These 5 Cyberpunk Games Help Shape Modern Gaming
Player agency, cinematic storytelling, and innovative game design
This was originally a member-exclusive video on Mass Replay that I have adapted into an article.
While the Cyberpunk genre hasn’t always achieved massive success in the video game industry, there have been a number of titles that really pushed the boundaries for gaming’s future long before we were roaming the streets of Night City.
These five classic cyberpunk titles not only gave us incredible dystopian worlds to explore, but raised the bar for the industry. From 16-bit sandbox RPGs to the birth of the immersive sim, here are five Cyberpunk games that shaped modern gaming.
Shadowrun (SNES & Genesis - 1993/1994)
Shadowrun is an action role-playing game.It was adapted from the cyberpunk role-playing game Shadowrun.The game is the second video game adapted from Shadowrun, and has a more open ended style of gameplay than its 1993 Super NES counterpart, Shadowrun by Beam Software. The game is set in the Shadowrun universe, in the 2050s. A time where the blending of technology and human flesh is common; it is around the time the Matrix, a huge computer network, came online, with the ability to jack into its cyberspace directly. It was also a time of magic renewal: a phenomenon known as The Awakening occurred, where magic returned into the world. Sorcery was once again possible, and slowly and seemingly at random humans began to mutate into orcs, dwarves, elves or trolls. This time of upheaval was not without political conflicts: mega-corporations began to control the world. But with their magic, native shamans threatened them and the world geography came to a complete change. The Amerindians and Elves reclaimed an area called Salish-Shidhe, close to the free city of Seattle, a major city in the newly formed United Canadian and American States.
Shadowrun released on separate consoles 1 year apart. With the Super Nintendo version releasing in 1993 and the Sega Genesis version releasing 1 yearl later in 1994. Although they share the same name, they are two completely different games developed by two totally different studios, but based on the same tabletop RPG franchise.
FASA Corporation's tabletop game was a big hit, blending cyberpunk with fantasy elements. When it came time to adapt it to consoles, Data East published the SNES version, handing development over to Beam Software. Beam created a story-driven action-RPG that innovated how console games handled dialogue. Instead of reading text boxes, they introduced a cursor-based "keyword" system. As you talked to NPCs in a grimy, isometric Seattle, you'd learn new words that you could then use to interrogate other characters, making you feel like a real cyber-detective.
Meanwhile, Sega handed their version of the game to BlueSky Software. BlueSky went in a different direction, creating a sandbox action-RPG that was more faithful to the tabletop rules. Giving fans an open-ended world where you could hire "runners," take on randomly generated corporate extraction jobs, and physically jack into the "Matrix" to play out a hacking mini-game.
While neither game was a massive commercial success at the time of release, they built a legendary cult following and in 2012, Jordan Weisman (the original creator of the tabletop game) launched a Kickstarter for Shadowrun Returns. It raised over $1.8 million, proving the lasting impact these 16-bit titles had on a dedicated fanbase and helping kick off the video game crowdfunding boom of the 2010s.
Snatcher (Sega CD - 1994)
Snatcher is a cyberpunk-themed graphic adventure game directed and written by Hideo Kojima and produced by Konami. The setting and story of Snatcher is heavily influenced by cyberpunk and science-fiction media, taking place in a large futuristic dystopian city. The story revolves around an investigator named Gillian Seed assigned to investigate a breed of bioroids known as "snatchers", who are killing humans and taking their place in society. The game is set in a primarily first person perspective and uses a menu-based interface that allows the protagonist to interact with his environment. The player can choose to "Look", "Investigate", "Talk", "Ask" and "Move" (in addition to other options) to acquire key items or receive vital information from other characters. The player can analyze items in Gillian's belongings or show it to other characters. During key points of the game's story, the player must pass shooting sequences to defend Gillian from assailants. These shooting segments use a 3x3 grid which the player can target to fire at enemies. A shooting trainer, called "Junker's Eyes", is accessible at Junker HQ that allows the player to measure their accuracy.
Next up, we’re heading to Neo Kobe City for a game that helped define the term "cinematic" in video games. We're talking about Snatcher.
Side note, this is a game that I am actively playing at the time of writing this and I can attest it is VERY impressive for the time that it released.
Snatcher originally came out in Japan for home computers way back in 1988, but the definitive version (and the only one officially localized for the west) was the 1994 Sega CD port. The game was written and directed by a young visionary named Hideo Kojima, you may have heard of him. Kojima was heavily inspired by western sci-fi movies, and if we're being honest, it's basically an interactive love letter to Blade Runner and The Terminator.
You play as Gillian Seed, a man with amnesia trying to recover his memories. Gillian recently took up the role of a Junker, someone who works for a task force hunting down "Snatchers" or biorobots that kill humans and take their place.
The game's presentation was the real innovation here. By 1994, CD-ROM technology was still finding its footing, with a lot of developers just slapping terrible full-motion video into their games (that’s right Night Trap, looking at you!). But Kojima and Konami used the Sega CD's larger storage to deliver an incredibly impressive cinematic story that had never been done before in gaming. The game featured a phenomenal audio soundtrack, incredible high-quality voice acting for its time, and a hybrid gameplay style that mixed a visual-novel adventure game with light-gun shooting segments… that is, if you were one of the 3 people who owned a Sega CD AND a Justifier Light Gun.
