Adam Smasher in the anime:
A cold-blooded war machine freak of tech, science and nature. Zero emotion, zero hesitation. Doesn’t waste time with talk or heroes, he shows up, kills, and leaves. Main character? Doesn’t matter. You’re meat if you get in his way. Canonically a legend of the corpo wars and lived up to hype in the final episode. He is literally "fuck around and find out" personified.
Adam Smasher in the Tabletop:
A literal game ender with busted stats, especially in Cyberpunk 2020. The kind of NPC that the game expects players to flee from, outsmart, or confront only as part of a climactic, probably suicidal mission.
Adam Smasher in CP2077
Wanders around the room like a headless chicken and only has like 2 attacks. One where he tries to rebeccaSmash you like an out of breath BBW and one where he launches missles at you. Oh and he also calls for backup, but if you deal enough damage, you can make him skip that.
Honestly, Cyberpunk 2077 feels like a poorly written fanfiction when compared to the original TTRPG and other source material. I understand that V is meant to be the main character, but the way they handle Adam Smasher—especially in endings like “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” where V takes him on solo—is completely unrealistic and undermines decades of established lore.
The game tries to sell this idea that V is some kind of ultra-special merc, but that narrative doesn’t hold up. Prior to the Konpeki Heist, there’s no indication that V is anything more than a mid-tier merc trying to survive in Night City. There's no real lore progression that justifies them suddenly becoming a one-man army capable of killing a walking tank like Smasher. It’s like the game wants to treat V as a “chosen one,” but it never earns that payoff through proper character development or reputation building.