Adam Smasher is Arasaka's head of security, a full-body cyborg, and the last enemy David Martinez ever faces in Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. He also shows up as an enemy in Cyberpunk 2077. No official age or height has ever been published for him, and he survives the anime.
Pick your path: who he is · his age · what he does in Edgerunners · does he die?
Spoilers ahead: this post spoils Cyberpunk: Edgerunners episode 10 and the final act of Cyberpunk 2077. The age, height and origin sections are spoiler-free. The episode 10 scenes and the game's ending sit behind taps.
Want to put yourself inside Cyberpunk: Edgerunners? YourCrush.AI turns this post's original character recipe, Quentin Halloway, into someone you can talk to.
Who is Adam Smasher?
Adam Smasher is Arasaka's head of security, a legendary, fully cybernetic supersoldier who is the final enemy of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Alec Newman voices him in English, reprising his role from Cyberpunk 2077, and Yukihiro Misono voices him in Japanese, per Wikipedia's cast list.
Adam Smasher is a full-body cyborg who heads Arasaka's security in the Cyberpunk universe and appears in both Cyberpunk 2077 and the anime Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, where he kills Rebecca and David Martinez. Wikipedia's own words for him are "a legendary, fully-cybernetic supersoldier and Arasaka's ruthless head of security". Ask who is Adam Smasher in the anime specifically and the answer is short: he enters only in its last episode, which is why the story of the first six episodes never mentions him. By the time he arrives, every warning about chrome in the series has already come true for someone else.
"Final enemy" is my description of his role in the series, not a ranking. In the show he is less a character than a wall. Arasaka sends him, and the story ends where he stands.
How YourCrush.AI lets you face a corporate enforcer of your own design
YourCrush.AI lets you build an enforcer as cold as Smasher and put yourself on the other side of the table from him, using the no-code form at our character builder. The recipe below is an original adult character, not Smasher: freelance, bound by contract, with a code he keeps.
YourCrush.AI gives you Cold-hearted, Arrogant and Confident among its 32 traits, so a hard character does not have to be softened to fit the form. YourCrush.AI drafts the fields from a name and an image if you would rather start from a draft. YourCrush.AI also splits a chat into story branches, so you can play the contract where Quentin keeps you alive and the one where somebody outbids your employer. Joining is free. Copy these fields into the form:
- Name: Quentin Halloway
- Category: Anime
- Behaviour mode: natural
- Traits: Cold-hearted, Confident, Arrogant, Intelligent, Loyal
- Speaking style: flat, sparse, clinical, heavy
- Description: Quentin Halloway is a 54-year-old former corporate security chief, almost entirely converted to machine, who now works as a freelance bodyguard in Night City. He keeps every contract to the letter and never harms a client, whatever he thinks of them. He speaks in short, flat sentences, notices everything and explains nothing. He treats you as the person he has just been hired to keep alive for seventy-two hours.
- Backstory: Quentin ran security for a corporation for twenty years until it replaced him with a newer model. He took his body with him when he left, which the company still considers theft, and he sells the one thing he knows how to do. He has never lost a client and does not intend to start with you.
- Greeting: The car door opens and the suspension sinks under his weight. Quentin folds into the seat beside you, optics flickering over your face like a scanner reading a barcode. "Your employer paid for seventy-two hours of protection. Not conversation. Tell me where you sleep, who knows it, and who you owe. Lie once and I bill them for the extra work."
How old is Adam Smasher?
CD Projekt Red has never published an official age for Adam Smasher. The game lore, as summarised by Game Rant, places his birth somewhere in the late 20th century, with Arasaka hiring him in 2022.
You will find a specific age and a birthday floating around online, but those numbers trace back to fan wikis and aggregators rather than CD Projekt Red, so I am not printing them here. Whatever the exact figure, he is an adult and an old one. That matters less than you would expect, because so little of the original man is left.
How tall is Adam Smasher?
No official height exists for Adam Smasher. The numbers you see floating around come from fan wikis, toy listings, and aggregator sites, not from CD Projekt Red, and they contradict each other.
If a page hands you an exact figure in metres or centimetres, ask where it came from. None of the reputable sources I checked for this post has one.
Who was Adam Smasher before the chrome?
Before he was a full-body cyborg, Adam Smasher was a street thug in New York. A near-fatal rocket attack left him with a single choice: "become a cyborg Solo, a half-machine hitman, or die." He picked the machine. Arasaka hired him in 2022 to fight in the Fourth Corporate War, according to Game Rant's lore summary.
That rocket, in Game Rant's telling, left his body "nearly completely obliterated." What he looked like before it, nobody reputable describes, so I won't either. Game Rant also credits him with killing Johnny Silverhand during the raid on Arasaka Tower on 20 August 2023. The game presents that memory as unreliable, though, so treat it as the story Night City tells rather than settled fact.
What does Adam Smasher do in Edgerunners?
