Cyberpunk Edgerunners is here, apparently intended to atone for the sins of the controversial video game on which it is based. It’s been more than 20 months since the disastrous launch of Cyberpunk 2077, but Netflix is clearly hoping viewers are willing to embrace a fresh take on this unnatural sci-fi world, and it looks like viewers have made a good bet with this anime series.
While Cyberpunk 2077 has undoubtedly improved since its astonishingly awesome launch in December 2020, it’s fair to say that the franchise still needs some rehab in the eyes of the general public, and Cyberpunk Edgerunners seem poised to do just that. The series is enjoying some impressive early reviews just 24 hours after hitting the big red streaming service.
The series premiered only yesterday (Tuesday, September 13th), so it’s still early days, but it’s going on rotten tomatoes (Opens in a new tab) Cyberpunk Edgerunners currently has a perfect score of 100% out of seven reviews. This score is likely to decline over time, as reviews that are less than glamorous alter the average.
What is Cyberpunk: Edgerunners?
The show is a collaboration between Netflix, video game developer CD Projekt Red and home of popular Japanese animation Studio Trigger, and it looks like the three have worked together to create something very special. Despite its many technical flaws and missing features, Cyberpunk 2077 has always provided a great sense of place, and by most accounts, this 10-episode anime series takes and expands upon this excellent construction of the world.
It is important to note that the show does not follow the protagonist of the video game 2077 but instead focuses on a new character named David (Zach Aguilar). A street kid looking to survive, David risks everything in his quest to become an outlaw mercenary known as Edgerunner in the tech- and body-modification-obsessed future city, Night City. Along the way, he’ll meet an eclectic cast of characters some friendly, some not.
Cyberpunk Edgerunners Reviews: What Critics Think
IGN (Opens in a new tab) He was particularly forthcoming with his praise and called the show a “wild ride” and “worth every violent second”. Day one viewers seem to liked the anime similarly, which has a 96% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes and an impressive 8.7/10 rating on Rotten Tomatoes. IMDb (Opens in a new tab).
Paul Tassi in Forbes (Opens in a new tab) He writes that “Cyberpunk Edgerunners is a fantastic series, taking the potential of CDPR’s Night City and running with it in a series of bloody, suspenseful, sad, bizarre, and compelling feats that I’d recommend to absolutely anyone (uh, anyone over 18, that is).”
Jonathan Wilson in Ready cut and fixed (Opens in a new tab) He notes, “Cyberpunk: Edgerunners not only captures and delivers what was so cool in a game so ramshackle that most people had no choice but to avoid it, but even the colors between the setting and story lines that weren’t served by technical insults. In many ways, that’s the story.” The Cyberpunk that Cyberpunk wanted to tell and couldn’t.”
Should you watch Cyberpunk: Edgerunners?
All the early hype is so exciting because while Cyberpunk 2077 wasn’t quite the experience players were promised, there’s no doubt that the world of Night City is ripe for further exploration. And Edgerunners seems to take the best parts of the video game, eliminating the less enjoyable parts like the nice shooting game and a massive number of bugs and performance issues.
If you’ve been watching a Cyberpunk Edgerunners party this week that gets you in the mood to give you a second chance at the video game, you’re in luck because now is the perfect time to go back to Cyberpunk 2077 via the recently released PS5 and Xbox Series X port. It still has a lot of flaws but it’s a far cry from the disastrous video game we introduced nearly two years ago.
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