Snatcher showed the entire industry that video games could be a serious storytelling medium for older audiences. It established Kojima’s signature cinematic flair (long dialogue scenes, mature themes, and crazy plot twists) which he would go on to perfect just a few years later with the Metal Gear Solid franchise.
System Shock (1994)
And now a little something for the 90s PC players out there. In 1994, Looking Glass Studios released System Shock, completely rethinking the rules for first-person games.
In '93 and '94, Doom was THE first person shooter, and almost every other game in the genre was seen as a "Doom-clone." But director Doug Church and producer Warren Spector were looking to break the mold and do something completely different. They wanted to take FPS games and inject them with actual physics, deep role-playing elements, and a complex world that felt lived-in.
While the final product was still a few years away from modern “free mousework” in games, (that’s allowing the player to look freely with the mouse), System Shock refined the ability to look up and down, jump and crouch, lean around corners, and manage a larger inventory. But its biggest innovation was how it told its story. System Shock basically invented the "Audio Log." Instead of pausing the game to read a text scroll, you pieced together the horrifying fate of the station's crew organically by finding their recorded final moments, all while being constantly taunted by the game's rogue AI, SHODAN (arguably one of the greatest video game villains ever created).
It essentially birthed the "Immersive Sim" genre. Without the groundwork laid here by Looking Glass Studios, we would never have gotten games like Deus Ex, BioShock, Prey, or Dishonored.
And another side note, I never got to play System Shock back in the 90s, but I have started playing the remake and I’ve been streaming it. Now I am not usually one for immersive sims, they tend to be just a little too slow for my taste, but I am enjoying it so far. I’m trying to just take my time with it and take everything in. I gotta say, the audio tapes really do enhance the game and set the atmosphere. It's easy to see how this game set the foundation for BioShock.
Perfect Dark (2000)
Perfect Dark is a remastered release of the first-person shooter video game by the same name. Developed by 4J Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios a decade after the original's 2000 release, the remaster features several technical improvements, including higher resolution textures and models, a higher frame rate, and a multiplayer mode that supports the Xbox Live online service. It was released for the Xbox 360 video game console in March 2010, through the Xbox Live Arcade download service. The story of the game follows Joanna Dark, an agent of the Carrington Institute organization, as she attempts to stop a conspiracy by rival corporation dataDyne. Perfect Dark was under development for nearly a year and its game engine was completely re-written from scratch to support several Xbox 360 features. Therefore, although the game plays exactly the same as the original, the code and renderer is different. The game received generally favorable reviews. Some critics considered the relatively unchanged game to be outdated, but most agreed that the title was a solid revival of a classic.
Let’s fast forward to the year 2000. The Nintendo 64 was in its twilight years, but developer Rare wasn't quite done pushing the hardware to its breaking point. Coming off the success of GoldenEye, Rare set out to make a spiritual successor. But this time, they wanted to be free from the constraints of a movie license.
The result was Perfect Dark, a corporate-espionage cyberpunk thriller centered around agent Joanna Dark. You're thrown into the middle of a war between the Carrington Institute and the sinister dataDyne corporation, which eventually unravels into a giant conspiracy.
Rare threw every idea they had into this cartridge. It was so ambitious that it required the N64 Expansion Pak just to run the campaign. Enemy AI was vastly improved. Now guards would dodge, roll, flank you, and even surrender if you disarmed them. Every weapon in the game had a secondary alt-fire mode too. But the multiplayer is where it truly changed the game and is often overlooked. Rare introduced high-level stat tracking, a combat simulator mode with challenges and a "Counter-Operative" mode where a second player could take control of the enemy guards during the single-player campaign to try and stop you.
Perfect Dark improved upon the benchmark left by Goldeneye. It packed an unbelievable amount of content into a single game and paved the way for the robust, feature-rich multiplayer modes years before the Halo and Call of Duty eras.
Deus Ex (2000)
A few months after Perfect Dark’s release, we have Deus Ex, developed by Ion Storm and directed by the legendary Warren Spector.
Spector took everything he had learned from his time working on System Shock and Thief: The Dark Project, and he set out to create the ultimate game of player freedom. Spector's goal was to avoid linear gameplay and give the player a giant toolbox to navigate the world ruled by shadow governments, augmentations, and conspiracies.
Deus Ex blended first-person shooting, stealth mechanics, deep RPG character building, and branching dialogue trees. The true innovation here was "player agency." Deus Ex allowed players to think outside the box to get past obstacles. In the past, players faced with a locked door would need to find a key or an alternate route. Deus Ex allowed players to blow up the door entirely or hack the keycode.
Deus Ex completely changed game design philosophy. Almost every single modern action-RPG that gives you choices and consequences, from the Fallout series all the way to Cyberpunk 2077, owes a debt to the foundation built by Deus Ex.
And there you have it, five classic cyberpunk games that pushed the entire video game industry forward.