Cyberpunk 2077 is seeing the launch of its first big expansion, Phantom Liberty, this September. We spotted many new faces while watching the trailer, but the one that stood out (even more than Keanu Reeves’) was Idris Elba’s. Cyberpunk 2077 is no stranger to in-game celebrity appearances, but Elba’s role as Solomon Reed is set to be unique. Developers recently sat down to discuss the RPG game‘s new expansion in a detailed breakdown of the Phantom Liberty trailer, where they went on to state that Solomon Reed was actually written with Idris Elba in mind right off the bat.
After learning more from the trailer and release date for Phantom Liberty recently, many of us have been wondering about Idris Elba’s role within the additional content. We already have Keanu Reeves’ iconic character who is also making a return for the expansion, Johnny Silverhand. Elba’s own character, Solomon Reed, is a spy struggling with his own internal moral compass, torn between whether or not he should remain loyal to the state or those close to him.
In an interview, quest director Pawel Sasko stated, “Basically, when designing a story for Solomon Reed or Idris Elba, we already knew for whom we are writing those things.” Elba and his character are unique because the developers were crafting Reed for the actor rather than the other way around, With Reeves and Silverhand, it was more the opposite. Sasko went on to say, “It was like from almost the very, very beginning, like really early, we already knew for whom we are doing this.”
In other words, Reed was hand-crafted for Elba himself. The developers also discuss the expansion’s new location, Dogtown, the deadliest district in Night City. We will get to play into the intricate story involving espionage and politics galore, taking on the highest echelons of power while also going up against the opposite end of the class system in which the brutal black-market mercenaries reside.
I am excited to learn more about Elba’s role in Cyberpunk 2077 as Phantom Liberty’s release nears closer, but I am also interested to see how Dogtown will pan out as a whole. The new location is said to be “chock-full of new scenery, characters, and more.” After the shaky release of the base game itself, I am just hoping that Phantom Liberty is ironed out well.
If you are excited to dive into Phantom Liberty as soon as it drops, take a look through some of the best Cyberpunk 2077 mods to spice up your gameplay a bit pre-release. You can also browse through some of our other favorite FPS games if you want to play something similar and give yourself a break from Cyberpunk 2077.