For Cyberpunk 2077 players, we all know who Adam Smasher is, few know its backstory, but this Arasaka goon had a bit of a makeover between the original game and the DLC. So, what happened to Adam Smasher before and after?
The intriguing, notoriously difficult-to-beat, and disgustingly nefarious character has a bit of a story in the Cyberpunk 2077 lore worth exploring. From a problem child to his rivalry with Morgan Blackhand, and how he evolved into that cyborg, we get to rip its guts out if you choose the correct story path in Cyberpunk 2077 when you storm the Arasaka headquarters.
Adam Smasher Before and After? What Happened?
Adam Smasher looks like a mixture between a botched Robocop and a robot from Iron Man 3 gone wrong with all the æsthetics that CD Projekt Red took license to develop and create without breaking any copyright laws.
This Arasaka goon, this Arasaka pet dog who will do anything their Arasaka masters will do regardless of its morality, is the kind of villain that you want to beat, and in the game, it makes Evelyn Parker afraid.
He’s ruthless, he’s power-hungry, and he even shoots up Johnny Silverhand. Smasher had a rather bleak early life, not entirely detailed neither in the game, the board game, or the novel story that creates the Cyberpunk 2077 universe. What we do know is that Adam Smasher used to be a gang member in the Big Apple. Things went sour with his clique, and then he joined the Army.
Smasher served six years in the Army and found that an organized, government-funded militia has better guns than any street gang. But bad habits are hard to drop, and Smasher got his ass kicked out of the army for bad behavior.
The fact that he learned all that gun tech knowledge in the Armed Forces, coupled with his erratic behavior, builds up to his nasty af persona. At some point, a jobless Smasher found himself being contacted by a corporation on a mission to steal some corporate technology.
Full Cyborg In Service Of Arasaka
Smasher accepts, and then he gets his ass blasted off with an RPG in the process, he died, but Arasaka picked up what is left of him, and in a Darth Vader sort of construction style, they rebuilt his remains, offered him a 15-year contract, and made him the ruthless cyborg we face in the game.
For the first couple of years, he’s allowed to do some freelance jobs, but considering he’s mostly a robot, whenever an Arasaka top dog hits the call button, Smasher comes in with his tail wagging asking for instructions.
The dude ends up being 96% robotic: Has missile launchers, chainguns, optical data gathering suits, signals interception devices, and radiation shielding and he never, ever rides along, he always has an elite Arasaka death squad to help him out when he’s attacked, making him a complex target if you want him off circulation.
Now, being a cyborg in Cyberpunk 2077 is a complex thing, that’s usually reserved for those working the corporations like Arasaka, on the streets, it’s badly seen, those who do it are deemed “sell-outs” and have really bad street rep.
Smasher lacks everything when it comes to finesse, he’ll do anything he’s asked for by Arasaka, which is a rather stark contrast with people like Morgan Blackhand, who hire you in the game to do subtle, professional work. Smasher instead, blows everything the f*ck up and has the extreme brute force approach: “If it doesn’t work, you’re not using enough”.
Morgan avoids casualties, Smashes likes dead bodies in pools of blood. Smasher stopped Johnny Silverhand’s group, there’s a nuke blast, and their fates are rather uncertain. Then, in the game, he becomes Yorinobu Arasaka’s personal bodyguard.
In the final mission, if you choose the right path, you get to fight Adam Smasher when you follow Silverhand into storming Arasaka Tower, and you get to blow him up and rip his guts out. But it is up for grabs of his whereabouts and future if you choose this path during the game.
If you ever get the chance to play this game, try choosing the path to storming Arasaka Tower in the “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” mission, as you’ll have a hell of a time beating him up.
