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What are the best games on Steam with a dystopian setting?

10

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Considered

14

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Recs.

Jan 1, 2024

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Updated

10 Games Considered

Best games on Steam with a dystopian setting	Price	Steam Rating	Genre
-- Dishonored	-	Overwhelmingly Positive	Action, Adventure, Stealth
-- Deus Ex: Human Revolution	-	Very Positive	Action Role-Playing, Stealth, First-Person Shooter
-- Bioshock Infinite	-	Very Positive	FPS, RPG
-- Transistor	-	-	-
-- Shadowrun Returns	$14.99	Very Positive	-

Dishonored

Top Pro

The world (and difficulty) changes based on your actions

Depending on how the player chooses to play the game the world will react in different ways. A player can choose to go the whole game without killing anyone, using stealth as their main tool. Another may choose to kill anyone who gets in their way to completing their task. Depending on how the player chooses to tackle every situation means the game will behave accordingly. See More

Top Con

Taking down targets can feel unsatisfying

While the build up to getting to ones target is great in the game, once getting to the target and taking them down, it does not feel that satisfying. While it does not ruin the whole game it would be nice to have a larger sense of completion and satisfaction when finishing ones goals. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Overwhelmingly Positive

Genre:Action, Adventure, Stealth

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Top Pro

Personalized experiences

Through the amount of customization in the game, unlocking and upgrading ones abilities allows for a personalized experience in how the game plays. One person's build may be completely different from the next persons, meaning each ones experience has been different. See More

Top Con

You must be lethal during boss fights, even on a pacifist run

It's really disappointing that the game doesn't let you take a purely pacifist approach. You can sneak around all you want while making sure to only perform silent takedowns, but the moment you step into a boss room, all of that role-playing goes out the window. You have to kill the boss, no questions asked. It would have been nice to have the option to outmaneuver them instead and lead them into non-lethal traps. Thankfully, the devs addressed this issue in the sequel, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, but you still have to deal with it here. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Action Role-Playing, Stealth, First-Person Shooter

Top Pro

Tons of ways to customize your playstyle

Unlocking and upgrading abilities gives you a great chance to tailor how you approach missions and explorations. There are certain perks that lean more toward stealth, like an invisibility cloak, and others that are more lethal-oriented, like a flashy area of effect ability that lets you take out surrounding enemies all at once. And there are other skills that give you a leg up in exploring levels, like boosting the amount of fall damage you can take to prevent death and reach secret locations. One player's build may be completely different from someone else's, adding replay value to experiment with unlocks. See More

Top Con

Boss fights take you out of the experience

Boss fights are too structured. For a game designed around player choice and different outcomes, the boss fights stick out as too linear. See More

Top Pro

You can take a lethal or pacifist approach to missions

You have total freedom in how you approach missions, mainly with whether you want to take the silent approach or go in guns blazing. Going with weapons such as stun guns, picking non-lethal knock-outs, and sneaking around through vents and hidden passageways makes up the pacifist methods. The more violent ways of playing include using deadly guns and abilities, killing enemies when you take them down, and generally running head-first into each mission. You don't have to stick with one or the other; if the situation calls for it, you can change things up as needed, keeping things interesting as you go along. See More

Top Con

Needs more polish

The framerate is not the best in the game, there will be slow down in places. The design of some NPCs also tends to look less than stellar compared to the main characters, which shows a lack of care in the design. Overall this adds up to a less than stellar experience, which may pull some people out of the immersion of the title. See More

Top Pro

Various endings

Three different endings let you finish the game the way you think about the issue (how augmentations should be handled by society). See More

Top Pro

Allows for choice and consequences

Each mission is branching depending on how the player has chosen to solve it. Depending on what the outcome is of each missions means there may be consequences for one's action or rewards. This means on each mission the player can choose to make ethical or non ethical choices that will effect the outcome of the game. See More

Top Pro

Sacrificing your "Humanist" playthrough to save Malik

A humanist (non-killing) play-through actually lets you save the pilot Malik. Abandoned the Medal. See More

Bioshock Infinite

Top Pro

Great story

Touching on themes of classism, racism, the power of religion, propaganda, and even delving into the metaphysical, Bioshock Infinite delivers a compelling story that will have you engaged till the very end. See More

