Unreal Engine 5-Powered No Law Creates a Cyberpunk City That Fights Back Through Every Choice

No Law follows Grey Harker after he trades the noise of war for the quiet work of tending plants. He builds a small pocket of calm inside Port Desire, a port city carved into seaside cliffs and soaked in neon excess. That peace ends when violence takes something from him. Old instincts return fast. Black-ops training and custom hardware become tools for payback in a place that runs on murky motives instead of any real order.

Neon Giant expanded on the success of their debut title, The Ascent, by taking the things that made that game great, such as the dense cyberpunk environments and the way stories were told through the places people lived, rather than getting bogged down in exposition, and giving them a new way to play in first person. The team behind this new project has a history of creating games with the correct ‘feel’ for combat and movement, having worked on Bulletstorm, Far Cry 3, and Wolfenstein. This game completely alters the way you experience it by shifting your perspective from above to in the thick of the action.

Port Desire feels like a living, breathing character all its own, with districts built on top of each other in a maze of cramped slums that will force you to think ahead and plan wisely if you want to survive. Wide streets allow firefights to flow across them, and then there are these little hidden nooks and crannies, such as rooftop gardens and secret lanes, that add a little green to the dirty, smoggy city. Every location has its own way of shaking things up, which means missions play out differently depending on whatever direction you take.

Your choices in the game carry significant weight. Help someone out or eliminate a threat, and the world takes notice, as you’ll receive new pals later on, different opponents, or entirely different responses from security forces. Even your sneaky method might yield diverse effects; knock out systems silently and you get one set of outcomes; break doors open with weapons blazing and you get a completely different set of outcomes. The game keeps track of elements like sound, sightlines, and the amount of strain the city is under, so you can bet your bottom dollar that your plan will not play out the same way twice.

For the most part, fighting is at the center of this game, and the team has put a lot of effort into making sure the guns sound realistic and the flow of battle flows smoothly. Your upgrades range from military gear to intriguing sci-fi gadgets that allow you to play the game in new ways or alter your fighting style. The idea is to combine the violent spectacle of combat with moments when you feel brilliant or unstoppable, as the violence is quite pulpy, while remaining legible and untidy.

All of this benefits greatly from Unreal Engine 5, with Nanite and Lumen handling the extremely fine detail and dynamic lighting that truly makes the city feel real. All of the tech displays, including the world peek of Port Desire, really highlight how this is all going to come together to make the city seem, even with all of the activity and effects going on, and the performance remains rather consistent.
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