I havnt had a chance to play PL yet but i completed most all side quests in the regular game. Worst to worst, doing the side quests really ties up loose ends and completes the game in my opinion. One of the most rewarding games I’ve ever played in terms of doing side quests. Never felt like it was just side chores or errand boy stuff, but played into the overall story and experience
In PL you unlock new skills and access new weapons that you might want to play with for side or main quests in Night City. However, it’s not a must.
I played the main game on my XBX at launch and completed a playthrough of the main quest on my new gaming PC last week.
The game is so awesome that I will likely play it for years. On PC it’s utterly glorious. More eye candy and less blurry and fussy visually. DLSS and frame generation work like magic!
On PC I purchased the ultimate edition. I have played half way through PL. Wow wow. What an extension. You can tell that they spent over $100m on it.
I got it on PS5 during the December discount for the Ultimate edition (with PL). Still a pretty glitchy game IME but no worse than many other titles. Which in and of itself is an annoyance but that's a topic for another time.
Overall it's pretty enjoyable. It suffers from a lot of issues I have with RPG's and games in general but also has some new methodologies which I found interesting.
Some non-spoilery recommendations:
Don't become too attached to the character you start with and ignore the main quest line until you've played a few levels with a few different builds/faces/backgrounds, etc. just so you can get a handle on all the mechanics and expectations of the game. It has a lot of quirky aspects that aren't very clear until you've played a bit, and by that point it's too late to do anything about it.
A for instance would be the tiered nature of gear and vendors. There are good reasons to keep lower tier gear (especially quickhacks) and once you pass a tier threshold, vendors won't sell lower tier items, so if you disassembled that item, there can be literally no way of getting it when you realise you need or want it.
Having said that, disassemble pretty much everything else because Tech 9 and Chipware Connoisseur is, if not mandatory, then highly desirable, and upgrading gear is very resource intensive.
Oh, and the Inventory slots for gear are solely about bonuses you get from those pieces. Ignore what they look like as your 'look' is governed by your Wardrobe, of which you can design six different styles and switch between them at will. Any item you want to get a bonus from, you have to have in your backpack and in the Inventory slot, so don't disassemble or Stash them.
Every other clothing item you can safely disassemble even if you want it as part of your style because just picking it up means it's auto-added to your Wardrobe selections and never goes away. V is a hoarder like that.
I highly recommend going a female corpo lesbian netrunner (so focusing on Int and quickhacking, mostly through stealth, although monowire and smart weapons are pretty amazing so run'n'gun and slice'n'dice is still an option) and not going to talk to Judy until you've got at least an 8 in Tech because Judy is both awesome and a romance interest, but only for a female V.
The Corpo part is just 'cause the game really feels like it was designed for a Corpo character and the Nomad/Street Kid backgrounds came afterwards.
Netrunning is both a preference of mine, 'cause I prefer stealth and a non-lethal playstyle, and also because the game again feels like it was written for a netrunning character.
I also highly recommend avoiding the main quest line until you've cleared all the NCPD tags in Watson. They're generally fairly easy and straightforward and provide a lot of XP and gear, plus act like a training ground to figure out your playstyle and character preferences.
It also means you'll level enough so that you won't find the main story too difficult (on normal). I'm a story first person and generally don't find making games super difficult for myself either fun or interesting.
You could probably also do Gigs, Jobs and Cyberpsychos but Johnny makes appearances in a lot of those so you may want to wait just for RP reasons.
It's been very slow start to 2077 other games taking priority during '23.
Dizzy heights Level 8 yesterday, though some serious shooting through Glass Panels fun.
No idea when I'll try p.l.
Does 2077 levels continue with p.l.
Every other clothing item you can safely disassemble even if you want it as part of your style because just picking it up means it's auto-added to your Wardrobe selections and never goes away. V is a hoarder like that.
-Night City almost feels like a sequel. The visual art is unique and battles/duels are more action packed and fast paced. You can tell that ditching PS4 and XBone compatibility as resulted in undecided attention for Phantom Liberty. Gameplay and story are strong with new mechanics.
-As a new district it's well integrated into Night city. You can drive in between the two and do missions across both. If you had never played Cyberpunk, you wouldn't know that Night city is the "main game" and Dog town is an "expansion". They feel part of the same game.
-All your cash, weapons etc can be used in Night City and likewise weapons and abilities unlocked in Dog town can be used in Night City.
It's approximately 12-13 hours long which makes feel like an expansion/sequel rather than a DLC. Assassins Creed Mirage and the new COD titles are barely much longer than that. Therefore Phantom Liberty is a good value - especially as all missions feel purposeful with minimal bloat or filler content.
