Cyberpunk Edgerunners
Netflix
Cyberpunk 2077 will always be a cautionary tale in the gaming industry going forward, but I don’t think the IP is tarnished forever, between the base game being “fixed” and quite fun now, and how CDPR is expanding the series to multimedia immediately.
While things were radio silent about the Netflix anime Cyberpunk Edgerunners for a long time, it’s now just two weeks from launch, and being promoted pretty heavily on Netflix.
The anime is from famed studio Trigger, and Netflix is proudly advertising this new trailer as “NSFW” like it’s a 2011 CollegeHumor video or something, but the implication being that the series itself is going to lean heavily into being very “mature” with perhaps a lot more graphic violence and nudity than even the game itself.
I will uh, just link out to the trailer here as I’m not sure I can even embed something “NSFW” on my page here, but after watching it, I am impressed, just as I’ve been with all the other footage that’s been shown already.
What’s so NSFW about it? A lot, lot of violence, people torn apart by gunfire, at least a handful of decapitations. And for sex, at least one brief shot of some kind of foursome, and another of some full-frontal nudity for a split second. It’s clear the show has been given free reign to go wherever it wants.
Shock value aside, it really is a great trailer, and most people seem to agree. Everyone’s love for Trigger seems to be overwhelming skepticism about Cyberpunk, and this new spot has 18,000 likes to just 300 or so dislikes on YouTube, a very solid ratio.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners
Netflix
I know that Netflix is hard to judge these days, but to me, this gives me the impression of something that’s going to be an instant hit, and renewed for multiple seasons, as I don’t think the plan was to make this a one-off miniseries (it says it’s “standalone,” but I thought that just meant separate from the game). We’ve seen great things from many Netflix game animes, the gold standard being Castlevania, and even though Cyberpunk Edgerunners looks wildly different than that, I could see it theoretically finding the same kind of success.
As CDPR has said, they really do not want to let the Cyberpunk brand go despite the shortcomings and controversies of the original game at launch. They are currently working on a sprawling Cyberpunk 2077 expansion, due out next year, and while they will break after that to fully work on a new Witcher game, I would not rule out a full, “redemption” Cyberpunk sequel coming to life some time in the future.
And who knows, Cyberpunk may have a significant presence in multimedia too between this anime and other potential projects. Edgerunners arrives on Netflix on September 13 so prepare for more uh, “NSFW” action then.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
