What Year Does Cyberpunk 2077 Take Place? 2076 to 2077

Cyberpunk 2077 takes place in 2077, with its prologue set a few months earlier in late 2076. Cyberpunk Red, the newer tabletop game, is set much earlier, in 2045, and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is set in 2075 and 2076. (Cyberpunk Wiki timeline)

What year does Cyberpunk 2077 take place?#

2077 is the main year, and the title is the setting. The wiki's timeline puts the prologue, where V and Jackie Welles start working together as mercenaries, in October or November 2076. Acts 1 to 3 then start half a year later, around April 2077, and the Konpeki Plaza heist in which Saburo Arasaka is murdered follows not long after Saburo's arrival on 1 May. The epilogue is set in mid to late summer 2077, a few months after the Arasaka Tower assault. (Cyberpunk 2077; Cyberpunk Wiki timeline)

When does Cyberpunk Red take place?#

In 2045 for most of its adventures, per the same timeline. Cyberpunk Red was released on 14 November 2020 (digital), and the physical rulebook followed on 19 November 2020. The wiki says it was written to coincide with the video game and bridge the gap between the two games. (Cyberpunk RED; Cyberpunk Wiki)

That puts Red long after Johnny Silverhand died in 2023.

When are Edgerunners and Phantom Liberty set?#

Edgerunners: episodes 1 to 6 are set in 2075, and episodes 7 to 10 in 2076. David Martinez's last stand happens in 2076 and the wiki places the Cyberpunk 2077 prologue after it. The anime premiered on Netflix on 13 September 2022. (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners; Cyberpunk Wiki)

Phantom Liberty: mid to late June 2077, during the main story. The expansion was released on 26 September 2023. In The Tower ending V recovers from surgery and wakes from a two-year coma in 2079. (Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty; Cyberpunk Wiki)

Edgerunners 2: set after both Edgerunners and Cyberpunk 2077, and the timeline puts it early in 2078. It premiered on Netflix on 20 October 2026. (Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2; Cyberpunk Wiki)

A short in-universe timeline#

These are dates inside the story. Release dates have their own section below.

1. 2013: the setting of the first Cyberpunk tabletop game. Arasaka kidnaps Alt Cunningham and Johnny leads a raid on Arasaka Tower.
2. 2020: most Cyberpunk 2020 adventures.
3. 2021 to 2022: the Fourth Corporate War begins. The Cyberpunk Red world book has it starting in 2021 and becoming official in 2022.
4. 20 August 2023: a nuclear device goes off in Arasaka Towers and levels much of central Night City.
5. 2045: most Cyberpunk Red adventures.
6. 2075 to 2076: Edgerunners.
7. October or November 2076: the Cyberpunk 2077 prologue.
8. April to summer 2077: Cyberpunk 2077 acts, with Phantom Liberty in mid to late June.
9. Early 2078: Edgerunners 2.
10. 2079: the Phantom Liberty Tower ending epilogue.

The full calendar, with sources, is on the Cyberpunk timeline. (Cyberpunk Wiki timeline)

When did Cyberpunk come out?#

The first tabletop game came out in 1988. A second edition, Cyberpunk 2020, followed in 1990 and moved the setting forward seven years to 2020, and the wiki lists the CyberGeneration game in 1993, the Firestorm books in 1997 and Cyberpunk V3.0 in 2005. CD Projekt Red announced Cyberpunk 2077 in 2012, and the game was released on 10 December 2020. Cyberpunk Red came out in November 2020, just before it, then Edgerunners on 13 September 2022, Phantom Liberty on 26 September 2023 and Edgerunners 2 on 20 October 2026. For the order of the games, see Cyberpunk games in order. (Cyberpunk Wiki timeline; Cyberpunk 2077)

Cyberpunk 2077 history in short#

The world in these stories splits from ours around the 1990s, when the Soviet Union falls, nuclear weapons reach the black market, and the Collapse follows. Corporations fill the gap left by failing governments. Four corporate wars follow by 2023, and the fourth, the Fourth Corporate War, ends with the nuclear blast in Night City. By 2077 corporate influence is stronger than ever, and people fear another war. (Cyberpunk Wiki timeline)

Canon Notes#

The tabletop timeline has been rewritten more than once. The 1990 second edition moved the setting forward from 2013 to 2020, and CyberGeneration and Cyberpunk V3.0 are treated by the wiki as an alternate timeline, though many V3.0 events were written into Red. Mike Pondsmith has called the official dates for the later editions up in the air. For anything after 2023 in the books, treat the dates as the current best version and not a settled one. (Cyberpunk Wiki timeline)

The wiki also disagrees with itself on how long the Time of the Red lasted. One entry says the sky stayed red for two years after 20 August 2023. The overview says the Time of the Red ran until 2045. I'd trust the first for the sky and the second for the reconstruction era, but that's my guess about how to reconcile them. (Cyberpunk Wiki timeline)

My read is that it helps to treat the 2076 prologue and the 2077 acts together as one story with a six-month gap in the middle. Edgerunners ends in that same year, 2076, so the anime and the game sit closer together than the title suggests. For that story, see the Cyberpunk 2077 story explained and Phantom Liberty's story.