Cyberpunk: Edgerunners was a depression-fest because its writer is 'from Poland and people in Poland are sad. They are born sad, they die sad, so I just wanted to make the whole world sad'

(Image credit: Netflix)

I'm always very skeptical of attempts to tie particular themes in literature and film to some sort of ineffable national character. Surely nations are too strange, large and varied to be reduced to something quintessential and eternal. Surely they're too much changeable beasts of history to possess any attribute that can endure and speak across centuries and millennia. Surely you can't just say 'series X is like this because people from Y are like this'.

Except Edgerunners. Edgerunners is sad because Polish people are sad. QED.

Don't take my word for it. Take the word of series writer (and franchise creative director at CD Projekt Red) Bartosz Sztybor (via Eurogamer). Sztybor recently took to the stage at the LA Anime Expo—the same one Cyberpunk: Edgerunners' second season got announced at—to answer for his crimes. Namely, making all of us very morose with how the first season shook out.

"We are a company from Poland," said Sztybor. "I'm from Poland and people in Poland are sad. They are born sad, they die sad, so I just wanted to make the whole world sad." Both relatable and admirable.

Also, just in case it's not clear, that's a joke, and Sztybor does delve a bit into his serious justification for making us sad—one that I reckon applies not just to Edgerunner but to pretty much any series (games included) the studio has worked on. "Human stories are important for CD Projekt Red," said Sztybor, "we always want to write stories that are character-driven." And then, the unspoken part presumably goes, do horrible things to those characters to upset you.

THE SADNESS! pic.twitter.com/PUothyE3OyJuly 5, 2025

It's a classic in the CDPR box o' tricks, going right back to poor little Alvin in The Witcher 1, and boy if it doesn't always seem to pay off for the studio. Did you go into Edgerunners, or Cyberpunk 2077 itself, expecting a happy outcome for anyone involved? I didn't. Was I devastated when the happy outcome I didn't expect didn't happen? You bet.

"When people are sad, then I'm a bit happy," says Sztybor. I suspect Edgerunners 2 will make him happier than ever.

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One of Josh's first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he's been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He'll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin's Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you're all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.

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