Yorinobu Arasaka: the Rebel Son Who Killed Saburo

Yorinobu Arasaka is the younger son of Saburo Arasaka, and the man who strangles his father in the opening act of Cyberpunk 2077. All his life he has wanted to destroy Arasaka. As a young man he tried it from outside with a Tokyo street gang. By 2077 he's decided it can only be done from within. (Corporation Report 2020 Volume 1; Cyberpunk 2077)

Who is Yorinobu Arasaka?#

Yorinobu is Saburo's son by his later wife Michiko, and the full brother of Hanako Arasaka. He and Hanako grew up happily in the family compound outside Tokyo with no idea what their father's company really did. Saburo meant to tell him when he was ready. (Corporation Report 2020 Volume 1)

That moment came after Yorinobu graduated from university. Saburo took him aside and explained Arasaka's true aims, the extortion, killings and political control meant to make Japan the world's dominant power. His older half-brother Kei had accepted all of it. Yorinobu said nothing, sat through a dinner in his honour, then slipped out of the compound and vanished into Tokyo. (Corporation Report 2020 Volume 1)

The Steel Dragons#

Within a few years Yorinobu had built the Steel Dragons, or Kotetsu no Ryu, a bosozoku gang sworn to expose Arasaka and bring it down. They harassed Arasaka staff and dug up its black operations, and Yorinobu's inside knowledge gave them an edge, though never enough to do real damage. He could move between the street and the boardroom with equal ease, and travelled the world looking for allies and money. (Corporation Report 2020 Volume 1)

Saburo loved him and grieved over the betrayal but accepted that his son was a threat. Kei swore to kill him. Hanako still loved him, and the two kept talking in secret through the Net once a month. (Corporation Report 2020 Volume 1)

Coming home#

During the Fourth Corporate War, Yorinobu kept up his own fight against Arasaka and turned down Militech, which tried to bring him over to its side. Even the destruction of Arasaka Tower in Night City didn't finish the company, and he came to believe it could only be beaten from inside. (Firestorm: Shockwave)

Kei died in the war. At his funeral Yorinobu asked to be forgiven, and with Hanako's support he was taken back into the family. By the 2040s he led the Taka faction, one of three groups waiting for Saburo to die, and he hadn't given up on bringing the company down. (Cyberpunk RED)

To the public in 2077, he's a different man. His game database entry calls him difficult and controversial, with no important role at Arasaka, and says being a billionaire is more fun for him than running the company. (Cyberpunk 2077)

Why Yorinobu stole the Relic#

In 2077 Yorinobu took a prototype of the Relic, the biochip at the heart of his father's work on cheating death, from an Arasaka lab and brought it to Night City. Shards in the game show him in talks with a NetWatch officer about handing over a working Relic. (Cyberpunk 2077)

Saburo followed, and confronted him in his Konpeki Plaza penthouse. Hidden in the suite, V and Jackie Welles watched father and son argue until Yorinobu strangled Saburo. He called security, claimed his father had been poisoned and told Goro Takemura to find the killers, then sent men to silence Takemura too. (Cyberpunk 2077)

Yorinobu in charge#

With Saburo dead, Yorinobu took control. He appeared at Saburo's memorial parade with Hanako's approval, and when Takemura kidnapped her there he sent Adam Smasher to get her back. Afterwards his people kept Hanako at the Arasaka estate in Night City, officially for her own safety. (Cyberpunk 2077)

His real plan was a coup. He called an emergency board meeting at Arasaka Tower in Night City, and when it began his Taka troops moved to wipe out the board and the rival factions. (Cyberpunk 2077)

What happens to Yorinobu in each ending#

The Devil. If V sides with Hanako, she exposes him in front of the board with Saburo's engram behind her, and sends V to take him alive. V finds him broken in his office with a gun he hasn't used on himself. He tells V he never wanted power, only to free people from his father's fear and to finish what Johnny Silverhand started. Then Saburo's engram is written over his mind, and his father lives on in his body. (Cyberpunk 2077)

Every other base-game ending. Without Arasaka, V's attack on the tower leaves Yorinobu alive and in charge, and Hanako is killed in the chaos. He goes back to Tokyo grieving her. The endings guide has the details. (Cyberpunk 2077)

The Tower. In Phantom Liberty's extra ending, Hanako and Takemura's attempt to remove him fails, and he frames Takemura for Hanako's death. By 2079, radio news reports that the board threw him out as a saboteur and that he fled with Nomads. See the Phantom Liberty guide. (Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty)

Where 2077 differs from the tabletop#

The tabletop books leave Yorinobu as an idealistic gang leader who later returns to the family to scheme from inside. Cyberpunk 2077 picks up the same man decades on and pushes him over the edge: he steals the Relic, kills his father and tries to take Arasaka by force. The game's public image of him as a carefree billionaire is also new, and it's a cover for the old rebel underneath. (Corporation Report 2020 Volume 1; Cyberpunk RED; Cyberpunk 2077)