CD Projekt’s early trailers promised an immersive sim, and Cyberpunk 2077 shipped as something else entirely. Now Neon Giant wants to pick up that flag. The studio behind The Ascent has announced No Law, a first-person shooter RPG set in the city of Port Desire, and it is doing everything it can to sound like the game CD Projekt’s early demos implied but never delivered.
No Law follows Grey Harker, a military veteran pulled back into action after trouble knocks on his door. The game is described as a “first-person open world shooter RPG,” which is the exact phrase CD Projekt used before Cyberpunk shipped and turned out to be anything but an immersive sim. Neon Giant is betting that the difference is in the details.
What No Law’s Trailer Shows
The latest trailer debuted at Gamescom’s Opening Night Live, and it spends most of its runtime showing off the variety of ways Harker can approach a mission. There is the expected gunfight, but there is also sneaking through vents, stealth-killing guards, and using strange sci-fi abilities. One ability makes enemies’ heads explode. Another makes their entire bodies burst like balloons.
The kicker comes when Harker attaches a grenade to a laptop-shaped Roomba, takes control of it, and pilots it into a garage full of guards where it detonates. That is the kind of kooky, indirect solution to a problem that any Deus Ex game would be proud to feature.
Why the City Matters
The key difference between No Law and Cyberpunk is scale. Neon Giant has repeatedly emphasised the density of Port Desire rather than its breadth. Every apartment in the game has been handcrafted rather than procedurally generated, which is a deliberate design choice. The city is meant to be intimate rather than sprawling.
That approach fits the immersive sim genre better than a sprawling metropolis like Night City ever could. One of the great joys of the genre is learning a space intimately, slowly unpicking all its shortcuts and secrets. You cannot really do that with Night City. It is just too darned big.
No Law will ship with a mode where you can disable UI-based navigational hints and instead use the city’s own signage and building numbers to find your way around. The name of that mode? “Immersive.”
How Missions Are Built
The game’s approach to missions is also designed to reward experimentation. Each mission will have numerous ways to approach it, from using stealth and subterfuge to going in all guns blazing. Neon Giant says your approach will influence how characters in the story react to you, rather than the narrative being affected by branching dialogue choices.
That is something both Deus Ex and Dishonored toyed with, though the former also had dialogue choices. No Law appears to be taking the concept further. If you kill a character in the world, they will remain dead, and if they had a service to offer you, you will not be able to access it.
The Limits of Freedom
There is a catch. No Law will also feature XP and skill trees, so your stats and build will define what you can do. Neon Giant’s Arcade Berg told us last year: “You have experience points and skill trees, and you opt into how you want to play the game.”
That is a problem for anyone hoping No Law will match the pure flexibility of an immersive sim. In Cyberpunk, your character level was tied to your abilities, and that broke the illusion. Plugging points into skill trees transformed stealth from next to useless to massively overpowered. The same thing could happen here.
What Cyberpunk Got Wrong
Cyberpunk 2077 was initially disappointing, but CD Projekt did a superb job fixing it. Post-Phantom Liberty Cyberpunk is one of the reviewer’s favourite games, possibly even loved more than The Witcher 3. But even in its superior modern form, it is not quite the game the reviewer wishes it was.
The range of abilities, the mixture of stealth and combat, the playful hacking skills, the side-missions that let you approach a compound from multiple angles — all of that is immersive sim-like. But the central storyline rears its head and the game becomes as linear and prescribed as a Call of Duty campaign.
What We Know So Far
No Law has been shown publicly through two major announcements. Here is the timeline of what has been revealed:
| Event | Detail |
|---|---|
| Gamescom’s Opening Night Live | Latest trailer debuted |
| Last December | Neon Giant explained mission approach influences |
| Last year | Arcade Berg spoke with VGC |
Here is what we know about the game so far:
- It is a first-person shooter RPG set in the city of Port Desire.
- You play as Grey Harker, a military veteran pulled back into action.
- Every apartment in the city has been handcrafted.
- The game includes a mode called “Immersive” that disables UI-based navigation.
- Mission approaches influence how characters react to you.
- Killing a character makes them permanently unavailable.
- The game features XP and skill trees.
The Verdict on No Law
No Law looks like the Cyberpunk that existed in the reviewer’s head, even if it is not the Cyberpunk that shipped. The studio has shown a commitment to density over sprawl, and the mission design suggests a willingness to let player choice shape the story.
The question is whether the skill trees will get in the way. If No Law can keep the flexibility of approach while avoiding the character-level trap that ruined Cyberpunk’s immersive sim aspirations, it could be a strong entry in the genre.
The Roomba trick alone is a promising sign of what the game might offer.
Source material: “No Law might be the open-world Deus Ex that Cyberpunk 2077 wasn't,” PC Gamer.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.