Should you help Songbird or Reed in Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty?

Should you help Songbird or Reed in Phantom Liberty? This is one of the most crucial decisions you'll need to make in the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, and as always in this game, there are pros and cons to both options. The pair have very different goals, so this choice comes down to who you want to help the most and which of the Phantom Liberty endings you want to achieve. Here's everything you need to know about whether to help Songbird or help Reed in the Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty Firestarter mission.

Obviously there are spoilers ahead for the "Firestarter" mission in which you'll make this choice, as well as for the immediate consequences of each path. There are also links to other guides that contain major spoilers for the different endings of Phantom Liberty, so click carefully!

Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty help Songbird or Reed choice explained

After successfully getting through the meeting with Kurt Hansen disguised as Aurore Cassel in the Firestarter mission, you join Songbird in the Dogtown stadium lab. Here you’ll start helping her extract the Neural Matrix device that can apparently cure V of their malfunctioning Relic issues and Songbird of her Blackwall AI corruption. When the Neural Matrix is ready to receive Aurore’s access codes, you’ll reach a junction where you must decide where your loyalties lie. Do you…

• Help Songbird escape | “I’m with you.”: Songbird wants to follow along with Alex and Reed’s plan to extract the Neural Matrix then deal with Hansen. However, instead of escaping with Reed and Alex, she plans to use her netrunning powers to turn the stadium’s defenses hostile, providing a chaotic distraction for you the two of you to go on the run and get cured.
• Help Reed capture Songbird | “One more second…”: Reed wants you to stall for time to upload the ICEbreaker device he gave you to knock out Songbird, making it easier to get her and the Neural Matrix out of Dogtown. With Songbird out of Hansen’s hands, you can complete your mission and hand her back to President Myers, which is exactly what Songbird doesn’t want.

While these choices do determine which endings you can get for the expansion, neither one locks you out of the main Cyberpunk 2077 endings, including the new Phantom Liberty end scenario. Having played through both choices and all the endings, I wouldn’t say that one of the above choices is clearly better than the other, as both offer varied gameplay in missions and interesting story developments. Save scrub and try both if you can!

Help Songbird escape in Phantom Liberty

By helping Songbird with her escape plan, things go mostly how she intended. You upload the Neural Matrix access codes, allowing her to get the device, Alex then kills Kurt Hansen and his Barghest goons, and the defense systems create a distraction that you can use to escape.

However, in breaching the stadium’s systems, Songbird briefly loses control and is briefly overcome with Blackwall corruption, which somewhat wrecks the stadium. Since you clearly didn’t use the ICEbreaker device to knock out Songbird, Alex and Reed notice your betrayal. You must then fight your way through the stadium with Songbird and get out through some sewer tunnels where your getaway vehicles pick you up.

After this, you’ll have to wait several in-game days for Songbird to get back in contact with you as you start “The Killing Moon” mission. Based on my experience, it seems to take at least five days for Songbird to call back. The Killing Moon is also the final mission of this path, though it’s a pretty long, tense, and action-packed finale that leads you into the Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty Reed choice ending.

Help Reed capture Songbird in Phantom Liberty

By helping Reed capture Songbird, things go very wrong, very quickly. Songbird is immediately suspicious of your stalling but eventually extracts the Neural Matrix. She then alerts Hansen that there’s problem, which leads to him killing Alex while she deals with you.

Regardless of your attempts to convince Songbird to follow along with Reed’s plan, she tells you that she’s doing what she must to survive, and Hansen brutally kills Alex. While the ICEbreaker does eventually get through to Songbird, she unleashes her Blackwall corruption and goes on a cyberpsycho rampage through the Dogtown stadium. Shortly after, you fight your way through the stadium and battle Kurt Hansen (you can loot some decent weapons from him once he’s dead) before Reed manages to pick you up.

With a loose cyberpsycho in Dogtown, MaxTac is quickly called in to incapacitate Songbird and take her in. You’ll then get to complete multiple missions, starting with “Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos”, where you work with Reed to get Songbird back. They all eventually culminate in the Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty Songbird choice ending.

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