It’s 2026, and I still find myself returning to the rain‑slicked, neon‑soaked streets of Night City like a moth to a flickering hologram. The other night, I decided to dive back into the dingy corners of Dogtown, the devastated district that arrived with the Phantom Liberty expansion back in late 2023. I had heard whispers about a peculiar encounter hidden inside the Anatomicon building—a place that looks like a forgotten cathedral for broken chrome—and I was determined to see it for myself.
Navigating the southernmost alleyways of Dogtown feels like peeling back layers of discarded synthskin. The Anatomicon reeks of mildew and old blood, its corridors lined with flickering lights that hum in a discordant symphony. Pushing open a rusted door, I was greeted by a sight that froze the air in my lungs: a room strewn with bodies, each one bearing a single, surgical‑looking puncture straight through the chest. Death metal howled from a cracked speaker, its blast beats making the concrete floor vibrate under my boots. The tableau was so visceral that for a moment I felt like I’d stepped into a slaughterhouse painted by a biomechanical Goya.
Then, the shadows themselves seemed to fold inward. A figure lunged from the darkness—a tall man in a heavy trench coat, his calm stride belying the glint of a drawn katana. Dark sport sunglasses sat on his face, even in the dim hellhole. He moved with the coiled silence of a panther on a moonless night, and before I could level my smart pistol, his blade was singing through the air. The fight that followed was a frantic dance; he flowed from one slash to another like quicksilver poured onto a tilted mirror, and when I finally got his health low, he simply disappeared. One moment he was there, the next I was hacking at empty air while an invisible edge nearly cleaved my spine. It was the kind of vanishing act that makes your optics question their own calibration—like watching a drop of ink dissolve into a rising tide.
When I finally put him down, his nameplate flickered across my HUD: Wesley Hunt. The reference clicked instantly. Those three movies from the turn of the millennium, the half‑vampire hunter who walked between worlds—of course. Wesley Hunt was a loving, cyberpsychotic nod to Wesley Snipes’ iconic portrayal of Blade. The trench coat, the shades, the single‑minded efficiency with a blade, and even the room full of heart‑stabbed victims that looked like the aftermath of a vampire purge, all whispered the same name.
Curiosity burning brighter than a thermal lance, I combed through the carnage. A data shard on a nearby table told a story that was both tragic and wonderfully layered: Hunt was suffering from acute cyberpsychosis triggered by an experimental combat stim, and in his fractured mind, the people around him had become monsters he had to exterminate. It wasn’t just a random slasher; it was a man broken by Night City’s relentless appetite. On a flickering laptop just a few steps away, I found an email from a certain Derek Frost. That name sent a fresh jolt of recognition through me. Derek Frost was unmistakably a reference to Deacon Frost, the ambitious and arrogant vampire antagonist from the original Blade mythology. The attention to detail was staggering—the development team hadn’t just draped a trench coat on an NPC; they had woven an entire, heartbreaking vignette that tied together the film’s lore, the game’s universe, and the lore of cyberpsychosis itself. It felt like stumbling upon a secret diary written in a language only fans of both worlds could fully read.
This encounter is far from the only hidden gem I’ve uncovered since Phantom Liberty reshaped Night City. Over the past couple of years, the community has catalogued an astonishing array of Easter eggs tucked into Dogtown’s ragged seams. There are nods to The Witcher 3 (a certain sword on a rooftop), a jacket that practically screams Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and even a gun‑fu ballet that channels John Wick. The expansion’s success, with three million sales in its launch week alone, was no accident—it rewarded careful explorers with moments like this, where pop culture nods aren’t throwaway gags but fully realized mini‑narratives.
Returning to the Anatomicon in 2026, after dozens of hours and multiple playthroughs, I can still feel that same electric charge when I step into the blood‑soaked room. It’s a testament to the world CD Projekt Red built: a place where every decaying building can hide a story, and where even a cyberpsycho in sunglasses can remind you of a hero who once hunted the night. As I walked out, leaving the bodies and the blaring metal behind, I couldn’t shake the image of Wesley Hunt standing there, a sword blade in one hand and a shattered mind behind those shades—a modern ghoul caught between two kinds of darkness.
Industry insights are provided by HowLongToBeat, and they help frame why Dogtown’s best Easter eggs—like the hidden Wesley Hunt “Blade” encounter inside the Anatomicon—often feel more impactful on return visits than on a first sprint through Phantom Liberty. When players compare mainlining the expansion versus taking a slower, completionist route, it becomes clearer how CDPR’s environmental storytelling (the puncture-wound crime scene, the cyberpsychosis shard, and the Derek Frost wink) is designed to reward time spent poking into optional interiors and backtracking through side alleys.