Top Con

Story and Gameplay can give mixed tones

A high story concept mixed with super bloody battles threw off some people’s experience of the game who site ludonarrative dissonance as the problem. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Pro

Great Add-On content

With the main game being so great you just want to keep playing! So Irrational Games came out with four dlc packs: Columbia’s Finest, Clash in the Clouds, Burial at Sea Episode 1 and Episode 2. See More

Top Pro

Intense fast-paced gameplay

Continuing the super-powered gameplay from the first two Bioshock’s this installment in the series refines the fun and fast formula. Use tonics to launch fireballs, ravens, or electricty at your foes, or make them fight by your side, as long as you have enough salt that is. Then to liven things up get help from Elizabeth’s “tears” to bring in more guns and tin-men from another time/dimension to aid you in your fight! See More

Top Pro

The world is amazing

A city floating in the sky with quantum physics set in the early 1900’s with gear propelled robots and powers brought on by tonics are awaiting you in the city of Columbia. Bright colors and amazing vistas that are populated with floating islands that house full carnival resorts, giant memorial statues, along with deadly enslavement camps and prisons bring Bioshock’s world to life. See More

Transistor

Top Pro

Unique gameplay

No tutorial, you are dropped into the game, guided through it by an unseen narrator and intuition. See More

Top Con

Not as engaging as previous title

The story in Transistor often seems unclear which results in the player feeling less engaged. See More

Top Pro

Complex, but simple, customization gives much to imagination and strategy

Throughout the game, you get these abilities, called Functions(), that are modular in design. They can be used in one of three ways: Active(): The activated version, or the base version. You use the Slash function, you slash. You can have up to four of these. Upgrade(): Use the current Function on an Active one. You can stack two upgrades on a single Active. Stacking the Slash() function on a Laser() will cause the Laser to now cut people in half. If you stack the Heal() function on it too, you now also get health back. Passive(): These usually only effect the protagonist, Red, and are not activated manually (although some activate an effect upon receiving damage). Put Get() with Bounce(), you now have an attack that will shoot a bullet that bounces to nearby enemies and pulls (gets) all the enemies hit to you. Add a stun upgrade, like Crash(), and you now have a pile of sleeping enemies in front of you. You can now hit them all with a massive explosion. The game can be beat with simple combos that don't require much setup or strategy, but it definitely rewards you for good thinking. See More

Top Pro

Awesome turn based + real time gameplay

Transistor is primarily a hack & slash style action RPG, but has an interesting twist in that you can pause time to plan out your next moves. This ability gives Transistor an element of strategy to the core battle mechanics as well as fluid gameplay. See More

Top Pro

Beautiful soundtrack

This game features a hauntingly beautiful soundtrack. It fits right in to the world the player inhabits. It ties in very well with the gameplay and art-style to create a very immersive atmosphere. See More

Top Pro

Engrossing atmosphere

The plot, art-style & the soundtrack come together to make a very atmospheric game that does a great job at drawing you into the world. From the design each stage an its beautiful cyberpunk sprawl to the intricate look of the enemies it is difficult to no be enveloped by the atmosphere of the game. See More

Top Pro

Good Cyberpunk

Good cyberpunk is better than bad cyberpunk. See More

Top Pro

Deep storyline

Fantastic story line that is heavily cyberpunk themed. When beginning the game the player is dropped right into the action finding that their voice has been stolen to then slowly learn through gameplay and storytelling who exactly stole it. See More

Shadowrun Returns

Top Pro

Fleshed out interesting world

There has obviously been painstaking care taken in crafting the world and story of Shadowrun Returns. A noir cyberpunk story that sees the main character trying to solve a murder-mystery intertwined with a conspiracy. Throughout the game are characters who the main protagonist crosses paths with that have a tin of great dialogue written for them that is entertaining to read and also flesh out his cyberpunk world. See More

Top Con

Limited RPG paths

The story gets played out basically the same way on every play-through. Player choice only has moderate impact on the flow of the game. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Pro

Intuitive battle system

With a set amount of moves and action points it is fairly easy to understand how the battle system works. Everything is tun based and tactics are the main component to gameplay. Users must judge where they want to move, what attacks they want to use while taking into account the environment, if anything in it could shield them and then base all of these decisions off of their allotted action points. See More

