Cyberpunk 2077 spiritual successor No Law absolutely blew me away at Gamescom

After seeing an hour of No Law being played live for me at Gamescom, I'm immediately convinced this game will be a massive deal when it releases next year.

The trailers had me interested, but it's only after seeing the game played for me that I actually understand what it's about. A Cyberpunk 2077-style RPG on the surface, and an immersive sim deeper underneath.

No Law is the next game from Swedish developer Neon Giant, following the studio's debut title The Ascent in 2021. Neon Giant consists of developers who had previously worked on games like Wolfenstein: The New Order and Far Cry 3.

What I mean by immersive sim, is a style of game that features layers of systems and rules that interact with each other, that you can also exploit for your own benefit. Hence, you get freedom of choice to go about playing the game in whatever way you see fit.

An example of this kind of gameplay would be trying to get through a locked door, where you can either pickpocket the key from a guard to open it, lockpick it yourself, blow the door up to knock it down, or stack boxes to climb into a nearby vent which completely bypasses needing to unlock the door.

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No Law emphasises player choice in all the right ways

Neon Giant co-founder Arcade Berg talked me through as the demo was played, showing off the gorgeous cyberpunk visuals of No Law’s main city, Port Desire.

The hands-off demo of No Law consisted of a mission which Neon Giant played through twice, once utilising stealth, and another favouring louder, more lethal methods.

The mission objective is simple: get into a building inhabited by a hostile gang and collect some evidence. The first time around, I get to see the full extent of No Law's stealth mechanics, with lockpicking, sneaking, and box-stacking at the forefront of this demonstration. The second time, Neon Giant delighted in showing me the lethal options available to you in completing the same mission in a completely different way.

Berg states that Neon Giant’s intention is for this to be an immersive sim blended with an open-world RPG, but understands that marketing a game as such can be a little tricky, as immersive sims are much easier to understand when you’re actually playing them as opposed to seeing it in a trailer.

Therefore, the developer has also designed the game to appeal to fans of RPGs such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim or Cyberpunk 2077, allowing the systemic gameplay to come through naturally as you’re exploring the open world and completing quests.

Krafton

Kill a shopkeeper, and the business will stay closed for the rest of the game

One smaller example of the game’s systemic design is shown in the form of a shop the player can enter at any time during free roam. Entering the shop, almost every item stocked on the shelves can be picked up and bought.

If you want to, you can also attempt to shoplift the item instead of paying for it. Shops have security measures in place to ensure that you don’t steal their supplies, such as detectors at the front doors, but Berg showed me how sneaking in at night and tampering with the security will allow you to disable it for future shoplifting sprees. He also mentioned how knocking the shopkeeper out will keep the store open, but killing them would result in the store being permanently closed.

The demo also showed off the differences between day and night in No Law’s Port Desire. Doing a mission at either time of the day comes with its own strengths and weaknesses.

During the day, shops and businesses are open, more doors are unlocked for you to sneak around in, and private residences are empty as people go to work. However, this comes at the cost of visibility being much higher, as well as more potential witnesses and aggressors should you get violent.

Meanwhile, at night, more characters are asleep, the streets are emptier, and doors are locked, necessitating a more sneaky approach. The choice ultimately comes down to how you want to do these missions, and Berg tells me Neon Giant doesn’t want to encourage or discourage any certain playstyle.

This is also why experience points are only rewarded for completing certain missions or accessing specific places. You won’t be rewarded for killing enemies with headshots or sneaking through an area without any casualties, because this would mean players may prioritise one style of gameplay over the alternatives if it means getting rewarded for it.

Krafton

No two playthroughs will be the same

What really won me over though, was how Neon Giant told me there were “endless” differences between each player’s playthrough, to the point where you won’t have two players who had the exact same experience.

Port Desire has four bosses, with your ultimate goal being to take each of these big baddies down. You can tackle them in any order, and can do it pretty much from the very beginning of the story. However, the more bosses you take down, the stronger their security gets and tougher the missions become.

This already creates 16 different permutations of the main story, but when you also add in side quests, activities, and other systemic changes which switch up how the game is played, you’re essentially looking at a narrative which will be completely unique to your own experience.

Ultimately, what’s got me excited about No Law the most is it feels like a true modern successor to Deus Ex, taking all of the design principles of that series and taking it much further. If Neon Giant can keep the same level of quality across the entire game as it has done here, I’m convinced that this game will be one of the biggest hits of 2027.