Cyberpunk RED

Arasaka Tower

5 min read

🏢 Arasaka Tower

“Tonight, Arasaka Tower falls. For the last time.”

📋 Quick Reference

FieldValue
Full NameArasaka Towers (complex)
LocationCorporate Center, Night City
Status☢️ Destroyed (2023) — ruins in Hot Zone
Destroyed By.1 kiloton tactical nuclear device
DateAugust 20th, 2023
Casualties500,000+ killed instantly; 250,000+ in aftermath

📝 Overview

The Arasaka Towers complex was the symbol of Arasaka’s power in Night City — and the site of the worst disaster in the city’s history. On August 20th, 2023, a tactical nuclear weapon detonated on the 120th floor during a covert raid, destroying the complex, killing over half a million people, and creating the radioactive wasteland known as the Hot Zone.

The ruins stand as both warning and monument. Standing in the rubble of Arasaka Towers is considered an edgerunner achievement — a rite of passage for those who want to stare into the abyss where Night City almost ended.

🏗️ The Complex (Pre-2023)

The Arasaka Towers facility in Corporate Center housed some of the corporation’s most critical assets:

  • Reliquary Database Project — A secure database of uninfected knowledge, built after the DataKrash virus had consumed 78% of the NET. Saburo Arasaka personally ordered its construction.
  • Soulkiller Laboratory — Located on floor 120, in Kei Arasaka’s apartment bunker. The Soulkiller program could digitize human consciousness — the most dangerous technology ever created.
  • Corporate Headquarters — Regional command center for Arasaka’s North American operations.

The complex was massive — multiple interconnected towers dominating the Corporate Center skyline.

💥 The Night City Holocaust

The Raid

On August 20th, 2023, an incursion team led by Solo Morgan Blackhand and Rockerboy Johnny Silverhand infiltrated the Towers. Their mission: steal or destroy the Arasaka Secure Database before it could be weaponized.

The operation was backed by Militech and the nascent NUSA government. Johnny’s job was to inspire and direct a street mob against the Tower as a distraction while the real team went inside.

The Bomb

The device was a tactical nuclear weapon — a fraction of the Hiroshima bomb’s yield, similar to a 1950s Davy Crockett backpack nuke. Overall yield: .1 kiloton. It was designed specifically to demolish the Reliquary Database Project and Soulkiller lab.

The detonation occurred at floor 120 (366 meters) — Kei Arasaka’s bunker. Because it was technically an air blast at that altitude, long-term ground-level radioactivity was reduced, but the particulate debris was catastrophic.

The Destruction

The blast split the towers in half, causing them to collapse outward. The effects cascaded:

  • Immediate: Half a million people killed. The entire Corporate Center became rubble in seconds.
  • Earthquake: The explosion caused a minor earthquake that liquefied parts of the fill Night City was built on, flooding the inner city.
  • Firestorm: Raging fires swept through surrounding neighborhoods for days.
  • The Red Sky: Tons of concrete and steel converted into particulate debris spiraled into the atmosphere. The resulting dust cloud turned the sky red for almost two years — giving the era its name: The Time of the Red.
  • Infrastructure: NCART subway loops near the blast zone were permanently cut. The fill destabilization causes periodic flooding to this day.

Who Set It Off?

The truth remains disputed:

ClaimSource
Arasaka detonated an area-denial weaponMilitech / NUSA official position
Militech-backed terrorists led by Johnny SilverhandArasaka’s position
Morgan Blackhand, as a hidden government assetRumor — Blackhand passed intel to President Kress
Aldecaldo elite warriors (“the Lobos”) were involvedUnderground rumor

The Arasaka Bomb

Arasaka actually had a much larger thermonuclear device buried in the Towers’ foundations — a true area-denial weapon meant to deny the complex to any invader. The pocket nuke’s premature detonation rendered this plan inoperable. No one knows where the Arasaka Bomb wound up after the Fall of the Towers. It may still be buried somewhere under Night City.

☢️ The Aftermath

Political Fallout

President Elizabeth Kress used the disaster to paint Arasaka as an evil foreign megacorporation. Arasaka’s charters to operate in the United States were immediately revoked, its members and board declared terrorists, and their assets seized or driven offshore. Arasaka retreated to Japan; their return to Night City would take decades.

Morgan Blackhand and Johnny Silverhand were reportedly fighting on top of the Towers — Blackhand against Adam Smasher — when the nuke detonated. No one has seen Morgan Blackhand alive or dead since. Johnny Silverhand’s body was never recovered.

The Hot Zone (2023–2045)

The blast site became the Hot Zone — blasted terrain full of wrecked, twisted skyscrapers, burned-out vehicles, and entombed bodies. Entry was forbidden by the city council, though scavengers and thrill-seekers still try their luck.

Maelstrom lost their entire original territory to the blast — the neighborhood around their headquarters survived the explosion but was consumed by the fires that followed.

Rebuilding (2045+)

By the late 2040s, the radioactive rubble has been slowly cleared. Construction has begun on a new Corporate Center, and megacorps across the city are making plans to shift their headquarters to this “promised land.” Arasaka — their US ban gradually relaxed — is among them.

By 2077

A new Arasaka Tower stands in the rebuilt Corporate Center, with a memorial to the victims of the 2023 nuclear explosion located beneath it.

🔗 Related

(Sources: CRB pp.239, 255, 291–293, 313; EMK; Black Chrome; Danger Gal Dossier; Interface RED Vol.2, Vol.4)

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