Cyberpunk: Edgerunners’ Ending Was Almost More Tragic

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is on a lot of fans’ minds right now as Netflix and Studio Trigger are set to properly reveal the acclaimed anime’s second season next week on June 29. But before we move on to a new cast of characters in Night City, writer Bartosz Sztybor has revealed an even more tragic conclusion the first season might have gotten than the tearjerker we ended up with. 

In an upcoming interview with Anime Corner, Sztybor revealed that there was never a plan for Edgerunners to have a happy ending, but there were “worse” endings in discussion during the show’s development. In the final version of the show, protagonist David Martinez is killed by Cyberpunk staple Adam Smasher, while his girlfriend Lucy escapes to a space colony on the moon as she had long dreamt of doing. It’s bittersweet because David’s sacrifice allows Lucy to finally accomplish her dream, but he won’t be there to enjoy it with her.

However, David’s fate in some earlier drafts was much worse than death. 

“There was never a happy ending,” Sztybor told Anime Corner. “There were even worse endings. There was one ending in which David doesn’t die entirely. Arasaka gets him and he ends up fighting in Africa or South America in Corporate Wars.”

Yes, I said something about David’s death… https://t.co/Hk28kMmcuc

— sztybor (@sztybor_writes) June 26, 2026

As the name implies, the Corporate Wars in Cyberpunk refer to several armed conflicts between the world’s many corporate factions. Cyberpunk is all about how corporations view human life as a tool above all else, and it doesn’t get more on-the-nose than literally creating wars to settle corporate squabbles. David’s story in Edgerunners, like many Cyberpunk tales, shows him trying to break out of the corporate machine and find his own place in a city that wants to devour him. In the final cut, he manages to at least die for something he believes in. In this alternate ending, he would have likely died for something he spent his whole life fighting against. Either would have been tragic, but at least the one we got is poetic and not quite so bleak.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 will focus on a new cast of characters, and while we don’t know them yet, we did see one character who appears to be a Media at the Annecy Animation Festival earlier this week.