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Juice, a full-service visual effects, design & audio powerhouse, has collaborated with development studio CD PROJEKT RED and Polish singer-songwriter Dawid Podsiadło for the production of the music video promoting “Phantom Liberty,” the recently released spy-thriller adventure game, which is the first and major expansion for the iconic Cyberpunk 2077.
The story merges the game’s familiar, dark-future world with the cyberspace realm where heroine So Mi thrives, creating script and visual language that offers players a glimpse into the exciting events of the Phantom Liberty expansion.
The key creative aspect of this project was the decision to combine live-action footage with CGI to breathe life into the game’s character, So Mi, played by an actress.
“This approach allowed for the conveyance of authentic emotions and added depth to the character,” explained director Michał Misiński.
The live-action shoot included the addition of cyberware mechanical body elements, skillfully created through SFX makeup and later enriched by CGI. These enhancements seamlessly integrated the actress with the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, making the character come to life on screen.
CG supervisor Jakub Wrzalik added, “In the script, So Mi is being connected to the world that infects her, all you can see after she plugs into the Net we developed in full CGI. Everything there is a projection from within the Net, which is an important element of Cyberpunk 2077 and the Phantom Liberty expansion.”
Misiński adds “A music video set in the Cyberpunk 2077 world connects millions of viewers, and I wanted it to be a tribute to gamers but also a tribute to all the people involved from the production side. We were inspired by the purpose of creating something that would evoke emotions. I appreciate the CD PROJEKT RED team for believing in us wholeheartedly, both in terms of the script and its execution.”
Jakub Knapik, global art director at CD PROJEKT RED comments on the project saying, "Working on a project that combines the incredible emotional punch of the creative collaboration between Dawid Podsiadlo and our composers, P.T. Adamczyk and Marcin Przybyłowicz, and the deep and complex story that Phantom Liberty conveys was an incredibly special one. We tried to create a music video that would naturally expand the visual language of the expansion’s art into a new medium in the most organic way, making it a perfect encapsulation of the whole adventure — but also a super intriguing musical and visual experience in its own right. I’m super proud of how it came together, and I hope gamers and music enthusiasts alike really enjoy the end result.”
After months of collaboration and production that took place from April to September, the music video premiered on September 29, 2023.
