CD Projekt Red uses Idris Elba to not-so-subtly remind players that Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is now "fixed"

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Idris Elba
(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

CD Projekt Red really wants Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty players to know that its RPG is back and better than ever - and it's used Idris Elba to get the message across. 

As highlighted by Twitter user @TheCartelDel, Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt Red has not so subtly poked fun at its RPG's messy launch in one of Phantom Liberty's trailers. If you caught the 'Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty – All In' trailer, which starred Solomon Reed himself, aka actor Idris Elba, you're sure to already be aware of what we're talking about. 

In the trailer, Elba can mostly be seen walking around a club while snippets of gameplay appear on screen. During the trailer, the actor talks about Night City, saying things like: "In Night City the rules are different and the stakes are higher. One wrong move is all it takes to get burned." After a few more seconds of this, Elba continues to address the camera as Cyberpunk 2077's in-game visuals take over and we see the actor as his character Solomon Reed.

"The more you have, the more you stand to lose," Reed says in the trailer, "so go ahead and play. Just don’t forget… the game is fixed," before the character raises a weapon to the screen and the trailer ends. This "CHAMPION level double-entendre," as the Twitter user above calls it, has got Cyberpunk 2077 fans all excited at the fact CD Projekt Red is "so back."

"Yeah this is brilliant," Twitter user BenjiSales replied to the above tweet, shortly followed by other fans of the RPG adding things like: "YOOOOOOO meta AF! I love it," and "If I ever came up with something this good I would probably just ride the high for months." Honestly, after Cyberpunk 2077's disastrous launch back in 2020, CD Projekt Red deserves a win - and luckily, Phantom Liberty seems to have done just the trick to win players back. 

As we said in our Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty review, the expansion feels like "the culmination of CD Projekt Red's efforts."

Hope Bellingham
News Writer

After studying Film Studies and Creative Writing at university, I was lucky enough to land a job as an intern at Player Two PR where I helped to release a number of indie titles. I then got even luckier when I became a Trainee News Writer at GamesRadar+ before being promoted to a fully-fledged News Writer after a year and a half of training.  My expertise lies in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, cozy indies, and The Last of Us, but especially in the Kingdom Hearts series. I'm also known to write about the odd Korean drama for the Entertainment team every now and then.