CD Projekt Red teams up with Netflix and Trigger to release Cyberpunk Edgerunners – a stunning anime show that stays very true to the video game!
Shortly after Cyberpunk 2077 was released the majority of the representation it was getting worldwide was related to the many bugs, glitches and console issues the game was having at launch.
Many probably even forgot about that side-project that was announced before the game launched – Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners just got a huge bump to the frontlines with a new teaser trailer, a new behind-the-scenes look and a release date window targeting September 2022, all of this as part of Netflix’s Geeked Week.
If you were among those who put the show on the back of their minds or completely forgot about it, let me remind you a few things and introduce you to the brand new info CD Projekt Red and Netflix revealed recently!
What is Cyberpunk Edgerunners
Cyberpunk Edgerunners is an anime series exclusively launching on Netflix in September 2022. It will consist of ten episodes revealing a connected story set in the world of Cyberpunk 2077, the video game.
The story in Edgerunners revolves around a street kid trying to survive in Night City — a technology and body modification-obsessed city of the future. Having everything to lose, he stays alive by becoming an edgerunner.
Who and what the Edgerunner is? Edgerunner is a mercenary, an outlaw in the world of Cyberpunk. A form of a rebel or a pirate who wants to fight with the system. It is someone who desperately tries to earn their personal freedom.
As the showrunner Rafał Jaki explains it, cyberpunk know that nobody can change the world fundamentally at this point. They are just fighting to carve out a small personal space where they can be themselves.
Jaki also adds that Cyberpunk Edgerunners is also a story “about finding the right people in your lives that matter to you and that you want to sacrifice yourself for”.
Connection and differences with Cyberpunk 2077
Cyberpunk Edgerunners is going to explore life in Night City from a different angle compared to Cyberpunk 2077. In this anime, we will see a more social side of the city as Trigger and CD Projekt Red try to showcase their world in a new way than we saw it in the video game.
The action, gore and adrenaline will be to the max all the time, backed up with the appropriate “cyberpunk” music all the time, but the main real focus is elsewhere. The show will explore what it actually means for human beings to adopt and accept all of the cyberwar that they are often required to wear to be able to function in this strange society.
The game is very realistic. Well, as realistic as a cyberpunk worked could sound and look to us. The anime takes things to “eleven” with even more gore and colorful representation of Night City.
The devs describe the visuals of the anime as “bombastic” and from having seen the trailer and the BTS video a number of times already, I absolutely agree with them.
“The game is more about immersion and the anime is more about being believable as a world of cyberpunk” – Rafał Jaki explains.
The Behind-the-Scenes video showed a scene from Episode 4 where we meet the Maelstrom Gang of Night City. The representation of the heavily modified bodies of its members and overall feeling is very similar to the one we get while playing the game and encountering the gang members in it.
In Edgerunners colors are bumped even further. That doesn’t mean they are not the same sadistic, unforgiving and… literally crazy people. The scene where we go to the gang’s HQ in the game was very intimidating.
And what we got to see from the promo clip showcasing the gang in the anime, was not very different. Yes, with more colors and in a slightly more “childish” style, but when the blood starts spilling and guns start screaming, we know that this is Malestrom!
How Trigger approached Cyberpunk Edgerunners
The Behind-the-Scenes video clip ended with a brief introduction of three of the lead figures of Trigger, the Japanese studio that is responsible for the animations and overall visuals of the series.
Trigger was founded in 2011 by Hiroyuki Imaishi and Masahiko Ōtsuka. Its official label in the industry is that they are a “anime and production enterprise”.
The Behind-the-Scenes video has CD Projekt RED team members explaining how much the Trigger crew enjoyed the game and the world of Cyberpunk.
In fact, we learn (and see it in the footage) that the anime’s version of Night City is nearly identical in terms of structure and environment to what we have in the game.
To me this is very important. As I was watching the promo videos, I almost always knew where the characters are, where the action happens, in which parts of Night City thins are developing.
In its ten years of existence, the studio has a ton of anime films, shows and other productions in its archives. I admit to being only a casual anime fan and I don’t know the finer details. One thing I can share is that every single anime friend of mine that I asked, tells me that Trigger is the best choice for this type of a series. Based on the materials we got to see so far, my adrenaline is already pumping high.
There will be an in-depth interview with Trigger discussing and revealing details of their approach in creating the Cyberpunk Edgerunners anime. We expect it to be released shortly before the launch of the series in September.
David and Lucy, the pair of protagonists
The Edgerunners series has a pair of protagonists – two teenagers – David and Lucy. We are going to follow primarily their actions and adventures in the ten-episode anime.
David is a kid formed and shaped in a very rough neighborhood. All he dreams of is being with his mom and to be accepted by the world that surrounds him. Night City “throws a huge curve balls to him” as the showrunner says. And it is at this point in his life that the show’s story begins.
If you want to experience it in the game, I have a complete guide to show you how to create David Martinez in Cyberpunk 2077 – everything from lifepath choice, to character creation, outfit, attributes and perks to cyberwar equipment.
Lucy is an edgerunner. She is a closed-in type of a person. That’s one of the reasons why she is kind of an enigma for the viewer at the start of the series. There is “quite a big thing looming over her from her past”. She, as all edgerunners do, is also fighting for her freedom and for the people that she cares about.
With WitcherCon 2022 (hopefully) getting announced very soon, the Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, Witcher 3 NextGen update and now Edgerunners, I think we are going to be hearing a lot more from CD Projekt Red in the coming weeks and months! I am excited about what they are going to offer us in 2022 and 2023. You?