Top Con

Grammar errors

Needed a proofreader as their is tons of grammar errors which gives a rushed unfinished feeling. See More

Mirror's Edge

Top Pro

Unique, minimalistic art-style

Mirror's Edge is set in a world where a totalitarian government runs a city and tries to eliminate anything that stands out, such as the free-running protagonist. The levels are created minimalistic, mostly white with aggressively contrasting primary colors, to represent the oppressive nature and sterility of the world. See More

Top Con

Some people may experience motion sickness

In order to maintain its immersive nature, Mirrors Edge has virtually no UI, other than a small dot at the center of the screen. This should ward off motion sickness for most people, but be aware that if you're queasy, you might not feel too well after playing. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Genre:Action-Adventure

Top Pro

Great soundtrack

The soundtrack's spacious ambient texture coupled with electronic beats and synthetic sounds supplement the game's otherworldly, contrasting setting. The complete soundtrack is available with the purchase of the game. See More

Top Con

Poor combat sytem

The combat system often feels out of place and definitely interferes with the flow of the gameplay. See More

Top Pro

Innovative, parkour-inspired, first-person platforming with excellent sense of motion

The game's core mechanic is about traversing levels using wall-jumps, rolls and slides without losing momentum. It does a great job of creating a fluid sense of motion that you have complete control over. See More

Top Pro

Time trials

There are time trial bonus levels that are free of platforming sections and combat, just pure timed running missions. See More

Top Pro

Keyboard controls work quite well

Surprisingly (for an EA game especially) the keyboard controls are actually designed to work quite well. See More

Primordia

Top Pro

Multiple puzzle solutions and story paths

Many of the puzzles in this game have multiple solutions which lead to different story paths. For example, during one scene, the robots can attempt to persuade a self-aware virus to stop its destructive behavior, or they can simply just smash the computer terminal to end the threat. This choice of action leads to different results later in the game. These kind of choices persist throughout most of the game, making the puzzle-solving a breath of fresh air in the adventure gaming genre. Primordia gives the player real choices with real consequences. Some are minor choices, some are major events - but all of them will influence how the story plays out and concludes. See More

Top Con

A few tedious puzzles

There are a few tedious puzzles in the game which will require either a photographic memory, or a pen and paper, to solve. One glaring example is a puzzle where you need to stop an argument between two robots that results in a rather complicated math equation. Another such example is having to use a computer terminal which, when accessed, simply gives you an open-ended 'Search' query and not much else to go on. It's only through some trial and error that you ultimately figure out how you're supposed to be using the terminal, but it's pretty unintuitive in how it's presented. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Very Positive

Top Pro

Characters feel fleshed out and detailed

Many of the robot denizens that populate the game world have their own goals, personalities, and quirks. Their personalities change over time based on the player's interactions with them, and what choices the player made. Whether it's the comic relief from our sarcastic sidekick Crispin, to the lone robot who guards the Shrine of Man, each and every character no matter how minor is given a level of unique detail and depth that makes them feel alive and a part of the world. See More

Top Pro

Thought-provoking story

Within the first few minutes of gameplay, it may appear to solely consist of self-aware robots surviving in a harsh world long after man has disappeared. However, the story takes a sharp turn into many ethical, religious, and moral issues which ultimately result in an extremely well-written and thought-provoking story. As the game unravels, the robots go as far as to ponder their creator, the meaning of consciousness, and the difference between right and wrong. The player is presented with many different morality choices during gameplay that will determine the ending, and ultimately the fate of their world as a whole. Primordia is especially known for its symbolism, especially as to how it relates to religion in our world. Some of the robots believe they were created by Man (God) and others don't believe it, or refuse to accept it. Since man no longer exists in Primordia's world, it is a constant source of debate among the robots. Horatio, the character we assume the role of for the duration of the game, even has an inventory item called "The Book of Man" which is symbolic of the bible. This type of symbolism runs deep in the game, and for the careful observer, all sorts of parallels can be found between our real world and the game world. See More

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided

Top Pro

Convincing atmosphere

The dystopian setting with permanent police presence and derogatory comments from average citizens creates a depressing atmosphere. See More

Top Con

Relatively short

Mankind Divided is not as long as it should be. It can be completed in about 20 hours, and this is including most of the side quests. Doing just the main story would take even less than that. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mostly Positive

