songbird waves you over as you poke around the yellow search zone, your chip starts freaking out (more on that below), and she points you at a back way in: a restricted courtyard and an old parking garage.

The garage run

The game tells you to stay unseen here. Honestly, you've got options. Sneaking or going loud both work, because the only real objective is reaching the garage gate on the far side of the courtyard. If you sneak, crouch and move slow, learn the patrol loops, and use the dumpster on the side to slip past the fence line. Inside the garage you'll flip a generator back on, ride some rickety elevator platforms, and find three goons near the exit who are very surprised to see you.

Going loud is a legitimate plan too. Just know the garage holds more bodies than a level 15 character comfortably enjoys, so if you're still squishy, quiet is cheaper. Either way, nobody grades you on this part.

What's different inside the walls

Dogtown is fenced off from the rest of Night City, with entry points manned by Barghest - the militia that runs the district for Kurt Hansen. The NCPD is flat-out forbidden from entering, and Trauma Team almost never comes in because hardly anyone inside carries their insurance. Barghest sort of keeps the peace, in the way a gang with military hardware keeps a peace.

For you, that means two things early on. One, the cops who'd normally chase you over a fender bender don't follow you in. Two, the district stays on rails for a little while - after the plane crash splash screen, the story walks you through a few missions before the gates truly open up. Partway through Lucretia My Reflection, you get free rein to roam.

Free gear worth grabbing

The moment you step out of the hideout on Elizabeth Kress Street for the first time, airdrops start happening. An AV roars overhead and chucks an orange crate somewhere in the district, and those crates hold some of the best early loot you'll see. Some are guarded. Some are raced to by other people. All of them are worth the detour.

Keep an eye out for Militech data terminals too - those tie into the Relic tree, and there's a whole section on that coming up. And the black market near the stadium is worth a browse once you've got eddies to burn. Dogtown's vendors sell gear you won't find in the base game's shops.

Relic Malfunction Mechanic

Quick story framing, because the mechanic makes no sense without it. The Relic is the experimental biochip stuck in V's head, and it's the thing killing you for the entire game. Songbird's opening pitch is simple: she can fix the Relic, if you help her first. That bargain is the entire reason V walks into Dogtown.

The "malfunction" moment is scripted. When you wander the yellow search zone at the border, the chip glitches out hard, and that's how Songbird makes contact. It's not a status effect you need to manage - it's the story's doorbell.

What the glitch actually does for you

Here's the mechanical payoff. During that same conversation, Songbird pushes a chunk of Militech combat software through the Relic, and that unlocks the Relic skill tree - a sixth tree next to your five attributes. It's exclusive to Phantom Liberty owners, and it runs on its own currency: Relic points.

Relic points do not come from leveling up. Ever. They come from Songbird and from scavenging, which is why they feel rare. Here's the full picture:

| Relic point source | Points | | --- | --- | | Songbird, at the start of Dog Eat Dog | 3 | | Songbird, during Birds With Broken Wings | 3 | | Each Militech data terminal in Dogtown | 1 | | Cost of a main Relic perk | 3 | | Cost of a supporting perk | 1 | | Cost of the entire tree | 15 |

The data terminals are scattered all over Dogtown - under stairs, in parking structures, up in ruined hotels - and they don't show on your map until you're basically standing on them. That's the real reason to explore rather than beeline the story. Skip the wandering and you'll finish the DLC with half a tree.

The three branches

Each main perk opens up its own little cluster. Jailbreak supercharges arm cyberware - Mantis Blades, Gorilla Arms, the Projectile Launch System, and the Monowire all get new tricks, like charged leap attacks for the blades and a five-projectile burst for the launcher. It's fantastic, but only if you actually run arm chrome. If you don't, it's three points sitting dead.

Emergency Cloaking is the stealth pick. Pop Optical Camo mid-fight and enemies lose track of you, which is a genuine get-out-of-jail card on higher difficulties. Fair warning: it does nothing unless you've got Optical Camo slotted as your combat gadget, so buy the camo first. Its support perk, Sensory Protocol, slows time briefly when you're spotted while crouched, on a 120-second cooldown.

Vulnerability Analytics is the crowd-pleaser. In combat you'll spot glowing weakspots on enemies, and hitting one gives you a guaranteed crit with armor penetration plus a little EMP pop. No cooldown, works with every weapon type, useful in basically every build. If you're not sure where your first three points should go, this is the safe answer.

