Cyberpunk 2077: Should you kill Milko in Phantom Liberty?

Treating Symptoms is one of the optional, brand-new side gigs to be found in the Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty DLC, which focuses on taking down a man named Milko Alexis. Your fixer Mr Hands will inform you of the plight of his client Indira Barazza, who is being targeted by the Voodoo Boys with blackmail. Milko is the one who is threatening Indira directly, and so it is up to you to put a stop to his harassment however you can. 

This is a gig wherein you will ultimately have a choice as to how to deal with the target. But with so many options to choose from, many won’t know how to reach the outcome they’d like.

As always, spoilers ahead!

Treating Symptoms mission in Cyberpunk 2077: Should you kill Milko? Full guide

Go to the Voodoo Boys’ hideout

First things first: Head over to the Luxor High Wellness Spa. Unfortunately, you aren’t going to have time for any rest and relaxation whilst there. The spa has been converted to a hideout for the Voodoo Boys gang, and it is where Milko is holed up. Once you are close enough to the green side gig icon, Mr. Hands will call you and a marker will appear on your map showing you the way.

Make your way through the hideout

As is the case with a lot of Cyberpunk 2077’s missions, you have the option to go in stealthily or all guns blazing. There is a back entrance you can use if you want to be quiet, which can be found on the opposite side of the main entrance.

The main entrance might be a little tricky, as there are Voodoo Boys gang members guarding the door. Due to my lack of skills when it comes to being quiet in these sorts of missions, I managed to sneak past the first few Voodoo Boys, but ultimately ended up being spotted. It then turned into a total run and gun rush. It doesn’t make a difference to the outcome of the mission, so choose the option that works best for you.

A little tip if you are trying to be sneaky is to knock out the guards at the entrance and then take a left as soon as you go inside. There is a door that can be forced open if you have a Body skill level of at least 10. If you have the right level, open the door and take down the guards inside.

They have their backs turned, so you should be able to stealthily eliminate them as long as you remain crouched and move slowly. Keep moving through this area, and you will come to a corridor made from a makeshift hole in the wall. Pass through it, and you will eventually come to a security area where you can turn off all the security cameras in the building.

The marker on the map will direct you up a set of stairs. Follow the marker to the right when you go up the stairs. You can go left if you want to explore a little bit and do some scavenging.

Talk to the supplier (Optional)

When you have cleared the main area and have gone up the stairs, as per the mission markers directions, an optional choice of talking to a supplier working with the Voodoo Boys will appear on the right-hand side. Talking with him can be helpful for a fight that will happen on your way to finding Milko, so I would suggest a quick chat with him.

There is a doorway on the right when you have ascended the stairs with a particular image painted next to it. The picture is of a skull with a line of blue paint running through it, so it is pretty noticeable.

Go through this open doorway, and you will find the supplier on the right-hand side of the shelving. In my play-through, he was crouching in fear, seeing as I had shot up the place. He wasn’t against chatting with me, though, once he realized I wasn’t about to blow his head off.

The supplier will tell you about the upcoming fight that you will have to go through to get to Milko, but it isn’t a fight against your fellow humans. Instead, you will be fighting humanoid robots that the Voodoo Boys have been secretly constructing. The supplier will offer some help when it comes to taking down the bots, but you will need to either bribe him or threaten him (so long as you have enough of the right skill points) to do so.

If you opt for this choice, he will offer to overload the disk arrays whilst you mess with the servers in the server room where the robots are kept. Unfortunately, once inside the server room, I panicked so ended up completely forgetting about the supplier’s plan and went in all guns blazing again. I would advise trying to go with this overloading plan, though, as the bots are definitely not an easy fight.

Fight the robots

Make your way into the server room to start the fight between you and the bots. There will be one robot that is the main enemy here, and it is easily identified by the large health bar and the name Robot R MK.2.

This bot will be harder to take down, but the others you face will only need a few well-placed shots to neutralize. Once the robots are taken care of, follow the map marker through to a long corridor. There is a door that you will reach eventually and inside, you will find Milko. However, he isn’t alone. 

Talk to the netrunner (Optional)

Milko is incapacitated as he is hooked up to the Net with a netrunner watching over him. Your assignment was to get rid of him, so if you want to end the mission quickly, you are free to simply start shooting up the place. The gig will be complete but there is a better option to be had.

Instead, talk to the netrunner. He will tell you that he is actually a Netwatch agent and an organized crime specialist who has been working deep undercover in the Voodoo Boys gang to find the head honcho. However, his job is not yet done.

If you kill Milko now, then you will ruin Netwatch’s chance to find out more information about who is in charge. But you only have the words of this rando as proof. The agent—whose name is Alan—will try and convince you to let Milko live so that he can continue his deep cover operation.

It’s a tough choice, as you are essentially putting your trust in a complete stranger. Alan makes promises that you will be making a huge difference to the normal people of Night City by tackling the Voodoo Boys crime ring, but this might come at the expense of your client, Indira. If Milko is left alive, he is likely to still target her, which will be a failure for this gig.

So do you kill Milko or leave him alive to potentially make more of a dent in the Voodoo Boys crime syndicate further down the line?

Should you kill Milko?

To get the best outcome for the side gig and the maximum rewards, you should definitely not kill Milko. Despite Alan not having any credible proof as to his role in Netwatch, I can confirm that he is telling the truth. You might be tempted to simply kill Milko, but the only benefit of killing him is that it is the quicker option, and you won’t have to go through the dialogue with Alan.

If you agree to let Alan continue his mission, you will get a call from Mr. Hands after you have left the Voodoo Boys’ hideout. He will tell you that he has been contacted by Netwatch and they have assigned 24-hour protection to Indira so that no matter how skilled they might be, no netrunner is going to be able to get their hands on her. So, you successfully complete your mission of protecting Indira without having to dismantle Netwatch’s undercover sting (and possibly kill one of their agents). 

Mr Hands will express how impressed he is with the way that you handled the gig, and you will get some extra rewards. I didn’t play through the choice wherein you kill Milko, but I’m guessing that if you choose this option then Indira will be safe—for now—but Netwatch will be infuriated with your choice. You will probably have to kill Alan too, which seems a little unnecessary seeing as he hasn’t done anything to affront you.

Final verdict on whether you should kill Milko in Phantom Liberty

Ultimately, the best decision when playing through the Treating Symptoms side gig in the Phantom Liberty Cyberpunk 2077 DLC is to spare Milko. Leave Alan and Netwatch to their undercover mission and you will not only be able to ensure that Indira is kept safe, but you will also be able to walk away without causing any unnecessary bloodshed (not counting the Voodoo Boys members that might have gotten in your way). 

You get some additional XP if you make this decision too, as well as some praise from Mr Hands, which is a nice little confidence boost. Unless you have a particularly strong bloodlust that can only be quenched if you take out Milko yourself —kinda weird, but whatever—then I would highly recommend leaving Milko alive.