Wake TF up, Samurai. Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, the long-awaited follow-up to 2023’s Anime of the Year winner from Cyberpunk 2077 developer CD Projekt RED and studio Trigger, is finally streaming on Netflix. It follows a new ensemble of would-be edgerunners trying their luck in the neon-drenched dystopia of 2078. If David Martinez and V could(n’t) make it, why can’t they?
Ahead of the ten-episode show’s premiere, io9 spoke with CD Projekt RED vice president of franchise and Edgerunners 2 showrunner Bartosz Sztybor about how the team and Trigger aspired to tell a different tale this time around, with a whole new look, sound, and perspective on Night City.
Isaiah Colbert, io9: Shortly after Cyberpunk: Edgerunners season one, CD Projekt RED publicly shut down the idea of a second season. Now, we’re on the cusp of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2. What changed behind the scenes to turn that “no” into a “yes”?
Bartosz Sztybor: I think those words were misinterpreted
Bartosz Sztybor: I think those words were misinterpreted. The meaning behind it was that Edgerunners is a standalone story, so we won’t continue this story, but the idea of creating more Edgerunners was with me while writing the first one. I already knew that there were more stories to tell about edgerunners and their lifestyle that complement the first Edgerunners.
But my thoughts and wishes were not a greenlight and instant “yes” to make Edgerunners 2. At CD Projekt RED, we have a strong urge to do unique things and drive for perfection, so it had to be a good storm, a proper anime studio, and a director with a unique voice. Fortunately, soon after the release of Edgerunners, we had all of these three things and could move forward.
io9:At Anime Expo, you described season one as David’s romanticized, almost Michael Bay-style vision of being an edgerunner, while season two leans more Martin Scorsese. What new philosophical or emotional territory did you want Edgerunners 2 to explore that the first season didn’t?
Sztybor:Honestly, I wanted to touch on very similar
Sztybor:Honestly, I wanted to touch on very similar topics with Edgerunners 2 as with Edgerunners—drawing on similar themes, asking myself the same questions—but with a set of different characters who have different mindsets, in order to get into different outcomes and answers.
But yeah, David was somehow a romanticized version of edgerunner lifestyle, Weak’s journey is more grounded, stripped of all the Night City merc’s glory. Weak is the opposite of David. In Edgerunners, we had a kid who packs chrome and wants to be the most known edgerunner in the city. In Edgerunners 2, we have one of the most famous mercs in Night City who loses all his chrome and needs to start over.
There are more things like this—Edgerunners 2 is a mirror to Edgerunners in a way. Both are in constant dialogue; you will see different sides of the same coin a lot. So it’s good to repeat Edgerunners before watching Edgerunners 2.
Io9:Its premiere episode evokes cinema touchstones like Léon:
io9:Its premiere episode evokes cinema touchstones like Léon: The Professional and City of God. Were there other films or anime that shaped the tone and atmosphere you wanted for Edgerunners 2?
Sztybor:When I visited Trigger with my first story pitch for Edgerunners 2, I said that I wanted to create an homage to the cinema of the ’90s. Two of my main inspirations were Pulp Fiction and Léon: The Professional. But there’s of course more—City of God, but also Cinema Paradiso or Mean Streets. I had really good creative synergy with the director Kai Ikarashi, and very often we were throwing movie references at each other while talking about particular scenes. So there’s even a bit of Clockwork Orange in what I would say is one of the most shocking scenes—not just in Edgerunners, but in the whole Cyberpunk 2077 universe.
io9:Opening themes in anime are rarely accidental—especially when they come from Western artists. What led you to choose the Cure’s “10:15 Saturday Night” as the new opening, following season one’s use of Franz Ferdinand’s “This Fffire”?
Sztybor:I love music, so my goal
Sztybor:I love music, so my goal for the soundtrack was to have only new songs, written for the show or not released before, to maintain the immersion, the feeling that those songs belong to this reality. One exception was, and will always be, the opening—a known old song (though it is weird to say “old” about 2003’s Franz Ferdinand’s song…).
https://x.com/DiscussingFilm/status/2112357591800037867
As for the choice, you’ll need to ask Kai Ikarashi. I prepared a few suggestions. Kai Ikarashi liked them a lot, but he asked if we could go with the Cure and I loved his pick. I thought it’s a perfect fit.
io9: The new ensemble in Edgerunners 2 has a noticeably sharper, more exaggerated visual edge than the season one cast—so much so that fans have joked their silhouettes look straight out of Naruto. They still hit familiar anime archetypes, but their designs feel louder, bolder, and more stylized than our first trip through Night City. Did any of the new crew go through major redesigns or alternate concepts between Trigger and CD Projekt RED before landing on the final looks we see in the trailers?
Sztybor:While thinking about Edgerunners 2 one thing
Sztybor:While thinking about Edgerunners 2 one thing was a must: it shouldn’t look like the first season. It should be something different, a bold and unique vision to show, clearly, that we don’t want to copy ourselves. We want to risk it and create something totally different on an artistic level.
The style was Ikarashi’s answer to my pitch and the idea of making an homage to ’90s cinema, he said “hold my beer,” and decided to create an homage to anime of the ’80s and ’90s.
As for the designs, yes, some characters needed more back-and-forths than others. Roman had a small amount of iterations; I think the second idea for him was amazing, so we were just tinkering with some small clothing elements after that. Overall it was very similar to the process we had during Edgerunners, so nothing too surprising. And I also want to highlight that some of the great designers and concept artists at CD Projekt RED were closely involved; Avida and Weak’s designs originated from CDPR, for example!
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 is streaming on Netflix.
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