New Perk Tree Changes

Heads up if you last played before fall 2023: the free 2.0 update bulldozed the old progression system for everyone, expansion or no expansion. The trees now have fewer perks, but the ones that are left actually change how you play instead of handing you +5% to something nobody notices.

Five attributes and their tier gates

The attributes are Body, Reflexes, Technical Ability, Intelligence, and Cool, each ranging from 3 to 20. You start with 3 across the board plus 7 points to place, and every level-up hands you one attribute point and one perk point. Attributes also feed small passive bonuses - Body adds max health, Technical Ability adds armor, Reflexes adds crit chance, and so on.

The big lever is the tier system inside each tree:

| Tier | Attribute needed | | --- | --- | | Rookie | 4 | | Pro | 9 | | Phenom | 15 | | Legend | 20 |

You can't even buy a Rookie perk without a 4 in that attribute, and the flashy Legend stuff wants a 20. Which leads to the one build rule that matters early: push one attribute hard, maybe two, instead of sprinkling points everywhere. A 20 in Body gets you tools a pile of 8s never will.

Oh, and the old skill ranks got merged into five tracks - Headhunter, Netrunner, Shinobi, Solo, and Engineer. They aren't locked to their matching attribute, and every 5 ranks earns you a passive bump, so they mostly level themselves through play.

Respec rules, plain and simple

Perk points are forgiving. Any single perk can be refunded for free, any time, straight from the character menu - so experiment to your heart's content. Attribute points are the opposite. You get exactly one full attribute reset per playthrough. One. There's no eddie cost that buys a second. Treat it like a fire extinguisher: glad it's there, hope you don't need it young.

Armor and chrome moved house

Armor now lives on your cyberware, not your clothes - clothing is basically fashion, so wear whatever looks good. What limits your chrome is Cyberware Capacity, which grows with your level and with certain perks. Implants also get attuned to specific attributes now, so a piece of Body-attuned chrome pays out more if your Body is high. Two smaller combat changes worth knowing: shooting and swinging drain stamina, and health items and grenades run on limited charges that recharge over time instead of an inventory you hoard.

Key Early Choices to Avoid

Between the build systems and the story forks, a few early decisions are annoying to walk back. These are the ones worth slowing down for.

Build mistakes that stick

Don't burn your one attribute reset at level 15. New players spend it the second they regret two points, then hit level 30 with a real opinion and no undo button. Sit on it until you've felt out a playstyle.

Don't spread points flat across all five attributes. The tier gates at 9, 15, and 20 punish that hard - you end up able to buy nothing interesting anywhere. One main attribute and one backup is the standard move.

If you used the skip-start, that €$20,000 burns a hole in the pocket. The car dealership will happily take it. A ripperdoc visit - good cyberware within your capacity, maybe that Optical Camo for the Relic branch - pays off way more than a ride with cupholders.

And when you're chrome shopping, watch the Cyberware Capacity bar. Buying an implant you can't comfortably fit means either gutting something else or waiting on capacity shards. The ripperdoc screen shows you the math before you commit.

Story forks worth a save file

The big one lands at Firestarter, a mission where you infiltrate Hansen's party at the stadium. At a key moment Songbird asks you point-blank whether to free her or hand her to Solomon Reed. That single choice steers the entire back half of the story and decides which endings you can reach. Neither answer is wrong, but make a manual save before the stadium - it's the cheapest way to see both roads without replaying 15 hours.

Also worth knowing: Phantom Liberty's storylines can open an extra ending path for the base game itself. So if you care about seeing every way V's story can end, finish the expansion before you roll credits on Night City. And like the base game, the DLC's final stretch warns you before its point of no return - respect the warning and clear your side quests first, because several Dogtown gigs vanish once the story moves on.

The free stuff people walk past

Relic points never come from leveling, so every data terminal you ignore is a perk someone else bought. Airdrops land on a schedule you don't control, and half of them sit a block off your route. Last thing, and it's small: don't restart the intro garage because a guard spotted you. Going loud there is a completely valid outcome - the game literally doesn't care, so neither should you.

Three points into Vulnerability Analytics plus a manual save before Firestarter is the cheapest insurance this expansion sells. Everything else, you can fix later.