Netflix and CD Projekt Red announced a second season of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners at the 2025 Anime Expo, and it’s no surprise — the anime, which won the prestigious “Anime of the Year” award at the 2023 Crunchyroll Anime Awards, played a major part in making 2020’s Cyberpunk 2077 so successful following its troubled debut.

Before Cyberpunk: Edgerunners debuted, Cyberpunk 2077 struggled to recover from bugs and backlash over a gameplay experience that fell short of the Grand Theft Auto-style sandbox many fans had expected. Sony Interactive Entertainment went as far as removing the game entirely from the PlayStation Store just a week after launch. Microsoft also issued refunds at the time, costing CD Projekt Red an estimated $51 million in lost sales and reimbursements, according to Ars Technica.

After its release in 2022, however, Edgerunners, produced by renowned studio Trigger (Gurren Lagann, Delicious in Dungeon), sparked a resurgence of interest in the property. Cyberpunk 2077’s player count on Steam never dropped to its previous lows, marking a turning point that transformed the game’s narrative from failure to redemption. Developer CD Projekt Red, seizing the opportunity, released several iconic graphics, outfits, and references from the anime in a 2022 patch.

But if CD Projekt Red wants to retain the synergy the gaming and anime fandom have for this property in the upcoming sequel game, codenamed “Orion”, it needs to steal a lot more than references and cosmetics.........

© Polygon