The new season of Cyberpunk 2077 animated series Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 has been released. The new series is available to stream now, on Netflix. Today, we take a look at Episode One.

Synopsis –

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 pulls you back into Night City, where lives become entangled to the extreme. Weak, a washed-up cyberpunk legend, is now forced to live without chrome as he searches for a sense of purpose in a world that’s passed him by. Meanwhile, the deadly nomad D sets out on a path to revenge that brings him close to corpo secrets never meant to be found. Across this ten-episode standalone series, uncover a story of family, obsession, legacy — and how your lens reflects the stories of the people around you.

The first season of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners debuted on Netflix in September of 2022, to rave reviews, instantly building a devoted fanbase. It has been a long wait for those fans since the finale of the ten episode season aired nearly four years ago. That wait, however, is over. Season 2 is not a continuation of the story from the first season (and the few surviving characters), but instead focuses on a new cast of characters.

The full 10 episode season was dropped in one go onto Netflix. It would be madness (or perhaps cyberpsychosis) to try to encompass the full 10 episode season in one post, so much as we did with The Ghost in the Shell series, we are going to cover one episode per week as if it were on a weekly release schedule – after all, it’s not like everyone is gonna binge it all in one day? Right?!

The episode opens with a brief introduction to Roman, and his proclivity for the medium of film, both shooting (or scrolling) it and watching it, at the expense of being present in the world. Is there a significance to opening with the character of Roman, or setting out his character ‘thing’ straight from the off?

After the opening credits, we join a heist in process. King, a heavily chromed edgerunner, is working a job with Miguel and Emily, and it becomes clear pretty quickly that we’re in an Arasaka facility, and they are making off with a very specific biochip case. Almost straight away, we notice there is something going on with King, as he is distracted by a hallucination of sorts, of a lady named Avida. When you’re knocking off Arasaka, you get out quickly, but they’re not fast enough. The job goes south, and the gang need to blast their way out, with such vigour that Roman can see the smoke from out in the street.

King continues to see visions, resulting in their getaway car crashing, ultimately causing Emily life ending injuries. King goes cyberpsycho, causing a bloodbath of epic proportions, showing us just how dangerous a character he is. Whilst he is all business on the surface, his distraction with Avida tells us he does indeed have a heart, and following capture, we do see his vulnerabilities. His recuperation has drained his cash reserves, and his cyberware has been removed. He was indeed experiencing cyberpsychosis, and is advised any more use would be lethal, so has been fitted with very low-tech alternative bio-ware.

Roman sells the footage he shot of the heist, and is advised that if he wants to make big money, he needs to scroll a heavy gang like Maelstrom. A lot is made at this point that braindance is where the interest and the money is, but it is reiterated that Roman is passionate about film. This clearly will have some greater meaning by the end of the series.

Back with King, Miguel blames King for the death of Emily, and King at this point feels generally pretty lost. King looks to be a complicated character – he has no qualms about killing in the name of a heist, but clearly has a past life where he has chromed up to overcome a reputation for weakness, and he still pines for Avida, who we can assume is a past love.

In the process of trying to scroll Maelstrom, Roman comes to the attention of one of its members, a heavily augmented character named Talia seemingly putting on an acrobatic display. She toys with Roman, and then Maelstrom, seeing he is a full organic, decide to do some surgery. This is clearly a sadistic, remorseless gang with no respect for human life. Luckily for Roman, someone just happens to be in the process of observing the gang. He takes them out, looking for info on a former member named Helio, and he sets Roman free. In response, Roman takes him home with him, and supplies him with beer. Later, the mysterious man is struck with emotion when he awakes to find Roman watching an old timey movie.

King, at his lowest ebb, tries to kill himself, but a call comes in from Avida at the last moment. He then goes to meet her. But is it really happening? We cut away before any words are exchanged between them, so we have no way to tell. At the end of the episode, the Maelstrom gang and Talia are besieged by a team of agents, and taken away. Roll credits.

There are a few questions left with us at the end of the episode. Who is the mysterious figure who rescued Roman? What is the backstory between King and Avida, and how will it affect his actions going forward? And what exactly is the deal with that biochip case? Someone took it in the aftermath of the failed heist, but it isn’t mentioned again – this surely will play a major part later on?

The episode does a lot of heavy lifting, efficiently introducing us to the cast of characters at the heart of the show, and giving us a good idea of who they are, but with plenty of mystery left for the rest of the season. People still talk about season one, and the characters they loved from that season. It’s going to be interesting to see if that will be the case with this season, considering it does not have a central character like David. Everything in season one revolved around David, and the relationships he forged, whereas season two has a number of different strands going on, and it is difficult to see at this early stage just how these disparate characters might come together.

To coincide with the release of the new season, CD PROJEKT RED has announced a new update for Cyberpunk 2077. Titled the Edgerunners 2 Update, it will feature content inspired by the anime, and it is set to release on October 22. More details about the Update will be shared on October 21, 2026, during an episode of REDstreams.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 is directed by Kai Ikarashi, with character designs  by Ichigo Kanno and a story written by Bartosz Sztybor of CD PROJEKT RED and Masahiko Otsuka. There are 10 episodes in total, and they were released all at once on Netflix on Tuesday 20th October.

You can watch a trailer for the series below –

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