It's almost two years since CD Projekt's prestige project Cyberpunk 2077 (test and benchmarks for version 1.5) came onto the market after numerous postponements and a lot of hype. A cyberpunk anime on Netflix is now fueling sales further and helping CD Projekt to have their best third quarter in company history.
Cyberpunk 2077 helps Edgerunners helps Cyberpunk 2077
It is Cyberpunk Edgerunners, a ten-part animated series released on September 13, 2022, which, like Cyberpunk 2077, is based on the pen-and-paper universe designed by Mike Pondsmith. CD Projekt played a leading role in the anime, which in many ways tries to quote the action role-playing game: For those who liked Cyberpunk 2077, Edgerunners is almost a kind of fan service. But that's not the only reason why the production received mostly positive reviews; it is also an anime worth seeing on its own, which is enough for an IMDb rating of 8.4 out of 10 points. Occasionally, a comparison is even made with the animated series Arcane, which has also appeared on Netflix and is based in the League of Legends universe, and which is considered one of the best film adaptations of a video game ever.
But the synergy effects also work in the other direction: not only did Cyberpunk 2077 catalyze the success of Edgerunners; the anime series also boosted sales of the action role-playing game: in September 2022, the mark of 20 million units was sold. The current quarterly report (short form as PDF) from developer and publisher CD Projekt now shows: Edgerunners helped the company achieve the best third quarter in the company's history. Sales from July up to and including September 2022 amounted to around 52.6 million euros, while in the third quarter of 2021 around 30.8 million euros were recorded. As a result, net profit increased from around EUR 3.4 million in the same period of the previous year to around EUR 21.2 million now.
In terms of finances, this was the best third quarter in our entire history, with consolidated revenues at Złoty 246 million, mostly owing to strong sales of Cyberpunk. The group posted PLN 99 million in net profit.
This 10-episode series co-developed by CD Projekt Red in collaboration with the Japanese Studio Trigger stole the hearts of millions of fans of the universe all over the world. The series was praised by critics and hit the Netflix top 10 lists in 19 countries. The popularity of the anime series, along with the positive reception of the Edgerunners update, visibly affected unit sales of Cyberpunk 2077.
Piort Nielubowicz, CFO at CD Projekt
New content for Cyberpunk but not the series
Edgerunners was accompanied by the update to game version 1.6, which, in addition to the possibility of choosing the appearance independently of the armor values of the individual clothing items and the usual bug fixes, also brought content to Cyberpunk 2077 that can be assigned to the anime.
There is said to be no second season of the Netflix series, but with Phantom Liberty a larger addon to Cyberpunk 2077 and a sequel under the name Cyberpunk Orion. At the same time, CD Projekt is currently working on six other new games; most of which are set in the Witcher universe.