Eight dystopian worlds to explore after Cyberpunk 2077
Leaving Night City can be difficult. Cyberpunk 2077 combines neon-and-chrome style, corporate decay and V’s struggle with identity into a setting that stays with you long after the credits. The good news is that its themes extend well beyond one futuristic metropolis.
These eight games offer different ways back into dark science fiction and morally compromised worlds. Some focus on hacking and conspiracies, while others trade gunfights for horror, delivery work or conversations over a drink. If you are choosing a dedicated arcade machine for your games room, our arcade machine buying guide can also help you compare the right setup for your space.
1. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided
Why play it: Corporate conspiracies, augmentation ethics and a protagonist whose body is no longer entirely his own.
Where to play: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Set in 2029, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided follows Adam Jensen as he attempts to stop rogue arms dealers from distributing weapons and augmentations. A raid by murderous mercenaries in unsettling gold masks turns the operation into chaos.
The investigation expands through Prague’s subway stations and corporate offices, with the Illuminati and an underground hacker group complicating the picture. The game opens at an abandoned luxury resort in Dubai during a sandstorm, then asks how Jensen might hold society together while fear and violence divide augmented and non-augmented people.
2. Watch Dogs: Legion
Why play it: Surveillance, hacking and resistance take centre stage, even though the role-playing systems are lighter.
Where to play: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
Zero Day frames the hacker collective DedSec for deadly bombings in London. With the city under authoritarian surveillance, DedSec must clear its name and rebuild while being treated as a public enemy.
Rather than controlling one fixed hero, you can recruit ordinary citizens and use them as members of the resistance. Hacking, stealth and shooting all return, but the standout idea is sending almost anyone from the street into the fight, including agents equipped with an invisible spy car.
3. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Why play it: It shares Cyberpunk 2077’s complicated choices and shadowy schemes, despite its medieval fantasy setting.
Where to play: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
Geralt of Rivia, a mutant monster hunter, searches for his daughter Ciri, whose powers have made her a target for the ghostly Wild Hunt. Geralt’s former partner, the sorceress Yennefer, helps with the search.
The setting could not be further from Night City: horses replace motorcycles, and swords replace firearms. Yet both adventures come from CD Projekt Red and fill their worlds with dark stories, layered politics and choices where the morally correct answer is rarely obvious.
4. The Ascent
Why play it: A collapsed megacorporation, a dense neon city and plenty of firefights, viewed from above.
Where to play: PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
The Ascent Group operates a city-sized tower on Veles, where the player begins as an indentured worker performing maintenance in the grimy district known as deepStink. When the corporation suddenly goes bankrupt, the tower’s systems shut down and the resulting power vacuum quickly becomes dangerous.
The game is a more compact, top-down isometric experience rather than an enormous open-world RPG. Its corporate monopolies and futuristic neighbourhoods still make it a strong choice for anyone drawn to Cyberpunk 2077’s social commentary and glowing cityscapes.
5. Cloudpunk
Why play it: It captures the mood of a high-tech city under constant observation without relying on combat.
Where to play: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
Rania works her first night as a courier for Cloudpunk, an illicit delivery service. The rules are simple: do not miss a delivery and never open a package. A growing series of suspicious assignments soon exposes how unstable and exploitative her city’s infrastructure really is.
Cloudpunk’s vertical science-fiction city shares Cyberpunk 2077’s holograms, corruption and technological inequality. There are no guns or fights; the focus is on navigating deliveries and questioning whether technology improves life when powerful organisations have little interest in ordinary people.
For a more compact home gaming footprint, explore RETROCADE’s range of bartop arcade cabinets.
6. Ghostwire: Tokyo
Why play it: A near-future city, unusual powers and stealth, with urban folklore replacing corporate dystopia.
Where to play: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X
Akito survives a fatal motorcycle crash after KK, a displaced spectral detective, revives and possesses him. Soon afterwards, an occultist releases a deadly fog across Tokyo. People vanish, leaving behind clothing and wandering spirits, while Akito and KK work together to rescue Akito’s sister Mari.
Ghostwire: Tokyo is more interested in supernatural legends than corporate greed. Both games nevertheless offer dense futuristic environments and unusual combat abilities. Here, technology gives way to magic, with stealth and ninja-like movement adding another layer to exploration.
7. Observer
Why play it: Its detective investigates minds, memories and corpses in a deeply unsettling cyberpunk horror setting.
Where to play: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
Neural detective Daniel Lazarski traces a distress call from his estranged son to an apartment building, only to become trapped when the building enters lockdown. The world outside has been damaged by the nanophage, a digital plague, while post-war society is divided by class.
As an augmented police investigator, Daniel can hack into the minds of residents, including the dead. Their memories become surreal and disturbing hallucinations. Observer is a first-person psychological horror game rather than an open-world RPG, but both titles ask how much of a person can be replaced before their identity disappears.
8. VA-11 HALL-A
Why play it: It turns the cyberpunk apocalypse into an intimate bartending story about loneliness, money and human connection.
Where to play: PC, PS4, Switch
Jill Stingray is an empathetic but cynical bartender working at VA-11 HALL-A, a dive bar in Glitch City. You are not building a legend or saving the world. Instead, you listen to the customers who bring their hopes, frustrations and personal tragedies to the counter.
Glitch City is controlled by nanomachines and offers a bleak picture of daily life. Jill’s customers are dealing with bills, loneliness and heartbreak, and the drinks you mix can influence their outcomes. Sometimes the challenge is working out what somebody actually wants, even when their order says otherwise.
Different routes into a strange future
These games do not recreate Night City, and they do not all play alike. They offer conspiracies, occult mysteries, psychological horror, hacking, delivery work and quiet conversations instead. That variety is the appeal: cyberpunk works best when it shows how ordinary people respond to systems that have become powerful, unfair and difficult to escape.
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