During a teleconference held in August 2024 to discuss CD Projekt’s financial results, CEO Michał Nowakowski was asked about the company’s plans for new pop culture projects and whether there would be a second season of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
In response, Nowakowski stated that the company definitely plans to produce more animations set in the Cyberpunk universe. He emphasized that more projects in this line are on the way, although he did not provide additional details at the time.
And the following month, in September of the same year, during Netflix’s traditional Geeked Week, where the platform reveals news about its upcoming productions, it was announced that a new Cyberpunk animation is in development. The announcement included the release of a short video containing a message saying “Return to Night City!”, mentions that a Netflix in-house animation studio, and informs that CD Projekt Red will be involved in the project in some way.
Is this new Cyberpunk animation project a season 2 of Edgerunners?
According to statements by Satoru Honma, CD Projekt Red’s manager in Japan, in an interview with Famitsu in October 2022, the Edgerunners anime was planned as an independent project, with no intention of continuing the story in a second season.
Honma stated that although CD Projekt Red was interested in continuing to work with Japanese studios to produce more anime series set in the Cyberpunk universe, any new anime in the franchise in the future would not necessarily be a sequel to Edgerunners.
This makes sense, as the first season of the anime concluded its story in a satisfactory manner, without leaving loose ends and forcing a second season through some kind of Deus ex Machina, which would only tarnish the excellent plot and conclusion of the first season.
In addition, the vast Cyberpunk universe, originally created by Mike Pondsmith as a tabletop RPG called Cyberpunk 2020, offers numerous other stories and characters that can be explored in new animated productions. Both the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime and the Cyberpunk 2077 game have already expanded and evolved the central themes of this dystopian universe, blending advanced technology with social and economic degradation.
Cyberpunk New Animation Release Date Forecast
Therefore, it is likely that this new Cyberpunk animation project announced by Netflix will be something completely different from Edgerunners, exploring new aspects and characters of the vast Cyberpunk world, without necessarily providing a direct continuation of the story from the first season of the anime.
So far, no release date has been announced for this new project. However, considering that the announcement video revealed very few details and did not present any animated scenes, it is likely that the production is still in its early stages, and the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners anime premiered a little more than two years after it was announced, so it is reasonable to assume that this new animation set in Night City will be released in the last quarter of 2026.
However, it is important to note that this is just a projection and not a definitive date. The production process of an animation can suffer unexpected delays or postponements, depending on various factors, such as the complexity of the project, the availability of the creative team, and any production challenges.
