The long-awaited second season of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners has released its third teaser trailer, revealing the exact premiere date it'll stream on Netflix. That's not at all, of course. It's another masterfully edited look into this encrypted anime series, giving us a glimpse at the plot and characters like peeking through a keyhole.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, animated by Studio Trigger, is a standalone story in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, the action-RPG developed by CD Projekt Red. While it is technically connected to the first season as it takes place in Night City, it's telling new stories with fresh characters, so we shouldn't expect Lucy from the first season. However, it's possible many legends from the games could appear, like how Adam Smasher made an impactful entrance last time.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 teaser analysis & theories
At nine seconds into the teaser, a woman with a lot of hair talks with Weak in a diner. She was teased before in the second teaser, albeit obscured by glitches, possibly hinting at Weak's worsening cyberpsychosis. All she says is, "It's about my daughter." I could be overthinking it, but her tone almost suggests they have a history. But it is reasonable to assume the woman's willing to hire Weak to help find her daughter or something, as desperate as that sounds. As we know from his character profile and his namesake, Weak isn't exactly at the top of his game. He's lost his title "King" along with his powerful Chrome.
The trailer gives us text that reads, "In Night City, the lines between redemption and revenge will blur." It's not hard to imagine Weak will try to redeem himself somehow. If he can complete a hard job, maybe that proves he's still worthy of the title "King." But what about D?
In a scene with D, dialogue audio overlaps, probably referring to him. "Those burns. Didn't know anyone else survived. You've been out for blood all this time?" D is the last survivor of his Nomad clan, and he seeks revenge. But survivor's guilt can be a nasty emotion, so redemption would be a dual motivation.
I don't quite know what this means for Roman and Talia, though. This leaves a lot more mystery for the show to reveal to us. From what we know about them so far, Roman is a cinemaphile who wants to record the truth. Talia's a hyper-indepdent Maelstromer who used to be a corpo, who might also go through cyberpsychosis. This is evident in the shot where Weak sits beside her in the hospital, saying "Losing yourself. That's worse than death." I wonder what redemption and revenge means for her and Roman, if that's what they're seeking. The teaser does seem to focus on Weak, D, and a spooky, red apparition.
There's a scene where a young, glitched, feminine voice says, "Finally." D laughs, but whether that's actually him in control or not is unclear. The voice continues, "I found you." What I find very interesting is that those words "I found you" are on the screen, just like the other trailer text. It's like the speaker has an omnipotent presence. Given that D's a netrunner, and he's usually surrounded by red Blackwall pulses in the teasers, I'm willing to bet this is a rogue AI from beyond the Blackwall. In Cyberpunk, both the video game and the TTRPG, rogue AI beyond the Blackwall are extremely dangerous, akin to demons who should not be summoned. Or, in this case, downloaded into your hard drive, which is in your head... But I doubt he willingly uploaded daemons (Cyberpunk AI) into his cyberware. "I found you" sounded obsessive, like this is the first time it's synced into his system. So excited to finally meet him. It may be the first time he's lost control and killed a bunch of people, now piled up.
But with how the trailer was shot, I have some doubt that it's fully an AI. We see Roman, D, and a bunch of dead bodies through a computer screen as the voice gleefully says, "I found you." AIs don't really need computer screens. The internet is their playground. So, this could actually be a hacker using Blackwall powers, and D is just a proxy or medium to use it elsewhere. Perhaps it's the other way around, and a Blackwall AI is using a human as a proxy to hack D and become untraceable. In Night City, there's always a bigger fish. That means there's always somebody else manipulating who you thought you had control over or a connection with. Celebrities, politicians, corpos — all have become puppets for other companies and rogue AI before.
I honestly hope it's an AI. The concept of the Blackwall becoming a character in this series sounds cool and has infinite potential. In more shots of the teaser, we even see the Blackwall's red lightning having eyes and a mouth, personalizing it.
At the end of the teaser, Roman and D watch a body burn in the dirt. It's a telltale sign that the person got his cyberware fried, probably by a Blackwall pulse. And it sounds like we hear Roman speak for the first time. He says, "You're a weapon? A weapon made out of people?" That same glitchy feminine voice from before giggles. Roman's definitely referring to the Blackwall AI, but that's an interesting way to describe it. A weapon made out of "People," not "AI."
In Cyberpunk 2077, Alt Cunningham, the legendary netrunner, wrote a Black Program called Soulkiller. Essentially, it can digitize minds, turning them into transferable engrams. That program later became an AI itself. All of this to say this specific "Blackwall" entity could be a secret weapon made of engrams, like an amalgamous artificial thing. With the presence of the Arasaka Corporation in the teasers, it could be their doing. However, beyond the Blackwall is also where lost minds of netrunners, like Alt Cunningham, linger. It could be both. AI and human engrams bundled together to form one mind. Cyberpunk has some horror elements, when you think about it.
There are still so many other questions, like how the stories of all these characters connect. The only thread we have is Roman's camera, which has captured all of the characters in various shots in the teasers. It's unclear whether all of them — Weak, D, Talia, and Roman — will meet as a crew. Fans have gotten used to that dynamic thanks to the first season. David joined a small gang and worked his way up to lead it. However, this could be different, where Roman captures other people's stories that are loosely connected through the Arasaka Corporation. Weak used to work with Arasaka, D is uncovering their secrets, Talia might have worked for them in the past (or Maelstrom made them an enemy), and Roman wants to capture all the chaos.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 premieres exclusively on Netflix October 20th.
Add us as a preferred source on Google