Fans who have already burned through Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 will not have to wait long to head back to Night City. CD PROJEKT RED has announced the Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 Update (2.5), a free update for Cyberpunk 2077 that launches tomorrow (October 22nd).
The announcement came yesterday, the same day the new season of the anime premiered on Netflix. The official Edgerunners account confirmed that the season is now streaming, while the official Cyberpunk 2077 account followed up with a teaser reading "NEW UPDATE INCOMING."
A New Key Visual From The Anime Team
The update's reveal came with an official illustration, and CD PROJEKT RED made sure to credit the artists behind it. The studio thanked Taisei Uchida for the original art, along with Yukiko Kakita for ink and paint check and Yuichiro Tozawa for special effects.
That kind of credit is a nice touch for anime fans, since it highlights the Japanese animation talent that made the first season of Edgerunners such a hit. The new season comes from TRIGGER once again, and it follows Weak, a washed-up legend once known as King who has to survive without chrome, along with D, a Snake Nation nomad and netrunner on the hunt for the killer who wiped out his clan.
What The Update Adds
CD PROJEKT RED has only revealed a couple of features so far. According to the official announcement on the Cyberpunk website, Update 2.5 brings cyberware customization and a new dual-wielding playstyle to the game, with more to be revealed.
Both features feel like they came straight out of the anime. The original Edgerunners was all about characters pushing their bodies to the limit with more and more chrome, and the action scenes were famously over the top. Being able to customize cyberware and wield two weapons at once should make it a lot easier for players to recreate that style in the game.
The studio is holding a REDstreams broadcast later today at 5 PM CEST to take a closer look at the update, which can be watched on Twitch, YouTube, and Steam.
The Edgerunners Effect, Round Two
Anime fans will remember just how big an impact the first season had. When Cyberpunk: Edgerunners premiered in 2022, it sent huge numbers of viewers back to Cyberpunk 2077, and Cyberpunk 2077's Edgerunners Update (1.6) followed soon after with show-inspired gear for fans to track down, including Rebecca's shotgun Guts, David's jacket, and Lucy's outfit. Many players credit the series with helping turn the game's reputation around after its troubled launch.
CD PROJEKT RED is clearly hoping lightning strikes twice. Launching a tie-in update just two days after the new season's premiere gives viewers an immediate way to dive into the world they just watched, while players who have not seen the anime yet get a reason to check it out.
There is also the question of the cast. The second season has a large lineup of new characters, from Talia, who was raised in the corpo towers before being hardened in Maelstrom, to Kitano from Arasaka and Richard from Kang Tao. Those faction ties make it easy to imagine some of them turning up in the game in one form or another.
It is not yet clear whether the update will include anything based directly on the new characters, such as Weak, D, or members of King's old crew. Hopefully that will become clearer once the REDstreams wraps up later today.
Would you rather see Update 2.5 add gear and gigs based on the Edgerunners 2 cast, or are cyberware customization and dual-wielding enough to get you back into Night City?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.