You’re stoked. We’re stoked. Everybody we know is stoked for Cyberpunk 2077. The game hasn’t even been released and its YouTube channel alone has almost one million subscribers! And not only the does the game itself look an incredible love letter to all things shady and neon, but gameplay too seems to take on the same narrative depth and rich worldbuilding that made CD Projekt’s The Witcher franchise the pillar of open-world RPGs that it is — only set in a darkly glittering dystopian future, of course.
And we’re just about two months away from the game’s inevitably nuclear drop, and gamers of all stripes are chomping at the bit to get a piece of anything cyberpunk. Luckily, the genre from which the game derives its name is replete with interesting titles to look at and dive into until then. To that end, we’ve compiled a list of interesting cyberpunk titles to ease your pain during the grueling wait to November 19th.
VA-11-Hall-A
- Release Year: 2020
- Developer: Sukeban Games
- Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, PS4, Switch, Vita
- Price: $14.99
VA-11-Hall-A, often referred to as “Valhalla” for convenience’s sake, is the name of the fictional, cyberpunk dive bar where you, the player, will be mixing drinks for a variety of interesting clientele.
The game is essentially a visual novel with slightly more gameplay mechanics than is typical for the genre, where the rich story progresses according to what you give your patrons and when. Get them wasted, trick them with dry drinks, make their favorites, deny it to them; all of your bartending choices affect who shows up, how often, when, and more importantly, how much they open up to.
Download VA-11 Hall-A: Steam | Playstation 4 | Switch | Vita
Beyond a Steel Sky
- Release Year: 2019
- Developer: Revolution Software
- Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS
- Price: $35.99
Beyond a Steel Sky is a loose sequel to a 1994 game, Beneath a Steel Sky, in which the protagonist returns to investigate the disappearance of a child in Union City, a beautifully rendered, cyberpunk metropolis. The game is essentially a puzzle-adventure game with a heavy emphasis on narrative.
Aside from the challenging puzzles, the comic book style art direction under Dave Gibbons, who worked on the Watchmen comics, comes off well and the many hours of fully voiced dialogue lends itself to the story. Beyond a Steel Sky is excellent for anybody who wants a mostly peaceful tour through a beautiful cyberpunk world.
Download Beyond a Steel Sky: Steam | iOS
Katana ZERO
- Release Year: 2019
- Developer: Askiisoft
- Platform: Windows, macOS, Switch
- Price: $14.99
Katana ZERO may not be set in the same futuristic, dystopian city as your usual cyberpunk game, but the neon-noir art direction lends the same post-midnight urban underworld vibe that Cyberpunk 2077 revs to the max. In Katana ZERO, you play as a modern samurai visualizing an assassination — with each level playing out as a step towards accomplishing that objective.
The game has some of the slickest side-scrolling action we’ve ever seen, with a time-bending mechanic that allows the protagonist to slow down time and slap away bullets with his eponymous katana like they’re arrows in the Witcher. One of the coolest features is the insta-death which keeps you on your toes and makes time control all the more important.
Download Katana ZERO: Steam | Switch
The Outer Worlds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyvhGGIGuQc
- Release Year: 2019
- Developer: Obsidian
- Platform: Windows, PS4, Xbox One, Switch
- Price: $44.99
An open-world, sci-fi adventure FPS, The Outer Worlds, and feels a bit like a mashup of Fallout and Borderlands. Dark humor, an industrial sci-fi aesthetic, and a tyrannical corporate overlord combine to create an interesting setting that even includes a straight-outta-cyberpunk city to explore.
The game features a wide cast of characters, dozens of hours of campaign story content, and an interesting array of other mechanics like a Faction and novel Perk system that keeps the game fresh through different playthroughs. Anybody who enjoyed Borderlands or the canceled-too-soon cult classic, Firefly, will love The Outer Worlds.
Download The Outer Worlds: Steam | PS4 | Xbox One | Switch
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
- Release Year: 2016
- Developer: Eidos Montreal
- Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, PS4, Xbox One
- Price: $29.99
This is it. This is probably it. If you’re looking for anything cyberpunk before Cyberpunk 2077, the Deus Ex franchise in its whole is unequivocally it. Everything from the seedy, high-tech underworld to the obligatory dystopian, wire-strangled, futuristic megacity to the cybernetic enhanced badass out on the warpath, Deus Ex has all of the staples of the genre covered and then some.
Players step into the shoes of Adam Jensen, a fear cybernetic super-agent with a wide array of augments that allow players to not only complete the game’s varied and engaging tasks, but also explore the multifaceted open world around them. Combat is stellar, as is the stealth system and wide array of avenues and playstyles players can choose from to complete the game. A must-play for fans of the cyberpunk genre.
