Let’s be real: Cyberpunk 2077 is a game about losers. Yeah, yeah, it’s about rebellion, survival, and sticking it to the corpos, but at the end of the day, every character you meet – no matter how badass, ambitious, or tech’d out they are – gets chewed up and spit out by Night City. V? Doomed. Johnny Silverhand? Already dead. David Martinez? You saw how that ended.
And then there’s Adam Smasher – the one guy who actually wins.
Most players see him as the ultimate bastard, the corporate lapdog who sold his soul for metal and murder. And sure, you wouldn’t be wrong. But here’s the thing: in a city where everyone either burns out, sells out, or gets flatlined, Adam Smasher thrives. He doesn’t just survive Night City – he bends it to his will. He’s not the villain of Cyberpunk 2077; he’s its final boss because he’s the game’s truest success story.
Does that make him the smartest guy in the room, or the most tragic?
See, unlike V, Jackie, or David – who all fight to hold on to some scrap of their humanity – Smasher doesn’t give a damn about being human. He chose to become the ultimate cybernetic killing machine, and in doing so, he sidestepped the one thing that takes down every other wannabe legend: emotion. No love, no loyalty, no pesky existential crises. Just pure, unfiltered power.
So here’s the real debate: In a city where the strong survive and the weak perish, is Adam Smasher the only character who actually “succeeds”? Or does his triumph come at too high a cost?
Let’s break it down – because love him or hate him, Smasher might just be the real main character of Cyberpunk 2077.
The Cost of Power in Night City
If there’s one thing Cyberpunk 2077 and Edgerunners make painfully clear, it’s that Night City has no mercy for the weak. Everyone wants power, but the price? It’s always too damn high. Some lose their lives, others lose their minds. But Adam Smasher? He paid upfront – his price was his humanity, and unlike everyone else, he never hesitated to hand it over.
Before he became the boogeyman of Night City, Adam Smasher was just another street-level nobody. A soldier, a mercenary – your standard-issue killer-for-hire. Then one day, he got himself blown to hell, and instead of bleeding out in some alley, Arasaka picked him up, put him back together, and turned him into the cyborg we all know.
And here’s where Smasher does something no one else in Night City dares to do: he embraces the machine. No existential crisis, no whining about what he’s lost – just pure acceptance. Where others struggle with the creeping horror of cyberpsychosis, Smasher leans in. He wants to be more metal than man. He doesn’t see flesh as sacred, doesn’t cling to the past – he evolves in a sense. That’s what makes him different from the other tragic figures in Cyberpunk’s world. David and V? They both get lost in the struggle between what they want and what the city demands. But Smasher? He already made his choice, and that clarity makes him dangerous.
Now, let’s talk about David Martinez, our golden boy from Edgerunners. He starts out with something Smasher never had – hope. A dream. The ambition to be more but to still be himself. When he slots in that Sandavistan, it’s not just about power or wanting to beat up the snotty rich kid from the Arasaka Academy – it’s about proving something, about fulfilling his mother’s dream, about making a name for himself. But as he keeps pushing, as the cyberware stacks up, as the city keeps demanding more from him, he loses control. The same cybernetics that make him stronger tear him apart, because, at the end of the day, he’s still human. And being human in Night City? That’s a liability.
And then there’s V, our player-controlled protagonist. V spends the entire game wrestling with their identity. They’re not just upgrading themselves for fun – they’re dying. Every new implant, every new edge they chase, is a desperate attempt to outrun their fate. No matter what choices you make, V is always losing something – their body, their future, their sense of self. By the time the credits roll, V is either dead, erased, or left chasing a dream that will never come true.
Now, contrast that with Smasher. He doesn’t struggle with what he’s becoming. He doesn’t resist the change. He doesn’t give a single, solitary fuck about what it means to be human. And that, ironically, makes him more stable than both David and V. He never fights the system; he just plays to win.
So here’s the million-eddies question: Does Smasher’s lack of humanity make him stronger, or does it make him weaker?
On one hand, he’s the only one who truly survives. He’s got a cushy job with Arasaka, he gets to kill whoever he wants, and there’s no tragic downward spiral waiting for him. He’s the perfect product of Night City – efficient, ruthless, unstoppable. If survival is the goal, then Smasher has already won.
But what kind of victory is that?
David had people who loved him. V had a story, a purpose, something real. Smasher? He’s just a weapon. A glorified tool. The most powerful pawn in Night City’s never-ending game. He didn’t just sacrifice his humanity – he sacrificed the possibility of ever being anything more than what Arasaka made him.
So yeah, he wins. But does it even matter?
Why Night City Rewards People Like Adam Smasher
Night City isn’t a playground – it’s a goddamn meat grinder. It doesn’t care about your dreams, your ideals, or your tragic backstory. It only cares about power. It rewards those who take, crush, and control. It doesn’t punish cruelty – it incentivizes it. If you’re not willing to become a monster, you’re just another meal for the ones who are.
This is the city where corpos get rich off of human suffering, where fixers send you to your death with a smile, and where every merc, ripperdoc, and cyberpsycho is just one bad gig away from getting flatlined. The only thing that matters is how much chrome you’ve got and how far you’re willing to go to use it.
So let’s be real: in a city like this, who the hell has time for morality?
Every corner of Cyberpunk 2077 reinforces the same brutal truth – morality is a luxury. People sell their bodies, their souls, their loyalty just to scrape by. No one gets ahead without playing the game, and the game? It’s rigged from the start.
