Arasaka: the Japanese Megacorp That Runs Night City in Cyberpunk

Arasaka is a Japanese megacorporation that sells security, banking and weapons across the world, and it is the most powerful corp in the Cyberpunk setting. Its black-clad guards protect executives on every continent, its Night City tower dominates the skyline, and its family heads are the villains, or the employers, in most of the stories set there. In Cyberpunk 2077 it is the company that built the Relic chip stuck in V's head. (Cyberpunk 2077; Corporate Report 2020 Volume 1)

How Arasaka started#

Arasaka began as a manufacturer. Sasai Arasaka founded it in 1915 and grew rich supplying Japan's military in the Second World War, but he saw defeat coming and hid much of the family money abroad. His son Saburo Arasaka, a navy officer, nearly killed himself when Japan surrendered and chose instead to rebuild Japan's power through business. (Corporate Report 2020 Volume 1)

Saburo took over in 1960. He set up Arasaka Security in the 1970s, and by the 1990s it was guarding powerful people and companies around the world, next to Arasaka Bank and Arasaka Manufacturing as one of the three big arms of the company. He made money from the economic collapse of the 1990s and later trained one of the first true corporate armies. (Corporate Report 2020 Volume 1; Cyberpunk 2020)

By 2020 Saburo's son Kei was the official head of the company, but the old man still made every big decision. That is where the tabletop game Cyberpunk 2020 finds Arasaka: an enormous, feared corp with a tower in Night City, a reputation for assassination and a long feud with the American arms firm Militech. (Cyberpunk 2020; Corporate Report 2020 Volume 1)

Soulkiller, Johnny Silverhand and the 2023 nuke#

Two events from Arasaka's past hang over 2077. The first is Soulkiller, a program that copies a person's mind into a digital construct and destroys the original. Arasaka forced the netrunner Alt Cunningham to work on it in 2013 and turned it on her. Her lover, the rocker Johnny Silverhand, never forgave the company. (Cyberpunk 2077; Cyberpunk RED)

The second is the Fourth Corporate War, which grew out of a fight between two ocean corps that hired Arasaka and Militech as muscle. It went global, and in 2023 a nuclear bomb destroyed Arasaka Tower in Night City, killing Kei and much of the downtown. The Arasaka Tower 2023 page has the full story. (Cyberpunk RED)

The versions differ on who set it off. The tabletop history credits a Militech-backed strike team that included Morgan Blackhand. Cyberpunk 2077 shows Johnny and Rogue in the raid, with Johnny arming the bomb before Arasaka's cyborg Adam Smasher catches him and his mind is taken with Soulkiller. (Cyberpunk RED; Cyberpunk 2077)

Arasaka paid for it politically. The US government blamed the blast on Arasaka, cancelled its right to operate in America and seized its assets. Japan cut the company loose to save face, and for years afterwards Arasaka was a Japan-only corp. (Cyberpunk RED)

The comeback and the family split#

Arasaka never lost its army or most of its money. Cyberpunk RED, set in 2045, describes the family split into three factions: a conservative wing around Saburo's daughter Hanako Arasaka, an aggressive wing around his younger son Yorinobu Arasaka, and a reformist wing around Kei's daughter Michiko. (Cyberpunk RED)

The road back to America ran through the Unification War of 2069 to 2070. Arasaka backed Night City against President Rosalind Myers' New United States, and when federal troops massed outside the city, an Arasaka supercarrier sailed into the bay and the invasion was called off. Arasaka returned to Night City, rebuilt its tower and took over the Watson waterfront. (The World of Cyberpunk 2077; Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty)

Arasaka in Cyberpunk 2077#

By 2077 Arasaka is the city's biggest employer and the obvious power in Corpo Plaza. Its secret project is the Relic, a chip that can hold a person's engram, built on Soulkiller's code under the scientist Anders Hellman. Its vault of stolen and stored minds is Mikoshi, hidden under the tower. (Cyberpunk 2077)

The plot starts when V and Jackie Welles break into Konpeki Plaza to steal the Relic and watch Yorinobu strangle his father. Saburo's bodyguard Goro Takemura loses his job and his honour, and the Relic ends up in V's head carrying Johnny's engram. The 2077 story explained page covers the rest. (Cyberpunk 2077)

Who ends up running Arasaka depends on the player:

• If V sides with Hanako, she exposes Yorinobu to the board, Saburo's engram is put into Yorinobu's body, and V ends up at an Arasaka clinic in orbit. (Cyberpunk 2077)
• If V attacks the tower with the Aldecaldos, with Rogue or alone, Mikoshi is breached and Hanako's plan to bring her father back never happens. (Cyberpunk 2077)

The endings explained page goes through each one in detail. (Cyberpunk 2077)

Arasaka in Edgerunners#

The anime shows Arasaka from street level. David Martinez starts out as a student at Arasaka Academy, paid for by his mother, and drops out after she dies. (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, "Let You Down")

By the finale Arasaka counter-intelligence has turned a fixer, captured Lucy and fitted David with a prototype cyberskeleton, and David dies in a fight with Adam Smasher outside the Night City tower. See Edgerunners explained for the full run. (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, "My Moon My Man")