Honestly, most people who played through CD Projekt Red’s RPG missed the best part of the world-building because they were too busy trying to fix their frame rates or figure out which ending was the least depressing. It's a shame. While the game had its redemption arc and the Edgerunners anime made everyone cry over a Radiohead-adjacent song, the book Cyberpunk 2077 No Coincidence by Rafał Kosik is arguably the "purest" slice of that universe we’ve ever gotten.
It’s gritty.
If you’re looking for a hero story, look elsewhere. This isn't V and Johnny Silverhand taking on the world; it’s a group of absolute disasters—misfits, losers, and people just trying to pay rent—who get blackmailed into a heist that goes sideways almost immediately. Kosik doesn't hold your hand. He writes Night City like a hungry animal. You feel the grease on the chrome and the smell of cheap synthetic noodles in every chapter.
What Cyberpunk 2077 No Coincidence Gets Right About the Lore
The game gives you a lot of freedom, which is great for gameplay but sometimes dilutes the sheer crushing weight of living under corporate rule. In Cyberpunk 2077 No Coincidence, you see the granular details of how the city breaks people. We aren't talking about legendary mercs here. We are talking about Zor, a man with a mysterious military past; Aya, a corporate dropout; and others like Ron, Milena, and Albert. They are pushed together by an anonymous handler.
It feels like a classic noir.
The plot revolves around a robbery of a Militech convoy. Simple, right? In Night City, "simple" is a death sentence. The thing is, Kosik is a heavyweight in Polish science fiction, and he understands the "punk" part of Cyberpunk better than most western writers who just focus on the neon aesthetics. He focuses on the lack of agency. These characters aren't "choosing" their path; they are reacting to a system that has already decided they are disposable.
The Problem With Modern Cyberpunk Stories
Too often, we see the "chosen one" trope. V is special because of the Relic. David Martinez is special because of his "built different" tolerance for Sandevistan. But the characters in this novel? They aren't special. They’re competent, sure, but they’re just cogs. That’s what makes the stakes feel real. When someone dies in this book—and people do—it isn't a cinematic moment with a swelling soundtrack. It's messy. It’s sudden. It’s a "no coincidence" kind of tragedy where every action has a brutal reaction.
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Breaking Down the Heist and the Fallout
The narrative structure is pretty clever, jumping between the "now" and the events leading up to the job. You get this sense of inevitable doom. As you read, you start to see the connections. It’s not just a random heist; it’s a localized explosion in a much larger war between Militech and Arasaka that the characters barely understand.
A lot of readers ask if they need to play the game first.
Not really.
If you know what a "ripperdoc" is and you understand that corporations run the world, you’re good. But if you have played the game, the cameos and the locations—like the Totentanz club or the back alleys of Watson—hit much harder. Kosik uses the geography of Night City as a character itself. It’s a claustrophobic maze. He describes the transition from the glitz of North Oak to the rotting guts of Pacifica with a level of sensory detail that a 3D engine just can't quite capture.
The book also dives deep into the psychological toll of "braindance" and digital addiction. In the game, BDs are often just a gameplay mechanic for detective work. In the novel, they are a soul-erasing drug. We see how characters use them to escape a reality that is literally unbearable. It’s dark stuff, but that’s the genre.
Why Rafał Kosik Was the Right Choice
CD Projekt Red could have hired a generic tie-in novelist. Instead, they went with Kosik, who is famous for his "Felix, Net and Nika" series and his hard sci-fi work like Mars. He brings a European sensibility to the setting. It’s less "action movie" and more "existential dread."
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His prose is sharp.
"In Night City, you don't look for the truth. You look for the version of the lie you can live with."
(That’s a paraphrase of the vibe he maintains throughout the 400+ pages.)
The Connection to the 2077 Timeline
A major point of confusion for fans is where this fits. It’s set roughly around the same time as the game, but it’s a standalone story. You don't need to worry about V’s choices affecting the plot. This is a "street-level" view. While the big players are fighting over the Soulkiller program, these people are just trying to survive a Tuesday.
- The Maelstrom Gang: They show up, and they are terrifying. In the game, you can just blast through them. In the book, their cyber-psychosis is portrayed as a genuine, skin-crawling horror.
- The Net: Kosik writes hacking (Netrunning) as a terrifying dive into a digital abyss, not just a "breach protocol" minigame. It feels dangerous.
- Corporate Politics: The book illustrates the petty, middle-management cruelty of Militech. It’s not just "evil CEOs"; it’s the guy three levels up who ruins your life to get a slightly better office.
The title itself, No Coincidence, is a bit of a meta-commentary. In a city where everything is tracked, every move is monitored, and every "random" encounter is often the result of an algorithm or a corporate spy’s agenda, there really are no coincidences.
Real-World Reception and E-E-A-T
When the book dropped, critics like those at Polygon and Eurogamer noted that it felt more "mature" than the game’s main quest. It doesn't rely on the "cool" factor of being a mercenary. It’s a deconstruction of that life. It’s also worth noting the audiobook version is narrated by Cherami Leigh, the female voice actor for V. She does an incredible job bringing a different energy to each of the ensemble cast members, making the "no coincidence" theme feel even more personal.
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If you’re a fan of William Gibson’s Neuromancer or Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon, this is going to be right up your alley. It’s much closer to those roots than the neon-pop aesthetic would suggest.
Actionable Takeaways for Fans and Readers
If you want to get the most out of the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, don't stop at the credits of the game or the final episode of the anime.
1. Grab the Audiobook if you can. Cherami Leigh’s performance adds a layer of continuity to the game that makes the transition seamless. It’s about 11 hours of content that fills in the gaps of what it’s actually like to live in a megacity.
2. Focus on the "Small" Details. When reading, pay attention to the descriptions of the "scavs" and the black market ripperdocs. It explains the economy of Night City—how body parts and chrome are recycled—better than any codex entry in the game.
3. Use it as Lore Prep for the Sequel. With "Project Orion" (the Cyberpunk sequel) in development, CDPR is clearly leaning into the darker, more interconnected world Kosik describes. The themes of corporate blackmail and "unlucky" crews are likely going to be central to future games.
4. Read it as a Noir, not an Action Novel. If you go in expecting a shootout every three pages, you might be disappointed. This is a slow-burn thriller. The tension comes from the characters realizing they are trapped in a web they can't even see.
5. Check out Kosik's other work. If you like the way he handles technology and its impact on the human psyche, his older Polish novels (many of which have translations) are masterclasses in hard sci-fi.
Living in Night City is a death sentence; Cyberpunk 2077 No Coincidence just shows you how much it hurts before the end comes. It’s a brutal, necessary addition to the franchise that strips away the glamor and leaves you with the cold, hard chrome.