Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2 Review: ★★★★½ (4.5/5)
Edgerunners 2 does not copy the original’s tragic love story. Instead, it tells a more tender, hopeful tale with a new cast, a gritty retro look, and a surprising love for filmmaking.
Rating: ★★★★½ (4.5/5)
Platform: Netflix
Genre: Animated Sci-Fi Action
Studio: Studio Trigger
Showrunner: Bartosz Sztybor
Director: Kai Ikarashi
Going into Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, most fans expect one thing. They expect their hearts to break again. The original 2022 anime from CD Projekt Red and Studio Trigger made us fall in love with David and Lucy, and then reminded us that love is not always enough to survive Night City. Four years later, many people still cannot hear “I Really Want to Stay at Your House” without feeling emotional.
So how do you follow a story that hit so hard? The answer here is to tell a very different one. Edgerunners 2 does not try to repeat the same tragedy, and in some ways, it may even be better. The first season was a fast, devastating love story. This one finds its power somewhere else.
Instead of focusing on one couple, the new season follows a group of people whose lives cross in unexpected ways. Roman is a young, hopeful filmmaker who would rather see Night City through his old camcorder than through the fake worlds of braindance.
Talia is a rebellious teenager who has replaced almost her whole body with cyberware, much to her mother’s horror, so her mother asks her ex, a washed-up edgerunner named Weak, to find her.
D is a Nomad who wants revenge for the destruction of his clan, even though he does not know who is to blame. And then there is Capri, a mysterious digital mind searching for a human body, which adds a deep question about identity and what it means to be human.
These characters do not have much in common at first, and their goals often clash. But as their paths cross, the story becomes less about one person’s journey and more about how people change each other, often without noticing. That gives the series a softer, more emotional feel.
In a city that treats human life as disposable, there is something truly tender about watching people learn that their lives matter to someone else.
Showrunner Bartosz Sztybor explains it simply. The new season asks the same big questions, but the answers are different because the characters and their choices are different.
The look has changed too. The first season dazzled with bright neon and sleek designs, but this one goes gritty, with darker images, thicker lines, and a strong retro feel. You can see the spirit of 80s and 90s anime in the wild character designs and explosive action.
Sztybor wanted to honor the cinema of the 1990s, and director Kai Ikarashi answered by paying tribute to old anime in the animation itself. One fun detail is how D’s hair grows bigger and spikier when he gets intense, just like a power-up in Dragon Ball.
Another smart choice is that much of the story takes place in daylight. Night City is known for neon and darkness, so seeing it in the sun makes it feel more lived in. It is no less dangerous, but there is a strange beauty in everyday life unfolding next to terrible violence.
Studio Trigger’s animation is as lively and creative as ever, and it still delivers wild action and grotesque cyber violence, but it also leaves room for quiet, ordinary moments.
The season is also a love letter to filmmaking. In a world where you can live someone else’s memories through braindance, Roman simply wants to capture real life on his camera. His love of analog film feels like a small act of rebellion against a culture obsessed with fake experiences. He also becomes the thread that links all the characters together, reflecting Sztybor’s and Ikarashi’s shared love of movies.
If you want more to watch this week, our review of The Invite covers an awkward dinner party you cannot look away from. Our review of Money Trap: The Karun Treasure looks at a madcap Turkish heist comedy, and if you want a comedy that misses its mark, our review of Sacrifice is worth a read.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 is now streaming on Netflix.