Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty will have "no new romance options" but "some new content" for existing characters

(Image credit: CD Projekt Red)

You won't be able to romance any new characters in Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, but you will at least be able to link back up with the characters you smooched in the base game.

There's been some confusion about how Phantom Liberty romance will work. Quest designer Despoina Anetaki suggested there'd be "some" romantic content, but that "V's attention is in Dogtown." While confirming there would be some "connections" to the base game, Anetaki's comments implied that romance wasn't a priority.

Those comments were expanded on by global community director Marcin Momot, who said that "tons of new stuff" would be coming to the game with Phantom Liberty, but that "romances are not going to be a part of that." Confusingly, however, parts of Momot's comment appeared to conflict with Anetaki; while the latter said there would be some new romance, certain readings of the former could suggest there would be none.

For clarity, particularly around the slightly conflicting claims made by Anetaki and Momot, GamesRadar+ reached out to CD Projekt Red. In a statement, global PR director Radek Grabowski said "I can confirm that there will be no new romance options, but there will be some new content added for the existing romance options. So both Despoina and Marcin are correct, because Marcin actually meant no new romance options and no significant changes in this area."

The extent of that "new content" remains to be seen, but quest designer Pavel Sasko has previously likened Phantom Liberty's efforts in that direction to The Witcher 3's Hearts of Stone expansion, which offered new dialogue with Triss or Yennefer. Even that comparison, however, wasn't 100% clear, as that expansion does also add a new paramour in the form of Shani. It might be that we have to wait for Phantom Liberty to drop before we find out exactly what side of Judy, Panam, River, and Kerry we'll see in the expansion.

Phantom Liberty isn't the only upcoming CD Projekt Red game - and I better see some more of Triss in the next Witcher game.

I'm GamesRadar's Managing Editor for news, shaping the news strategy across the team. I started my journalistic career while getting my degree in English Literature at the University of Warwick, where I also worked as Games Editor on the student newspaper, The Boar. Since then, I've run the news sections at PCGamesN and Kotaku UK, and also regularly contributed to PC Gamer. As you might be able to tell, PC is my platform of choice, so you can regularly find me playing League of Legends or Steam's latest indie hit.