You'd think after four trips through Night City, I'd have seen it all. I mean, I've stared down Arasaka goons, danced with rogue AIs, and even had a friendly chat with a sentient vending machine. But here I was in 2026, booting up Phantom Liberty for what felt like the hundredth time, and the game still managed to send a genuine shiver down my spine. It was during the "Birds With Broken Wings" quest, that moment when you're going deep undercover. The Ripperdoc, Farida, had just finished installing my new face—a slick piece of RealSkinn tech that made me look like a completely different person. As the dialogue wrapped up, something told me to just... look around. And boy, am I glad I did.
Most folks, they just blast through the mission, eager to get back to the streets. But I took a detour. I wandered around Farida's clinic, the sterile white light humming overhead. And then I saw it. Over on the right side of the lab, just before the exit back to the grimy, neon-soaked chaos of Night City, there was this... vat. And floating inside, suspended in some kind of clear preservative fluid, was my face. My old face. The one I'd been looking at for the past 60 hours of gameplay. It just floated there, eerily serene. Talk about a gut punch.
That's when it really hit me. This face implant gig? It ain't some subtle plate slipped under your skin. Nah. To get a new mug in Night City, you gotta have the old one... removed. Completely. Peeled right off. The tech is brutal, man. They just pop your whole face off and stick it in a jar, like some kind of morbid souvenir, just in case you ever want it back. It's a wild, visceral detail that perfectly captures the dark soul of Cyberpunk 2077. Technology here isn't always a blessing; sometimes, it's just a prettier kind of horror.
What's even crazier? Some sharp-eyed players on the net pointed out that if you squint and get the angle just right, it's not just the face in that tube. You can see the outline of a whole body, lying flat. Whether it's a creepy easter egg or a graphical glitch that became canon, it sure adds another layer of "what the hell" to the whole scene. It makes you wonder what the full procedure actually entails. Gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.
This little discovery, this jarred face, is more than just a spooky prop. It's the game's in-universe explanation for something we players do all the time: changing our character's appearance. Ever wondered how V can stroll into a Ripperdoc and come out looking like a completely different person? Well, now you know. They literally take off the old face and slap on a new one. Phantom Liberty just had the narrative guts to show us the grisly reality behind the menu screen. It's these layers of dark, world-building detail that made the DLC, and the game as a whole, such a masterpiece.
Sitting here in 2026, with CD Projekt Red long since moved on to the sequel, moments like this are why I keep coming back. They said Phantom Liberty was the final word on this iteration of Night City, and what a send-off it was. The writing, the performances, the quests that stick with you—it was all top-tier. Finding my own face in a vat was a stark reminder that in this city, your identity is just another piece of hardware, upgradeable and disposable. It's a story beat that didn't need a cutscene or a codex entry. It was just there, waiting in the quiet of a clinic, for anyone patient enough to look. And after four playthroughs, I finally saw it. Sometimes, the most shocking truths are the ones you have to find for yourself.