Netflix’s Cyberpunk: Edgerunners connects to Cyberpunk 2077 in weird ways

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Studio Trigger’s (Kill la Kill, Promare) 10-episode anime series set in the same universe as CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077, is finally here — and it totally whips.

Rafal Jaki produced the executiveGwent: The WitcherPoker), co-written by Bartosz Sztybor (Cyberpunk 2077Hiroyuki Itamishi directed the film.Gurren Lagann, Promare(), follows David Martinez’s story as a street boy from Santo Domingo’s Night City. David attends an Arasaka Corporation Charter School. Following a tragedy that leaves him orphaned, David submits himself to being implanted with an experimental cyberware augmentation and turns to the only life left for him: becoming an edgerunner, a cybernetic mercenary for hire who joins a gang of fellow “cyberpunks’’ in search of fame and fortune.

Fans of CD Projekt Red’s 2020 action-RPG may be curious as to how EdgerunnersIt relates to the Story of Cyberpunk 2077If at all. The short answer is: It’s complicated. The long answer is… Well, let’s just get into it.

[Ed note: Spoilers for Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077 follow.]

Night City is back!

Image: Studio Trigger/Netflix

Cyberpunk: EdgerunnersNight City is where it all takes place. It’s a futuristic, futuristic metropolis which serves as the principal setting. Cyberpunk 2077. When you share the same spot, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a stand-alone series featuring its own original cast of characters with their own storylines separate from that of either CD Projekt Red’s game or any storyline in Mike Pondsmith’s original tabletop RPG.

Many locations with supporting characters. Cyberpunk 2077Be noticed throughout the year Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, either as allies to David and co. or as non-speaking blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em background cameos. While an exact year and date is never specified in the series, it’s possible to infer from both context clues and the appearance (and non-appearance) of certain characters that Cyberpunk: EdgerunnersThis takes place prior to the events of Cyberpunk 2077.

Cyberpunk 2077 Characters and Locations in Edgerunners

A major supporting character makes their first appearance from Cyberpunk 2077In Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is in episode 4, “Lucky You.” David and his fellow edgerunners visit the Afterlife, the iconic bar in the northern Watson district of Night City owned by Rogue, the biggest fixer in the city and the ex-lover of prominent 2077 NPC Johnny Silverhand (Keanu Reeves). After helping Rebecca escape a fight with Afterlife bouncers and David, David, and Rebecca make a deal with Rogue. Rogue seems to give them their approval. Claire Russell is a bartender in Afterlife.

David can later be seen visiting Lizzie’s Bar, the “braindance” club located in Watson and owned and operated by the Mox, one of the eight major gang factions in Night City. Three of the other factions, the Animals, the Tyger Claws, and Maelstrom, make prominent appearances in episode 1, “Let You Down, episode 3, “Smooth Criminal,” and episode 4, while other gangs, such as 6th Street, make background appearances in the form of graffiti tags and vehicle decals.

Episode 7, “Stronger,” features a brief vocal cameo by Wakako, the top fixer in the Westbrook district of Night City in Cyberpunk 2077. Two other supporting characters, Regina Jones and Sebastian “Padre” Ibarra, make brief cameos on a holographic display of prominent fixers in Night City. The most significant appearance is by far by the aforementioned characters. Cyberpunk 2077In character Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is Adam Smasher, Arasaka’s full-borg head of security and Johnny Silverhand’s nemesis, who is first mentioned in episode 7 before becoming a major antagonist in the series’ 10th and final episode, “My Moon My Man.”

Image: Studio Trigger/Netflix

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners: V or Jackie?

The protagonist, V and the player characters of Cyberpunk 2077, nor Jackie Welles, V’s fellow merc and best friend, are seen in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and the anime’s status as a stand-alone series means the events of the anime are never referenced in the main storyline of Cyberpunk 2077. But, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners may lack a firm chronological connection to CD Projekt Red’s original game, it makes up for it by telling a story through the character of David Martinez, which parallels with V’s own story in Cyberpunk 2077.

Both characters are thrust into extraordinary circumstances by a terrible tragedy, forced to become mercenaries in order to survive the harsh and inhospitable reality of Night City’s urban sprawl. This is the most important aspect. Cyberpunk: EdgerunnersThe similarities between the videogame counterpart and its television counterpart are that they both focus on their stories’ egregious rise and fall of flawed and well-meaning protagonists. As David’s mentor Maine tells him early on in the series, cyberpunks don’t make a name for themselves by how they live; they make a name for themselves by how they die.