Last year, IGN visited the set of Altered Carbon Season 2 as part of an exclusive IGN Premiere first look at the Netflix show’s much-anticipated return. We’re rolling out a series of exclusive sneak peeks for Season 2 this week, so keep it locked right here for never-before-seen interviews and behind the scenes footage of Anthony Mackie as Takeshi Kovacs, Chris Conner as Poe, and Renée Elise Goldsberry as Quellcrist Falconer. For more, be sure to check out our spoiler-free review of Altered Carbon Season 2, our interview with Mackie discussing how his version of Kovacs is different from Joel Kinnaman’s, an exclusive clip featuring Takeshi and Poe walking the streets of Harlan’s World, and learn what makes Poe’s new A.I. companion so fascinating.
Warning! Some spoilers follow for what we saw on set.
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The universe of Netflix’s Altered Carbon has always looked amazing on-screen, so when we were given the opportunity to have our very own guided tour of the immense sets by production designer Carey Meyer (Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), we jumped at the opportunity to learn how Meyer’s team created the Season 2 setting of Harlan’s World.
Harlan’s World is the birthplace of Takeshi Kovacs (Anthony Mackie), and it also happens to be home to the highest concentration of Elder artifacts and technology in the settled worlds. One of the first stops on our tour landed us in Governor Danica Harlan’s (Lena Loren) apartment, which was decorated with various Elder relics. Meyer told us that by the time you finish binging Season 2, “you’ll know what all of those artifacts are all about.”
Be sure to watch the entire tour of Harlan’s World with Meyer in the video below, or at the top of the page:
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Probably the most jaw-dropping place we saw was the “street set,” which is one of the major thoroughfares in Season 2 and can hold hundreds of extras if needed. Meyer explained that this particular set was built on top of the same street set from Season 1 that Joel Kinnaman’s Kovacs walks through many times.
Meyer explained that the dominant design elements of Harlan’s World are rock and water, since the colonizers built their civilizations into the planet’s core, but despite the organic materials, you can still see the grimy, neon-lit Cyberpunk aesthetic that made Season 1 so memorable, especially in locations like the “street set.”
You can watch Poe and Takeshi walk down that same street in the video below:
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If you’ve already binged Season 2 of Altered Carbon, check out our ending explained to find out what’s in store for Season 3 if the series is renewed by Netflix.
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David Griffin still watches DuckTales in his pajamas with a cereal bowl in hand. He’s also the TV Editor for IGN. Say hi on Twitter.
Source: IGN.com We Explored Altered Carbon Season 2's Cyberpunk City