Cyberpunk: Edgerunners’ Ending Almost More Tragic

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is on many fans’ minds as Netflix and Studio Trigger prepare to reveal the anime’s second season on June 29. Before that premiere, writer Bartosz Sztybor said the first season almost ended in a bleaker way than the tearjerker viewers saw.

In the final cut, protagonist David Martinez is killed by Adam Smasher while his girlfriend Lucy escapes to a space colony on the moon, a bittersweet outcome that lets her fulfill a long-held dream without him. Sztybor said there were “even worse endings,” including a draft in which David doesn’t die entirely: Arasaka captures him and he ends up fighting in Africa or South America in Corporate Wars.

Those Corporate Wars are literal armed conflicts between corporate factions, a reminder of Cyberpunk’s focus on corporations treating human life as a tool. David’s arc follows his attempt to break out of that machine; the finished show has him die for something he believes in, while the alternate ending would have had him die serving the system he resisted.

cyberpunk, edgerunners, netflix, studio trigger, bartosz sztybor, david martinez, adam smasher, lucy, arasaka, corporate wars