Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red have revealed that their upcoming Phantom Liberty expansion will be the studio's biggest yet.

Later clarifying that this pertains to budget suggests that it might not be their biggest in terms of geography or duration, which are two standard measures of size.

So it might be smaller in some respects than expansions for their fantasy action roleplaying game The Witcher 3.

Is it meaningful for a studio to boast that latest piece of work is their most expensive?

Typically no.

Inflation is a thing and a range of other factors would also contribute to this being true nearly all of the time.

However, CP 2077 is an unusual game.

It is the second most expensive video game ever made, behind seemingly forever in development Star Citizen, and had an extremely rocky launch.

Previous CDPR games were both critical and popular hits. CP 2077 was a disaster.

Originally they had planned to follow CP 2077 with a separate but set in the same universe multiplayer game.

That was scrapped and instead they began working on adding multiplayer to CP 2077.

Later that was also scrapped when the developer abandoned their own in house REDengine and announced that all future games would be developed in Unreal Engine 5.

Though they are working on a new Cyberpunk game and their animated Netflix series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners was quite successful for an anime title.

Despite the base game not performing anywhere near as well as expected, and the fact that they're already working on another Cyberpunk game in a different engine, the Phantom Liberty expansion will be substantial.

In these circumstances we'd expect many developers to not release an expansion at all or for it to be a cheaply produced grab for cash.

That's the point of telling us this is their most expensive to produce expansion.

CDPR might be wisely prioritising long-term health of the Cyberpunk franchise over immediate profit.

Also possible is that after years of patching and the game having now sold 20 million copies, there is serious profit potential in this expansion.

It is one that we are very keen to play.

Cyberpunk 2077's first and only planned expansion Phantom Liberty is scheduled to release sometime this year on PC, Xbox X|S and PS5.

Note that while the base game was also released on previous gen Xbox One and PS4 consoles, the expansion won't.

[ Main Image: Cyberpunk 2077. Credit: CDPR via GOG. ]

References

De Meo, Francesco (January 20, 2023). [UPDATE] Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty Will Be CD Projekt Red’s Biggest Expansion To Date. WCCFTech.

Wikipedia. Cyberpunk 2077. (viewed January 22, 2023)

Wikipedia. List of most expensive video games to develop. (viewed January 22, 2023)