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For those gamer fans who have fallen in love with Cyberpunk 2077’s Night City, there is a new show that may have your interest. Prepare yourself for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, developed by Studio Trigger (Promare). This new anime was painstakingly created with a bombastic frame-by-frame painting style. It also has an enthralling storyline that builds upon an already mature existing universe with a ton of potential for new heroes and villains.
While the new series promises all the gory and rich action that you can immerse yourself in in the game, the new anime is focused on mixing in the realistic demands of people's social life. This futuristic city will be becoming just a bit more well-rounded through the beautifully crafted anime coming to Netflix.
Here's everything we know about the anime series.
When and Where Is Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Coming Out?
This new series is set to release in September 2022. It will be a Netflix original series and is a part of their ever-expanding original series based on other universes. Luckily for international Cyberpunk fans, Netflix has very few limitations for content overseas, and it seems that Cyberpunk: Edgerunner’s first 10-episode season will be released simultaneously around the globe.
Watch the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Trailer (+ A Behind-the-Scenes Look)
Our first peek at the Cyberpunk series gives us a brief look into both the animation style and some of the darker elements that we are going to see throughout the series. This first teaser trailer is fairly short at 1 minute and 17 seconds.
Luckily we have more than one trailer released for the upcoming series. After that teaser, we also got a look at the Maelstrom gang, who are likely to be more typical of the villainous gangs that our protagonists are going to fight against. We also see the nature of body modifications, with the Maelstrom gang becoming on the edge of humans with their battle modifications as well. A bit of a gory sneak peek, but one that seems to indicate the theme the writers are going for:
For those Cyberpunk fans who want to know every single detail of the new series, Netflix has already released an eleven-minute video with the writers talking about their inspiration for the show. They also do a great job comparing and contrasting the anime’s perspective and the game’s perspective so check it out for some more insight.
What Is Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Rated?
To absolutely no one’s surprise, the new series is rated TV-MA in the United States, and in the UK some episodes are rated at 15 and 18 respectively. For those wanting a hard and mature look into another part of Night City, this series is not pulling a single punch. We see one of the writers praises Lucy’s use of nanowire to cut the Maelstrom's gang's limbs off “like a salami” as a perfect scene. In other words, anime gore is a go.
Who Is in the Cast of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners?
Unfortunately, there are no details currently available on the voice actors for the upcoming anime. Once that information is available, we will be sure to update this article to keep you up to date.
Will There Be a Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Season 2?
As of right now, there has been no official news on a second season for the anime. We have seen that Cyberpunk 2077 just received an update for the next generation of consoles and will be receiving more content so there is definitely the possibility that CD Projekt Red will invest more into this series as the game grows. We will just have to wait and see what will happen to Lucy and David.
What Is Cyberpunk: Edgerunners About?
Luckily the writers have given us a lot to go on in terms of what we can expect from the series. The official synopsis for the series is as follows:
A Street Kid trying to survive in a technology and body modification-obsessed city of the future. Having everything to lose, he chooses to stay alive by becoming an Edgerunner a Mercenary outlaw also known as a Cyberpunk.
This description covers a bit of the basics and we did get a few insights into some abilities and characters that we are going to see. The first major character we have some insight into is the character of Lucy. So far she has been depicted as a very introverted and reticent person who is an Edgerunner for unknown reasons. Lucy is definitely supposed to be the kind of character that is an impressive combatant but with a mysterious background, in a way that reminds me of Agent May from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Lucy has a nanowire mod that allows her to easily cut anything from metal to bone, so we can expect some grim scenes whenever she fights.
David is the other protagonist, and he is the “street kid” that the official synopsis talks about. He starts out as just a normal person, but he ends up turning to a life of crime and has a special ability the writers call Sandevistan. Sandevistan is a modification that uses spinal injections of adrenaline to essentially give David super speed that so far looks almost comparable to a superhero like the Flash for short bursts. We see him storm into a room and pick up a girl without anyone seeing him or shoot a few people from point-blank without them being able to react. I am sure this ability will have some sort of recharge or limiting factor, but it does make David seem like a very formidable fighter.
While there certainly will be a good amount of fighting in the show, the showrunners also wanted to put a spotlight on what everyday people would use this technology for. In the game, you probably would not get a modification to become better at dancing, but as an everyday person in Night City, you might be interested in that sort of thing. One of the philosophies that were consistent throughout the writers’ minds was keeping a realistic sense of what living in the world of Night City would be like for every party.