Download Deus Ex: Mankind Divided: Steam | PS4 | Xbox One
Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut
- Release Year: 2014
- Developer: Harebrained Schemes
- Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux
- Price: $14.99
Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut is the re-released, standalone edition of the Shadowrun: Dead Man’s Switch DLC of the same name, and brings with it a host of new content. The Shadowrun series is an intriguing, turn-based mix of fantasy and cyberpunk sci-fi that many will no doubt gravitate towards. In the darkened, sci-fi corporatocracy version of Berlin, stock fantasy creatures like elves and trolls walk among cyborgs and AI entities.
The game itself features a branching narrative design, slick isotropic graphics and turn-based cRPG gameplay that hearkens back to RPGs of old. All in all, anyone interested in an interesting narrative that blends the two most imaginative genres and is a fan of strategic turn-based RPG combat will likely love Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut.
Download Shadowrun: Dragonfall – Director’s Cut : Steam
Cloudpunk
- Release Year: 2020
- Developer: ION Lands
- Platform: Windows
- Price: $19.99
Fans who, more than anything else, just want to see the neon-glitz and darkly glimmering glamour of a staple cyberpunk skyline will love Cloudpunk. Players play as Rania, a runner for the shady delivery service Cloudpunk, as she and her canine AI companion traverse the city in her hovercraft, picking up people and packages and getting them to their respective delivery locations.
A majority of the game involves Rania making her deliveries, giving players an immersive dive into the brightly glowing landscape, and making some moral choices during some key in-game decision-making. Throughout the play-through, players learn about not only the lore of Nivanis, the city in question but of certain overarching events coming into play that set a dark backdrop for the otherwise innocuous gameplay.
Download Cloudpunk: Steam
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon
![Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon Launch Trailer [North America]](https://cdn.nerdschalk.com/wp-content/cache/flying-press/nerdschalk.com/av5pqJaIeCk-hqdefault.jpg)
- Release Year: 2013
- Developer: Ubisoft Montreal
- Platform: Windows
- Price: $14.99
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is the completely inexplicable, unsurprisingly explosive, and impossibly neon DLC for Far Cry 3 that manages to poke fun at 80s commando movies, every cyberpunk thing ever, and give players more than a few hours of awesome gameplay. Far Cry 3 looks nothing like the “base game” and indeed seems almost like a passion project more than an expansion. The gameplay is rewarding, visually stunning, and full of enough cheesy one-liners and parodic jokes to keep you laughing the whole way through.
The base mechanics are identical to Far Cry 3, everything from stealth kills to the re-skinned vehicles, but visually the game doesn’t even look like it was made by the same developer. Or even for the same platform. Or even in the same decade. The central character, Rex Power Colt (because of course, that’s his name) deals flashy death to many hundreds of bad guys and laser-shooting dragons on a neon-lit island where his primary goal is to… punch a generator to death? It’s complicated. Actually no, it’s stupid simple — and that’s what makes it awesome.
Download Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon: Steam
Technobabylon
- Release Year: 2015
- Developer: Technocrat Games
- Platform: Windows, iOS, Linux
- Price: $14.99
Technobabylon is an indie point’n’click adventure game that has players following a neon-noir crime narrative through three characters, all surrounding a criminal known as the Mind Jacker — a killer responsible for “hacking” into the minds of their victims, ripping out information and leaving them dead in the process.
The game’s primary appeal is its story; a gently unfolding mystery well worth the time, and the interesting static artwork that paints an immersive picture of the cyberpunk setting. The game has quite a bit of info-dumping at the start, but once you’ve gotten a handle on the world and the characters, it becomes as compelling as anything on a screen of any size or sheen.
Download Technobabylon: Steam
The Red Strings Club
- Release Year: 2018
- Developer: Deconstructeam
- Platform: Windows, macOS, Linux, Switch
- Price: $14.99
Something like a cross between VA-11 Hall-A’s bartending, interpersonal dynamics-heavy gameplay and Technobabylon’s emphasis on storytelling, The Red Strings Club puts you in the shoes of an android running a local speakeasy of the same name while creating cybernetic augmentations for customers on order.
The gameplay focuses on the digital pottery, impersonation, and bartending as the core of its gameplay and sprinkles over it a heavy dose of the philosophy of free will and AI that is both deep, but accessible and adds to the story rather than coming across as navel-gazing. The Red Strings Club is perfect for fans who want to get in touch with the more ponderous, contemplative side of the cyberpunk genre, examining its conceptual underpinnings more than the rote slaughter of numerous cyborgs and other futuristic staples.
Download The Red Strings Club: Steam | Switch
And there you go! A varied menu of cyberpunk delicacies for you to gorge yourself on until November 19th, when our most favorite game that we’ve never played finally drops. Let us know what you went with and if it did anything to dull the pain of waiting.
