The short version: Night City 2045, the 312-page official tabletop sourcebook for Cyberpunk RED, goes on sale today, June 17, 2026. Produced in direct collaboration between R. Talsorian Games and CD Projekt Red, it is set 32 years before Cyberpunk 2077 and maps all 24 districts of Night City, each given its own character. This is the most comprehensive single-volume guide to the Cyberpunk universe ever published, and it arrives as the tabletop RPG market posts record numbers for the third consecutive year.
What is Night City 2045, and how does it fit into the Cyberpunk universe?
The Cyberpunk tabletop game, originally designed by Mike Pondsmith at R. Talsorian Games, predates the video game by three decades. Cyberpunk RED, the current edition, is set during what fans call the Time of the Red: the bleak stretch of years after the Fourth Corporate War, when Night City is rebuilding and corporations are consolidating power before the gleaming corporate dystopia of Cyberpunk 2077 takes full shape. Night City 2045 sits squarely in that era, 32 years before V’s story begins.
What makes this release different from previous sourcebooks is the depth of direct collaboration with CD Projekt Red, confirmed by CBR ahead of release. The studio that built the video game opened its internal lore documents to R. Talsorian, meaning Night City 2045 is not an interpretation of the universe; it is the canonical record of it. Every district, power structure, and faction backstory is now officially on the page.
The book covers all 24 districts of Night City. Each is given its own character, a kind of avatar embodying the district’s personality and history. CGM Magazine noted that the ambition here is to give Game Masters and players the full historical context that Cyberpunk 2077 only implied. The Time of the Red, in Night City 2045, is not a wasteland interlude; it is where the political geography that shapes V’s world was formed.
Why does this matter beyond the existing fan base?
Market timing tells part of the story. The Cyberpunk IP has had a remarkable recovery since Edgerunners, the Netflix anime, rekindled mainstream attention in 2022. The video game rebuilt its reputation through genuine post-launch improvement. Indie studios have already taken notes on how a single well-executed piece of IP-adjacent media can transform a franchise’s cultural standing permanently.
Night City 2045 arrives into a tabletop RPG market that is genuinely growing. The pandemic-era surge in games like Dungeons and Dragons never fully receded; it evolved into a permanent shift in how people socialize, particularly among the 18 to 35 demographic that overlaps exactly with Cyberpunk’s core audience. A 312-page official sourcebook is not a niche curiosity at this moment; it is a cultural infrastructure document for a growing community of players, creators, and worldbuilders.
For content creators, writers, game developers, and indie studios working in adjacent spaces, the sourcebook also functions as a reference. Licensed Cyberpunk content now has a canonical geography and timeline to build on. The Cyberpunk universe’s value as a creative platform expanded significantly today.
What does Night City 2045 actually contain?
Beyond the district-by-district breakdown, Gfinity reports that Night City 2045 provides the hidden history of Night City: corporate power struggles, territorial control, underground economies, and the specific events that positioned each faction for the state of play Cyberpunk 2077 inherited. For tabletop players, that is years of campaign material. For writers and worldbuilders, it is the sourcing document they have been waiting for since 2020.
Both physical and digital editions are available today. The physical version is a standard hardcover, consistent with R. Talsorian’s production quality on Cyberpunk RED, which has set a high bar for layout and graphic design in the TTRPG space.
A sourcebook is also a business document
When R. Talsorian and CD Projekt Red collaborate on a canonical text, they are establishing the shared creative bible that every future licensed product, games, comics, films, merchandise, will need to align with. Night City 2045 is the kind of document that gets cited in licensing contracts, not just referenced in campaign prep.
That matters for anyone building creative products in spaces adjacent to cyberpunk culture. The Cyberpunk IP is one of the most commercially active sci-fi universes in European game development. Independent creators working in the cyberpunk aesthetic benefit when the canonical IP is well-documented, because it clarifies what is distinctly “Cyberpunk brand” versus what belongs to the broader genre’s shared visual and thematic language. That distinction is commercially important.
The release also lands at an interesting moment for virtual world development. Night City as a setting has been discussed as a candidate for persistent virtual world adaptation. A comprehensive, officially sanctioned lore document makes that kind of adaptation more feasible, not just creatively but legally and commercially. The geography is now on the record.
FAQ: Night City 2045 and the Cyberpunk universe
What is Night City 2045?
Night City 2045 is a 312-page sourcebook for Cyberpunk RED, the tabletop RPG. It is an official prequel to Cyberpunk 2077, produced in collaboration with CD Projekt Red. It covers all 24 districts of Night City as they existed during the Time of the Red, 32 years before the video game’s events.
Do I need to know Cyberpunk 2077 to use this book?
No. Night City 2045 is a tabletop RPG supplement, not a video game guide. You can use it entirely within the Cyberpunk RED system. Familiarity with Cyberpunk 2077 enriches the experience but is not a prerequisite.
Is Night City 2045 canon to Cyberpunk 2077?
Yes. R. Talsorian Games worked directly with CD Projekt Red on this sourcebook, making it an officially sanctioned canonical expansion of the Cyberpunk 2077 universe rather than a parallel interpretation.
Where can I buy Night City 2045?
Physical and digital editions are both available today, June 17, 2026. Check R. Talsorian Games’ official store for physical copies and DriveThruRPG for the digital PDF edition.
If Night City 2045 confirms that the Time of the Red is when today’s corporate structures were formed, which faction’s backstory are you most curious to finally have in canonical print?
