The Cyberpunk genre has been with us for a long time, with such staples as Syndicate Wars. Blade Runner. Ghost in the Shell. And now Cybernoir want to join it’s ranks!
The Future Has Arrived!
I thought this looked quite a bit like the old classic Syndicate Wars, where you control agents to navigate the city and handle cases for money and rank increases/level-ups. That’s certainly how it’s painted on Steam.
What I played was a bare-bones version of the demo set for a further release later this year. It’s a moderately sized download, coming in just under 10GB. The Steam page provides plenty of information about the game, specifically about the setting, but much of it was not present in the current release.
The City Streets..
Cybernoir is presented in an isometric view, which is pretty standard for this sort of game, based on the long history of similar Cyberpunk-style games. I had everything turned up maximum for quality because my computer could handle it, expecting the standard neon-lit cityscape I’d seen in pictures on Steam. However, what I found was quite different.
The Cybernoir colour palette is many shades of gray, green, black, dirty beige, and the occasional flash of colour. Everything is drenched in smog. It’s easy to miss road turnings because they’re so dark, or street lights don’t flicker on until you’ve gone past them and been gunned down by some random invisible gangster.
When you head to the gritty city outside section of the game you are zoomed out quite far, There does not at this stage seem to be any way to zoom in on the character, so missing doorways, interactable items and even the targets of your current mission is all to easy.
It’s not really open world, either. You’re presented with a couple of city blocks obscured in beige darkness and smog, with the occasional strip of neon if you’re lucky. There are also a couple of shops you can walk into when the doors want to work.
The angle of the camera means you can’t actually see the doors you can enter either, so getting an ammo reload isn’t easy. I didn’t figure out how to move the camera around, so when you walk in front of some tall scenery in the outside world, you’re pretty much blinded and cannot really see what you’re doing at all, which makes combat very difficult.
MENU AND UI
The main menu has some good music, reminiscent of other classic cyberpunk games and films. The menus are pretty sparse; there’s a selection of languages, your standard graphics options, and the sound menu.
The sound menu gave me immediate cause for concern: there is just one slider for overall volume. There are no SFX, voice, or music sliders. Just one bar. And even on mid-level, this game is Loud! Hopefully, they will consider adding more for the full release.
On loading in to the game I was greeted by some kind of jazz fusion funk beatbox noise, which was frankly a hot mess of garbled noise, which apparently had a voice in it as well. As the voice started, I thought there would be some kind of spoken intro, letting you know who you are, what you do. Nope, just a selection of random words thrown together like some kind of hot garbage AI noise compression. As soon as the hot mess of garbled noise was done, I was left waiting half a minute on a 100% loaded bar; clearly, it wasn’t 100% loaded.
There’s an AI-lephant in the room
The Steam page is very upfront that AI was used in the making of this game for graphics and translation. The translation I can understand, it’s the right tool for that job in most cases, but the fact that it openly uses AI-drawn graphics for me is a big turn-off for this game.
The Faceless Man
When Cybernoir finally loaded, I was presented with a faceless “corpo man in a suit with a gun” in what seemed to be a badly lit police station. There’s no “Character Creation” or customisation whatsoever.
I get that you’re meant to be just another “faceless corporate cop working for the man,” and that’s fine. But without any preface, intro, or anything, just being dumped in a corridor in a building with no idea what you’re meant to be doing… No, I’m good, thanks!
The Game Is Afoot!
There was zero assistance from this point other than the constant reminders to press “E” to interact with things and mostly random people, who you can search, demand to see ID papers, or just straight up arrest for no reason. I managed to figure out how to move using the WASD and the arrow keys, not that the game will tell you this, and it took me more than 10 minutes to realise I could sprint (the Shift key, by the way). This also had a hilarious graphic, and apparently, I can run faster than a flying car.
I managed to walk around the single floor of the police station-esque building I was in, find a terminal to access, and find a job to do. I had a look into some missing people, and it was pretty straightforward, but let me tell you something. The doors in this game are NOT your friend! You go near them, they auto open, often flinging right in your face!
The Art of Combat..
With no tutorial, it took me 15 minutes to figure out how to shoot my guns. How do you shoot? Hold down the right mouse button to aim as you move the mouse, then, at the same time, left-click to actually fire.
There’s no melee option, but it does give you two guns and very limited ammo. Just enough to miss the gang members who’re all ace shots and can pin you down with a scathing barrage of shots, killing you in a couple of seconds.
Middle mouse button scrolls through the SMG and Shotgun you seem to start with. When you kill someone, they just vanish after a few seconds, as do vehicles if you make them explode.
I died multiple times by walking around a corner and just being gunned down by random people who I couldn’t even see due to the scenery getting in the way.
Heading Down Town
Around the 15-minute mark, I found the map button (tab for those wondering). It’s a pretty basic map, highlighting a couple of shops and buildings you can apparently enter, but I couldn’t because the doors hate me. And soon after, I died again and lost all interest in Cybernoir.
Good Cop-Bad Cop
When you die, it seems like your active case is dropped, so you have to go back to the precinct to restart it. Your ammo doesn’t seem to come back, and you slip even further down the “Bad Cop” bar at the bottom of the screen. There is absolutely no explanation of what this is or how it works.
Getting killed makes you a bad cop, so does gunning down innocent civilians when learning how to shoot. I’d hazard a guess that it would increase as you complete more cases. Maybe you can speak with NPC’s and your Good/Bad rating will have a difference, but everyone I spoke to, even fellow Agents, just gave me the option to search, arrest, or shoot.
T-Minus 20 Minutes
20 minutes after installing this promising game I had uninstalled it.
I was really looking forward to Cybernoir. As a lover of the Blade Runner and Cyberpunk genres, and I have fond memories of the old Syndicate Wars games, which it reminded me of. I was hoping this would have been a fresh take on it, bringing it up to speed for the modern audience. Sadly, it’s a hot mess that should not be released in this state.
From glitching vehicles, lack of camera mobility, and utter omission of any kind of starter guide or explanation, Cybernoir is riddled with issues.
It’s meant to be getting its full release in late October, but to be honest, I’d say pull that back by a year, make significant changes to make it playable. Give us the ability to swing the screen around so we can see things. Or, make the scenery fade out because I don’t want skyscrapers getting in the way of the camera when I’m just trying to walk down the street. Some efforts to make the controls obvious would be much appreciated. Maybe put in a new player tutorial so people can learn how to play it, rather than have to press random buttons and keys in random combinations in order to figure something out.
Why Me?
I’m a great person to test a game on. I’m not what you’d consider a natural game player; I easily forget what control pads have what buttons in what order, depending on the console. But I love gaming. I love trying things, experimenting with genres and styles.
And I love it when I can just get a new game, install it, and lose myself for many hours without even realising it. Cybernoir, though, is one that will haunt the neon-lit branches of my brain for years to come for its audacity to consider itself ready for release any time before late 2026.
Platforms: PC
Developers: ZOJIN
Publishers: ZOJIN
Played On: Steam
About the Author
Oof, reading the first bits of the intro I was ready to be excited for this one. I’m always ready for more cyberpunk settings, shame this seems to be missing the mark in just about every way possible.