Cyberpunk: Edgerunners has now been released on Netflix, providing another view of the depraved capitalist nightmare that is Night City. Edgerunners is a self-contained story, but for fans of the videogame, you can’t help but wonder where Edgerunners fits in the Cyberpunk 2077 timeline.
Fans of canon and continuity will be pleased to discover that the events of Edgerunners can indeed be traced to a particular point in time in the Cyberpunk universe.
Beware of spoilers for the Edgerunners anime in this article.
When Does Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Take Place?
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners takes place in 2076, one year before the events of Cyberpunk 2077. Fans will notice very little difference between Night City in the anime and videogame as a result.
Prior to Edgerunners being released on Netflix, an Edgerunners patch for Cyberpunk 2077 was released, adding a few crossover items into the game. One of these was a mission titled Over the Edge.
In Over the Edge, you come across a Braindance - the whole-sense virtual reality system seen regularly in both the game and the Edgerunners anime. The Braindance contains the gory opening scenes from the Netflix series followed by the following message:
“A cautionary tale. One David Martinez ignored. Will you?”
A character from the Cyberpunk game – El Capitan – then explains that David is a legend amongst many of Santo Domingo's (a district in Night City) street kids in 2077, but died about a year ago.
Does Cyberpunk: Edgerunners Have Any Impact on Cyberpunk 2077?
In both Edgerunners and 2077, the impression given is that David Martinez’s journey was a fast-paced thrill ride that was always going to end in his demise. While the anime is technically canon, the events don’t leave a notable mark on 2077 beyond some small easter eggs.
While David went down as a legend of Santo Domingo and has a drink named after him in 2077, Night City is filled with larger-than-life characters trying to make a name for themselves, and that’s before you consider Megacorporations trying to engineer everything to their advantage.
Night City is simply too much for most people to leave an indelible mark. In that respect, David Martinez remaining a known name among some in 2077 is an achievement in itself.
However, David's presence beyond a cool jacket, insignia and drink is pretty non-existent. Falco, one of David's crew in the anime who's alive in 2077, claims to have left that life behind long ago in a series of messages.
Ultimately, Martinez could only enjoy a fleeting fling with notoriety before V comes in a year later and takes the whole city by storm.