What Happened to Adam Smasher in Edgerunners?

In Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Adam Smasher kills Rebecca and then David Martinez outside Arasaka Tower in 2076, and nothing in the series stops him. In Cyberpunk 2077 he's Arasaka's head of security, and the wiki's cast list for Edgerunners 2 doesn't include him. (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners; Cyberpunk 2077)

What happened to Adam Smasher in Edgerunners?#

He kills Rebecca and David, and nobody in the series beats him. The Cyberpunk Wiki says Kate Miller and Douglas of Arasaka counterintelligence brought Smasher in to deal with David, who was using a prototype cyberskeleton. When David reached Arasaka Tower, Smasher stepped in to save Douglas's life. (Cyberpunk Wiki)

Here's the fight in order. (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners; Cyberpunk Wiki)

1. Smasher and David trade insults. David looks away when Trauma Team carries off Faraday, and Smasher shoots him in the gut.
2. David briefly goes cyberpsycho and activates his Sandevistan. Smasher does the same and fires a missile into the back of the cyberskeleton, which throws David, Lucy and Faraday out of the tower. Faraday falls to his death.
3. David escapes with Lucy and Smasher follows, crushing Rebecca on the way. In Memorial Park, Falco tries to slow him down and is swatted aside.
4. David uses the Sandevistan again and is shocked that Smasher keeps pace. Smasher scoffs that it's a "rudimentary implant." Lucy's quickhack barely bothers him because of his ICE, and her cyberdeck fries.
5. Smasher is distracted by Lucy and Falco running away, and David immobilises him. Smasher rips the anti-grav devices off the cyberskeleton, tears it apart, and shoots the limbless David in the head from point-blank range.

That's the whole sequence. David dies there. Lucy gets away with Falco, and the series ends with her on the Moon. The full recap is in the Edgerunners episode guide.

What happened to Adam Smasher after Edgerunners?#

By 2077 he's still Arasaka's problem solver. He's Yorinobu Arasaka's bodyguard at the Konpeki Plaza penthouse, chases V and Jackie after Yorinobu kills Saburo, and gets promoted to head of security when Yorinobu becomes CEO. He later leads the strike team that rescues Hanako Arasaka from her kidnappers. (Cyberpunk 2077)

His fate depends on the route into Arasaka Tower. If V asks Panam for help, Smasher kills Saul Bright, then fights V and Panam and is defeated. If V lets Johnny and Rogue go, Smasher stabs Rogue, she kills herself with a grenade in his chest, and he's beaten by V, controlled by Johnny's engram, and Crispin Weyland. If V asks Hanako for help, V fights him outside the CEO's office and wins. On the suicide run, V faces him without allies, and the wiki says he is either beaten or kills V and indirectly Johnny. (Cyberpunk 2077)

More on the routes is in the Cyberpunk 2077 endings guide.

Where was Adam Smasher in season 2?#

Edgerunners 2 premiered on Netflix on 20 October 2026 and is set after Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077. The wiki's timeline puts it early in 2078. Its main and supporting cast lists don't name Smasher, although Kate Miller, who called him in during 2076, is on the list. (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2; Cyberpunk Wiki)

I haven't checked the ten episodes themselves, and a wiki cast list can lag behind a series that has only just released. So I wouldn't say he isn't in it. The safe version is that he isn't listed. If you've watched it, check the credits. More on the series is in the Edgerunners 2 guide.

How many Adam Smashers are there?#

One character, with a lot of bodies. By 2023 he had a closetful of different cyberbodies, and after the Fourth Corporate War he stopped using humanoid ones. For decades after 2023, rumours described an unstoppable metal juggernaut running operations around the world, and the wiki says nobody confirmed whether that was the real Smasher or someone using his name. (Cyberpunk Wiki)

The sources I checked treat the Smasher of 2076 and 2077 as the same person. For how he got his body in the first place, see why Adam Smasher went full borg.

Did Morgan Blackhand beat Adam Smasher?#

Nobody knows, because no source records a winner. During the raid on Arasaka Tower in 2023, Smasher showed up in DaiOni power armour with Shaitan's biopod in his hands and taunted Morgan Blackhand, who ordered his people to leave without him. The two attacked each other, and soon after, the blast started shaking the building. The wiki says the outcome of the fight was never determined. (Cyberpunk Wiki)

The wiki says Smasher survived somehow and that Blackhand's status stayed unconfirmed afterwards. Pondsmith has since said Blackhand is alive in 2077, so the duel killed neither of them.

Canon Notes#

My read is that Edgerunners is where Smasher's 2077 menace gets earned. David is a Sandevistan user in a prototype cyberskeleton, and Smasher keeps pace with his Sandevistan and calls it rudimentary. That is the scene that makes V's win in the tower mean something. That's my interpretation, and no source says it. (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners)

The Cyberpunk Wiki's Smasher and Johnny Silverhand entries describe the Rogue route differently. Smasher's entry has Rogue die by her own grenade, while Johnny's has Smasher kill her. I'd go with the Smasher page, because it's the more detailed one, but I haven't verified it in the game. (Cyberpunk Wiki; Cyberpunk 2077)

The English dub of Edgerunners also restores Smasher's habit of calling targets meat, which the Japanese script drops. (Cyberpunk Wiki)