Hole in the sky is one of the first missions players will take on during Cyberpunk 2077’s Phantom Liberty expansion. It tasks them with rushing to the crash site and getting to it quickly in order to rescue the president.
However, as players arrive at the crash site, Hansen’s soldiers are guarding it. Songbird tells V they should sneak up to the crash, but it’s no easy feat. In fact, sneaking through all of Hansen’s soldiers can seem impossible.
Related: Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty Complete Guide – Quests, Gigs, Choices, & Collectible Locations
How to Sneak Past Hansen’s Soldiers in Hole in the Sky in Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty
When players arrive at the crash site, it’s a mess of those looking to steal a few items and make a quick profit and Hansen’s well-armed soldiers. The one thing that’s for sure is that going in head-on and shooting through everyone that stands in V’s way isn’t the best option.
Songbird tells V they should try to sneak around Hansen’s soldiers, but it’s up to players how to approach the mission. Below, we’ve outlined how to sneak past the soldiers and get through as much of this mission as possible without being detected.
Note that at a certain point, V is automatically detected by all enemies in the mission. We tested this using optic camo and can confirm that no matter how stealthy a player is, there’s one part of the mission where enemies will attack and make stealth impossible.
Step 1: Sneak Past the Van up to the Tunnel
The path players should take if they want to sneak past Hansen’s soldiers is to the left of the car that will be sitting in front of the yellow holograms and soldiers. It’s not too hard to see, requiring players to move past a few parked vehicles until they emerge beside one on an abandoned road.
When players start to move up the road, they’ll hear two soldiers on the other side of the vehicle to their right. It’s easy to move forward and stay out of their sight. However, two more soldiers will then walk down the road towards V. The best way to avoid them is to hide behind the parked blue van and watch them through the windows and gaps in the vehicle.
When the soldiers have walked past, it’s safe to move further up the road. Aim for the destroyed car because there are two soldiers beyond it who will notice V if players don’t keep them hidden as they approach the top of the road.
Step 2: Move Around the Soldiers and Take Out the Bridge Guard
One V is at the top of the road, they’ll be able to see a few structures inside the tunnel ahead. There are two soldiers hanging around outside the nearest one. If players wait a few moments, these soldiers will split up and start to move away from their position near the building.
Wait for one soldier to walk away down the tunnel and the other to move to the left. Then, V can head to the right-hand side of the building and sneak around the back of them, avoiding all the soldiers on the road to their left.
If players pay attention to each soldier’s position on the road to the left, they should be able to sneak past them without anyone even slightly spotting V. The only problem left is the guard on the bridge. This is a tougher soldier that’ll take more bullets to take down if V is seen.
Once again, if players wait for a moment, they’ll see the guard move to the left of the bridge and stare out at the crash site. This is the perfect time to get behind them, grab them, and kill them. After that, V can stand and climb up to the crane because there are no more guards for a while.
Step 3: Stay Low Through the Firefight
After a short cutscene interaction with Songbird, V will need to enter into an active firefight between bots defending President Myers’ aircraft and Hanen’s soldiers. Whilst it looks like V should just run and gun it from here, it pays to keep sneaking for a while longer.
If players stay low, crouching and moving between covers, then Hansen’s soldiers won’t see them until the last second. We found it easy to sneak up behind soldiers and grab and kill them as we moved forward here.
However, it’s difficult to stay hidden here, and the focus seems to be on V getting a gun out and shooting everything that moves. If soldiers spot V, killing them all will let V sneak into the next area. When V approaches a building at the second firefight, it’s worth waiting by the entrance to allow the drones to kill some of Hansen’s soldiers.
When V enters this building, no matter whether they’re using optic camo or aren’t even seen by enemies, it becomes impossible to stay hidden any longer. This is the point in the mission where enemies are automatically alerted to V when they move around, so there’s no way to sneak anymore.
We attempted this a few times with optic camo. We never even engaged an enemy around the two powerful ones inside the building. It seems to be that there’s a story reason for V to have been spotted and actively engaged in the fight from here on out.
As players move forward, they’ll find President Myers and engage some truly terrifying enemies. Massive mechs that obliterate anything they see. After battling through them, Hole in the Sky will end, and the next mission, Spider and the Fly will start. As with this mission, there’s a big emphasis on stealth in the next one.
