Neon Giant, the studio behind the slick and deceptively deep The Ascent, unveiled its upcoming game at The Game Awards 2025. The Game, which was revealed through a flashy trailer combining gameplay and cinematics, is called NO LAW, and was one of many surprising reveals at this year’s Game Awards.
Unlike The Ascent, NO LAW puts players in a first-person perspective, and is completely single-player. Its world is unapologetically cyberpunk, much like that of its predecessor, but it’s also a bit more grounded, featuring relatively familiar streets, skyscrapers, and urban neighborhoods rather than far-future megabuildings and expressionist city skylines. This grounded, single-player focus reflects NO LAW‘s vision as a story-driven, reactive experience, one that promises the freedom and action of a GTA game without losing the deeper themes and complex world of a science-fiction adventure like Cyberpunk 2077. All in all, it looks like a rather ambitious project, with Neon Giant itself calling it the “next step” for the studio.
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Neon Giant and Krafton Reveal Sci-Fi Shooter NO LAW at The Game Awards 2025
NO LAW Is a Gritty Revenge Story
NO LAW‘s lead is a military veteran by the absurdly sci-fi name of Grey Harker. His journey begins when something pulls him out of his peaceful retirement and back into action. But instead of being on a traditional battlefield, NO LAW will thrust Harker into the sleazy, deadly streets of Port Desire, where the game is set.
NO LAW features an urban open-world, which Neon Giant promises will be robust and filled with tough choices. In a press release, the developer notes that “every decision carries weight” and that “Each playthrough reveals new possibilities, allies, and outcomes, making NO LAW an immersive shooter defined as much by its story and morality as its firepower.” Naturally, this is somewhat vague, and par for the course when it comes to video game PR, but it sounds promising nonetheless. With stunning visual design and a cast of appropriately wacky NPCs, Port Desire could wind up giving Night City a run for its money.
NO LAW Teases Urban Exploration, First-Person Shooting, and Stealth Gameplay
NO LAW‘s Game Awards trailer offers brief glimpses of Port Desire’s citizenry, but much of it was focused on in-engine gameplay footage. This footage is ostensibly a vertical slice of what the game will offer upon launch, showing off NO LAW‘s combat mechanics more than anything else: Harker is shown hacking a server, sneaking around with wall-penetrating radar tech, firing a few different guns, and hitting NPCs with a devastating kick that would given even Dark Messiah fans a start.
Neon Giant will probably provide a closer look at NO LAW‘s gameplay and story in the future, but a few things stand out in this initial reveal. For one thing, the game appears to be offering a combat sandbox similar to something like Cyberpunk or even The Elder Scrolls, where a straightforward assault on enemy forces isn’t the only way to complete objectives. One of Cyberpunk 2077‘s greatest strengths is its facilitation of distinct playstyles, so one can only hope that NO LAW can nail this freedom too.
Moving forward, it will be interesting to see some of NO LAW‘s slower moments. It’s an open-world game, but its Game Awards trailer showed disappointingly little of the actual world itself: it doesn’t provide much insight into what exploration and NPC interactions will look like, for example. If it’s anything like The Ascent, then NO LAW can be expected to have strong character moments and great combat, at the very least.
