No Law was one of the most exciting games I saw at Gamescom

What the report says

Sometimes you see a game and can tell that the developers just get it. No Law is one of those games. Having seen it first hand at Gamescom, it has quickly become one of my most anticipated games from the show.But first, what is No Law? It's a first person FPS set in a cyberpunk setting. That topline description does the game a disservice: it is an intelligently built immersive sim from Swedish developer Neon Giant that not only freshens up a setting that's starting to feel a bit played out, but also offers solutions to long-lasting genre gripes.It achieves all this while placing you in the shoes of a bulky, hirsute giant of a man.

Grey Harkner, a retired military man content to water his plants in peace, is pulled back into a world of violence and intrigue. Why this happened, and who the big players are behind the events of No Law, are mysteries to be uncovered by this walking, talking ode to action movie protagonists of the 90s and earlier. More Jean Claude Van Damme than, well, Keanu Reeves.I was shown a hands-off demo of a vertical slice of No Law at Gamescom, piloted by one of the developers at Neon Giant. The player was prompted to track someone down in a nearby rental building.

On the way, we walked through a bustling street filled with people, walking around and going about their business. The city - Port Desire - is a striking deviation from the standard grisly Cyberpunk aesthetic. Mike Pondsmith, creator of the Cyberpunk tabletop game, envisioned the world through an American lens. The old world stripped away and replaced with a corporate hive of advertising and oppressive brutal architecture. No Law in comparison is proudly European in its depiction. The technical advancements, all the good and ill they bring, are built around aged buildings from time gone by. Drones fly past brick buildings painted in faded pastels, a new cyberised structure sits as a neighbor to an apartment block that very well could exist today.

Key details

The game has a mediterranean flair: it looked very much to me like walking through Nice or Monaco, the advancements of the future spreading across the streets and walls like mold.It is also no stranger to greenery. Cyberpunk 2077, perhaps the most obvious comparison point to No Law, places us in a world largely torn from nature. Concrete streets and dark alleys make the world feel alien when placed alongside the America of the past. In No Law, nature is still in the fight. Trees stand tall as if holding back construction, green shoots burst through the pavement.

I'm told in No Law, a sort of war is waged against the tide of nature. Bad news for the residents of Port Desire I'm sure, but as a spectator it was a breath of fresh air (pun intended).Even the act of shopping in No Law is itself impressive. Walking into a store, all the energy drinks, stimulants, and junk food can be individually picked up from shelves and placed into your inventory. You must then take them to the counter and pay for them, or you can bolt out the door with your pockets full of chocolate bars.

The sensor by said door can be nicked, too, on your way out, then attached to a grenade and turned into a remote mine. If you get into a scrap with the store owner, killing him will result in the shop being closed on the following day.According to the developers guiding me through No Law, each building is on a real street, and has a number attached. Street signs, then, are a must. And indeed they were present throughout the main road in the slice of Port Desire I saw. You can apparently opt into a mode where HUD guidance is disabled.

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"You'll have to take notes in your notebook", I'm told as I scribbled away, an idea that I'll admit was awfully tantalising then, and remains so now.After a bit of exploration we came to the rental apartment building where the person we were looking for resided. We did so twice: once at day and once at night. During the day, more enemies guarded the complex, and as such a stealthy approach seemed best. After circumventing the perimeter and crouching across a metal eave, we slide inside and talk to the bloated landlord behind the front desk.

This guy was ripped straight from a mafia flick, and acted to me as though a totem to the "neon sleaze" tone I'm told is threaded throughout No Law.