Genre:First-Person Shooter, Stealth

Top Pro

Engaging side quests

The side quests in Mankind Divided are almost as engaging as the main storyline. This is also helped by the fact that the NPCs who give these quests deliver their speeches in such a passionate way that makes you want to engage in their stories. Coupled with the fact that this game has a constantly-grey morality and it truly feels like the player has the fates of these people in their hands. See More

Top Con

Storyline feels hurried

While the first chapter of the game is quite slow and intriguing, it starts to become clumsier and unnatural as the player goes through the missions. After heading out of Prague, the story starts to feel hurried. Characters are introduced and fall into the sidelines, only to return out of nowhere in crucial moments of the story with very little to no justification. See More

Top Pro

Great espionage-based gameplay

The game really shines when the players find themselves needing to infiltrate somewhere to complete a mission. There's a myriad of ways to approach each situation and multiple outcomes depending on the approach. Hacking terminals, crawling through vents, and stealthily taking out enemies is what this game is all about. There is a tangible tension to every move because if the player is caught by one of the enemies, the mission may come to an unexpected halt. See More

Top Con

Side missions are hard to find

For people who want to complete every single side mission it can be hard to find them. They are given by NPCs which are differentiated from other, non-quest-giving NPCs by their name. Most are defined as "citizen", while those who have a quest to give have an actual name. However, the only way to find these quest givers is by running up to every person in the game which is very time consuming. See More

The Surge

Top Pro

Engaging combat system

The Surge's combat primarily consists of you fighting robots or cybernetically enhanced humans in close quarters. You have to read enemy patters, dodge when needed, and strike when there's an opening. What makes the combat stand out, however, is the ability to target specific body parts of enemies, allowing you to deal more damage on unarmored body parts or even cripple them. This adds more strategy to combat since you're not just swinging in the general direction of an enemy, but also constantly looking for their weak spots. See More

Top Con

Might feel a bit too punishing

Even when you have good equipment, the regular enemies can still kill you in a couple of hits if you're not careful. Some enemies are very aggressive and fast, so a momentary lapse in focus can cause you to restart an area from the beginning. This is further amplified during boss fights where most hits taken will outright kill you, which can feel frustrating and unfair, especially when you've no idea what a boss does. See More

Specs

Steam Rating:Mixed

Top Pro

Enjoyable loot system

In most games items tend to have drop chances, so you're often stuck killing an enemy over and over until you get the item you're looking for. The Surge changes this up by allowing you to slash off pieces of equipment from enemy bodies when finishing them off. For example, when you're fighting a cyborg with really cool looking armor, you can slice off its arm with a finishing move. You can loot the arm afterwards, allowing you to craft the arm piece of that armor set. This means you can get the full set after fighting that type of cyborg several times rather than spending hours fighting them and getting nothing. As a result, you have a loot system that rewards effort without relying on your luck, which feels like a really nice change of pace. See More

Top Con

Exploration can feel disorientating since there's no map

While a lot of games without maps and/or waypoints play fine, The Surge may feel too disorientating at times. This is mostly due to its over-reliance on maze-like environments that tend to look exactly the same, so even though you've entered a room for the first time, it may feel like you've already been there. This is also made worse by the fact that enemies respawn after a while, so you can't use their absence or presence for guidance either. If you don't like to perfectly memorize level layouts, the Surge might be annoying to play. See More

Top Pro

Good selection of weapons

The Surge has many types of futuristic weapons - from a vibration powered chainsaw, to a large axe with an energy blade, to even a giant robot's arm re-purposed as a weapon. The most important differences between weapons, however, are in speed, reach, and available combos. For example, you can pick a very slow weapon with a wide reach that has devastating combos, but carries the risk of getting interrupted by enemies faster than you. Or you can choose a very fast weapon to easily outmaneuver enemies but you always have to stay close because the weapon has a poor reach. As a result, each weapon has differences in tempo and playstyle, allowing you to choose one that fits you the best. See More

Top Con

The story isn't that good

The story starts out intriguing, but it doesn't do much with the initial setup afterwards. The main character's motivations don't seem very believable, the side characters aren't that interesting, and even the conclusion isn't satisfying. In the end, the story in The Surge is just a vague excuse for you to slaughter robots and cyborgs. See More

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