Last Friday, Giancarlo Esposito and the CD Projekt Red team that worked on Cyberpunk: Edgerunners took to the Hong Kong Comic Con stage at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre to share a behind-the-scenes look at the production of the anime.
Set in the world of Cyberpunk 2077, the 2020 video game by CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners told the story of David Martinez, a talented by financially struggling student who falls in love with an enigmatic young outlaw named Lucy, who introduces him to the world of edgerunners and mercenaries.
The miniseries premiered on Netflix in September 2022 and received critical acclaim from viewers and critics alike. Its success also singlehandedly contributed to the positive reappraisal of Cyberpunk 2077, which was poorly received by players upon launch due to severe technical problems.
A standalone sequel series, titled Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, has since been announced in July 2025. Concurrently, CD Projekt Red is also developing a sequel for the video game, which was announced in October 2022.
The panel at Hong Kong Comic Con focused on the production of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, featuring two members of the CD Projekt Red team that not only worked on the original anime with Studio Trigger, but are also continuing to work with Studio Trigger on the sequel series. They were joined by Giancarlo Esposito, who provided the English voice for Faraday, the main antagonist of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners.
This moment was significant for a few reasons. The panel marked the first time CD Projekt Red and Giancarlo Esposito had met in-person, four years after the premiere of the series. It also deep dived into Faraday as a character, from early sketches and conceptualisation, all the way to Esposito finding his identity as an antagonist.
The CD Projekt Red team shared that Faraday had always played an important role in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and in early iterations of the story, was even envisioned as a young protagonist who was a fixer. Even though the protagonist role eventually went to David Martinez, the team revealed that many of the main characters underwent drastic changes.
For instance, David was first designed as a 12-year-old boy, while Lucy was originally envisioned as a 25-year-old woman named Claire who was intended to die in the first episode. Needless to say, they were glad that Lucy ended up having a completely different fate in the series.
When the team finally landed on Faraday’s role as the main antagonist, they shared that the English script for Faraday was written with Giancarlo Esposito in mind, inspired by his long career of playing iconic antagonists. They also shared that the English script was prepared by CD Projekt Red, while Studio Trigger handled the Japanese script and voice casting. However, they never imagined that the Esposito himself would end up playing the character.
Esposito, on the other hand, expressed his enthusiasm for the role and the script from the very beginning. He shared that the role presented a unique challenge, as he was provided Kazuhiko Inoue’s performance in Japanese as a reference when recording. From there, he developed his own interpretation of the character for his performance in English.
Esposito also shared that voice actors would enter the studio blind, and only learn the fate of their characters during the recording. The CD Projekt Red team chimed in to add that David’s voice actor received the same treatment, which ended up helping his authentic portrayal of the character.
Besides that, the CD Projekt Red team also shared early iterations of David Martinez’s design and provided insight into the division of work between CD Projekt Red and Studio Trigger. While initial concepts and designs were provided by CD Projekt Red, including a character designer from the game working on David’s initial design, the team shared that they left Studio Trigger to lead most of the creative direction as the series would be the game studio’s first foray into 2D animation.
Having worked on the English script in-house, the studio also shared their learning curve in preparing an “anime-appropriate” script for the series. They described the process of creating cutscenes in video games to be closer to live-action film, and that their initial script for the anime underwent 5-7 iterations and feedback from Studio Trigger before it was deemed appropriate for the medium.
The CD Projekt Red team also praised Studio Trigger for a smooth working relationship, with the animation studio respecting many of the original elements such as David’s overall look and ethnicity. However, they shared that it took a long time to nail down the logo for his jacket, and that particular design went through multiple iterations before landing on the final design we know and love.
As the panel began to wind down, Esposito expressed his delight in working with on Cyberpunk: Edgerunners and wished for another opportunity to work together again. The CD Projekt Red team also shared that they are working hard on Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2 and can’t wait to share more details with fans soon.