Arasaka sends Smasher into Arasaka Tower in episode 10 as David fights his way to Lucy, and he kills Rebecca and then David. He also shoots off Falco's arm as Falco escapes with Lucy, and he survives the episode; the whole night is told in the Edgerunners ending.
David is wearing Arasaka's own prototype Cyberskeleton and has fought through Militech, Arasaka and MaxTac to reach the tower. Then the tower's security changes.
Spoiler: when Adam Smasher enters the fight
David finds Lucy inside the tower, and Arasaka sends in Adam Smasher. David then runs out of immunoblockers and slides toward cyberpsychosis until she reaches him and brings him back, per Wikipedia's episode summary.
Rebecca does what she always does: she raises her gun. The answer to what Smasher does to Rebecca is the moment most viewers remember.
Spoiler: what Smasher does to Rebecca
In Wikipedia's words, "She attempts to shoot him, but she dies instantly when he lands on and crushes her into the ground." Kotaku notes it happens "during a tender moment between the gang" (Kotaku).
Falco has the car and one job left. David gives it to him.
Spoiler: who gets out of the tower
David holds Smasher off and tells Falco to get Lucy out and share out the crew's money. Smasher shoots off Falco's arm, and Falco escapes with Lucy anyway, per CBR. Where that leaves Lucy after the tower has its own post.
Then it is Smasher and David alone.
Spoiler: Smasher's last words to David
Before killing him, Smasher tells David "You could prove an interesting construct", as Looper records. David brushes the remark off, and Smasher kills him (CBR).
Here is our imagining of Smasher's report to Arasaka afterwards, not a line from the show:
"Tower secure. Prototype recovered. Two hostiles neutralised, one driver escaped with the netrunner. Recommend we stop sending amateurs our hardware."
Why is he there at all? The show gives him no personal motive: he is Arasaka's head of security, and Arasaka sends him. Our reading is that this is the point of him. In a story about people breaking under too much chrome, Smasher is the one who is almost all chrome and does not break, which is why he is the end of the road for David.
Did Adam Smasher respect David?
The show gives you one line and no verdict. Before killing him, Smasher tells David, "You could prove an interesting construct," and David brushes the remark off. That line can read as respect, or as Arasaka sizing up an asset. The show never says which.
CBR paraphrases it as Smasher finding David an "interesting construct," which leans toward curiosity rather than admiration. I lean the same way. "Construct" is a word you use for a thing. Here is our imagining of Smasher sizing up a chromed rival, not a line from the show:
"Military spine, corporate frame, street-grade nerves. Interesting combination. Shame about the nerves."
Is Adam Smasher a cyberpsycho?
Mike Pondsmith, who created Cyberpunk, has described him as a "high-functioning cyberpsycho", as reported by CBR. That phrasing does a lot of work. By the creator's own account, the condition is present, and Smasher still controls it.
TheGamer captures the in-universe fan reading of the same idea: Smasher is "97 percent machine", "doesn't seem to suffer from cyberpsychosis, and fans have theorised it's because there wasn't any humanity in him to begin with." Pondsmith has also said cyberpsychosis depends partly on "the subject's overall internal susceptibility", per Screen Rant. Put those two statements side by side and you get a working answer to how a man with that much chrome stays functional. Whatever breaks other people had nothing left to break in him.
Does Adam Smasher die?
Not in Edgerunners. He walks away from episode 10. In Cyberpunk 2077 he does go down, because Wikipedia's plot summary has V confronting and defeating him, and Kotaku notes that players "get a chance to put a legit bullet in his mecha-skull toward the game's final act."
Spoiler: Smasher's fate in Cyberpunk 2077
Wikipedia's plot summary of Cyberpunk 2077 says V confronts and defeats Arasaka's fully cybernetic enforcer, and Kotaku places the fight toward the game's final act. Whether that death counts as canon is a separate question. CD PROJEKT RED has never named any ending of the game canon, and TheGamer reports that "none of the endings are officially considered canon, at least for now."
So the honest answer is: alive at the end of the anime, beatable in the game, and officially dead in no canon yet.
Frequently asked questions
Who voices Adam Smasher in Edgerunners?
Alec Newman in English, reprising his Cyberpunk 2077 role, and Yukihiro Misono in Japanese, per Wikipedia.
What episode is Adam Smasher in?
Episode 10, "My Moon My Man," the show's finale.
Who killed Johnny Silverhand?
Game Rant says Adam Smasher killed him during the raid on Arasaka Tower on 20 August 2023, though the game treats that memory as unreliable. It's lore, not a scene in the anime.
Is Adam Smasher in Cyberpunk 2077?
Yes. He's Arasaka's enforcer in the game as well, and V faces him in the final act.
Does Adam Smasher kill Lucy?
No. Falco gets Lucy out of the tower while David holds Smasher off, and she survives the series.
More from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
- Read the full story: What is Cyberpunk Edgerunners about? The story from Gloria's death to the time skip