Cyberpunk Edgerunners 2 creators explain why hero David Martinez isn't coming back

When Cyberpunk: Edgerunners became one of Netflix's biggest anime, there was an obvious temptation for CD Projekt Red to bring David Martinez back, reunite him with Lucy, or simply recreate the emotional formula that made the first series such a phenomenon. But the creators behind Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 decided to do the opposite.

Speaking with Polygon at Anime Expo, story creator and writer Bartosz Sztybor and producer Saya Elder said the biggest challenge facing the sequel wasn't figuring out how to top the first season, but resisting the urge to repeat it.

"I'm still having nightmares about [it], oh my god," Sztybor said with a laugh. "It's like, what should we do? Should we do [romance again]? No, we shouldn't, but then you start thinking too much about what was the core of the Edgerunners, what people like, and what you should repeat, and what you shouldn't."

The team quickly decided to stop trying to answer those questions altogether. "That's why we decided, ‘Okay, fuck it, let's do something different. Let's risk it. Let's not think about the past.’" That philosophy became the guiding principle behind Edgerunners 2. Rather than treating the new series like a forced and cobbled-together continuation of David’s story, Sztybor describes the follow-up as a deliberate mirror image of the first season.

"Season 1 was from zero to the hero," Sztybor said. "Season two is from hero to zero. It's ‘What if David would stay alive 20 years later?’ Also, there is a different approach to sacrifice, to even the relationship of a kid with their parents. So season 2 is again answering the same questions, but in a different way."

Edgerunners 2 seeks to revisit many of the first season's central ideas from the opposite direction. The questions about sacrifice, ambition, family, and surviving in Night City remain, but the answers (and the characters arriving at them) are different. Sztybor is less interested in recreating what made the original work and far more interested in exploring why those themes resonated in the first place.

Despite a large contingent of fans asking for his return for several years, CD Projekt Red never seriously entertained the idea of resurrecting David. "I really don't think about the fans at all," Elder said. "Because I think the problems begin when you start thinking, 'Oh, I need to make a show that fans are gonna like.' Then you start going, 'Okay, what do fans like? Oh, so many people are tweeting that they want to bring David back.'"

"Technically David can come back," she continued. "Technically. But I don't want to do that as a person. That's not what I find fun to do."

For Sztybor, the pressure of following one of anime's most beloved original stories never completely disappeared, but positive fan reaction surrounding the announcement that David would be staying dead reassured the team they had made the right call. "The first signal that, ‘Okay, we made a good decision.’ was the information that was in the first teaser, when we said David is dead and he's not coming back," he said. "People understood that it’s his legacy. They don't want to destroy that."

CD Projekt Red is now billing Edgerunners as an anthology series, similar to American Horror Story, The Twilight Zone, or Black Mirror. But Sztybor doesn’t point to those series, or even modern cinematic universes, as an example. Instead, he highlights the Alien franchise as the biggest inspiration. "For me, one of the best IPs was Alien," he said. "You had Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection — four movies made by four amazing directors. Each movie had a totally different style."

"So for me, this is the main inspiration, how to create Edgerunners as a sub-IP of Cyberpunk — to have those core themes, but to experiment, to give some kind of creative freedom to that director and find a unique director to have his own vision."

For Edgerunners 2, that vision belongs to Kai Ikarashi, who steps into the director's chair after previously directing one of the original series' most acclaimed entries, episode 6 “Girl on Fire.” It’s a harrowing sequence of events focusing on Maine’s cyberpsychosis in the middle of an Arasaka raid. “Girl on Fire” is currently the second-highest rated episode of season 1 on IMDb at 9.1 next to the finale. According to Elder, bringing in a first-time series director wasn't simply a creative gamble, but an intentional effort to give younger artists opportunities within one of anime's biggest productions.

"I have a very strong personal desire to give more chances to a younger generation of artists," she said. "I know Ikarashi-san has never directed a show himself, but we've seen what he’s done on episode 6 — everyone loves episode 6. I want to see more of that."

The collaboration with Ikarashi has also helped push CD Projekt Red in unexpected directions. "This season, director Ikarashi was a lot more proactive in challenging our boundaries," Elder said. "Which I think is really good. We love people who are passionate and who have crazy ideas."

Beneath all the wild, new creative decisions and enchanting characters just waiting to break our hearts this season sits the same idea that has defined Cyberpunk since its tabletop days: Night City itself. It’s a constant that will remain at the heart of the series no matter who sits in the director’s chair, or whose faces might occupy the screen. For Sztybor, the franchise has always been rooted less in science fiction and more in classic noir, a theme made manifest in the city’s cutthroat nature and mean streets.

"Cyberpunk originated from noir, and in noir, there is always character versus the city," he said. "It is Chinatown that I'm taking some stuff from. You will never win with the city. You will never win with the system. You can only change yourself."

Elder echoed that philosophy, arguing that Night City remains the one constant across every story the team hopes to tell. "In Cyberpunk, we've already established that there's no winning against Night City," she said. "Night City is a constant, so if our characters at any point try to topple Night City, then they're not going to succeed."

That's what Edgerunners 2 seems determined to preserve. It's not David’s legacy, or Lucy's story, or even the heartbreak that made the original so unforgettable. At the heart of the series is the idea that no matter who the protagonists are, Night City always wins.