Smasher? He doesn’t waste time pretending the world should be different. He understands that Night City doesn’t reward compassion or idealism – it rewards efficiency. He doesn’t give a shit about honor, fairness, or the illusion of freedom. And because of that, he thrives where others fall. Adam Smasher didn’t climb to the top in spite of his inhumanity – he got there because of it. Arasaka took one look at him and saw potential. They didn’t need someone with a conscience. They didn’t want a soldier weighed down by fear or guilt. They needed a weapon – and Smasher became exactly that.
Unlike David, who fought against becoming a mindless killing machine, or V, who struggled to hold onto their sense of self, Smasher had no conflict. No existential crisis. No inner war. He gave himself fully to the system and was rewarded for it. He is the ultimate success story of Night City – not in the way we’d like to imagine, but in the way that actually matters in this world.
David Martinez was everything Smasher isn’t – passionate, ambitious, human. He wanted to be strong, but he also wanted to be loved. He fought for something bigger than himself. And in a world that feeds on weakness, that was his fatal flaw. David died because he cared too much. About Lucy. About his crew. About proving himself. He held onto his humanity, and that made him vulnerable. He was a king for a brief moment – a legend – but he burned too bright and too fast.
Then there’s V, the merc with a death sentence hanging over their head. Whether they try to carve out a legacy, fight for their own survival, or chase after something more, it all ends the same way: with loss. Unlike Smasher, who willingly erased any trace of his former self, V fights to hold onto theirs. Even when their mind is being consumed by Johnny Silverhand, even when their body betrays them, even when the city grinds them down to nothing – they still try to be someone.
Smasher has no such weakness. He doesn’t fight for identity because he doesn’t need one. He’s not a person – he’s a function, a force, a tool sharpened to perfection by the corporate machine. And in a world ruled by corpos, that makes him unstoppable.
At the heart of Cyberpunk 2077 is the question of how far we can push human augmentation before we lose what makes us human. Transhumanism in Night City isn’t about bettering yourself – it’s about outlasting everyone else. And the more you upgrade, the less of you remains. Most people struggle with that trade-off. Smasher? He embraced it. He is the endgame of cybernetic enhancement – the point where flesh and emotion are stripped away, leaving only pure, corporate-engineered functionality. He doesn’t break. He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t fear. Because he has nothing left to lose.
And that’s the terrifying part.
If transhumanism erases identity, if augmentation replaces what makes you you, then what’s left? What’s the point of survival if you have to kill the part of yourself that matters?
Is Adam Smasher the True Main Character of Cyberpunk 2077?
We all love to hate Adam Smasher. He’s a ruthless, unfeeling killing machine, a corporate lapdog, and the final boss we’re all too eager to put down. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: he won – at least for a time.
V and David? They burned bright and died young. Smasher? He didn’t just survive Night City – he conquered it. Until V finally put him down, that is. So that raises a disturbing question: is he really the villain, or did he just play the game better than everyone else?
Night City isn’t built for dreamers. It chews up revolutionaries like Johnny Silverhand. It crushes underdogs like David Martinez. Even the best mercs, like V, get used and discarded. Smasher is the only one who cracked the code. He doesn’t struggle with identity. He doesn’t agonize over morality. He doesn’t chase ideals that will get him killed. He simply exists to dominate. And in this world? That makes him one of the most successful people in the entire game – until the game itself decides he’s obsolete.
The tragedy of Adam Smasher isn’t that he lost himself – it’s that he chose to.
Most people in Night City are fighting to hold onto something. A sense of self. A dream. A purpose. But Smasher? He figured out that those things are liabilities. Attachments make you weak. Humanity makes you vulnerable. So he cut all of it away. And in return, he got power, immortality, and control.
But here’s the twist: in doing so, he didn’t become a man. He became a tool. A weapon wielded by Arasaka. He had no personal ambition, no agenda, no vision beyond serving the machine that kept him running. And in the end, that’s exactly what got him killed.
Smasher’s story is the final step in the cyberpunk nightmare: when you optimize yourself for survival so well that there’s nothing left of you to actually live.
Yes, he was powerful. Yes, he was undefeated for decades. But he was still just another cog in the machine. When V – another hungry, ambitious mercenary – finally came for him, Smasher didn’t even see it coming. David Martinez died with a dream. V, no matter which path they take, dies fighting for something – whether it’s freedom, survival, or a legacy. Adam Smasher? He died the same way he lived – just another piece of corporate hardware, finally replaced by a newer model.
The Dark Truth About Winning in Night City
Cyberpunk 2077 is a game about choices. Every character is faced with the same brutal reality: you can’t have it all.
If you want power, you have to sacrifice something. Your body. Your freedom. Your soul.
David Martinez wanted to protect the people he loved. He ended up a cyberpsycho, gunned down before he even hit his prime. V wanted to make a name for themselves, to live on their own terms. No matter which path they take, they end up losing control – of their body, their life, or their dreams.
Adam Smasher? He figured out the system. He embraced it. He let go of everything human so that nothing could ever hold him back. And for decades, it worked.
But even that wasn’t enough.
Night City doesn’t reward survivors. It doesn’t crown kings. It just moves on. Smasher outlived Johnny. He outlived David. But the moment he wasn’t useful anymore? He was scrap metal on the floor of Mikoshi, like all the others before him.
Can You Really Win in Night City?
So let’s be real: Is there actually a way to “win” in Night City?
Because if you play the game long enough, you realize something terrifying. Fight for your dreams? The city will crush them. Chase power? The city will replace you. Try to escape? The city will never let you go. Even the legends – Johnny, Rogue, V, Smasher – all of them end up dead, forgotten, or worse. So maybe the only real question is:
What would you sacrifice to survive? Your body? Your mind? Your soul?
Because in the end, Night City doesn’t care about who you are. It only cares about one thing.
What are you willing to lose to win?
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Featured image by Screen Rant
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