Cyberwar: Neon City

I kept scrolling past this one for weeks, and I genuinely regret that. Cyberwar: Neon City sits in that particular corner of the indie roguelite space where the concept sounds like a joke - cybernetic monkeys have taken over the world, humanity's last hope is a clone named Printer, and his only weapon is Blue, a living shark that fires projectiles - but the moment you're inside a run, the absurdity becomes its own kind of sincerity. Cyber Monkey Studios built something here that knows exactly what kind of game it wants to be. The loop is top-down shoot-em-up action with roguelite bones. Each floor of a monkey-occupied building sends waves of enemies at you - cybernetic primates, rogue androids, genetically modified animals - and clearing rooms earns you upgrade picks. Blue's defining mechanic is projectile storage: you're not locked to one shot type but can cycle and swap between distinct ammunition styles mid-combat, which nudges the minute-to-minute play closer to a puzzle than a pure reflex test. Layered on top of that is a persistent skill tree for permanent stat growth between runs, a merchant who peddles items and combat drones, and occasional 'good luck' objects that drop unpredictable rewards into rooms. It's familiar scaffolding, yes, but the shark weapon gives it a tactile identity that most budget roguelites skip entirely. The story threads in unexpectedly. Memory sequences flesh out the characters, NPCs offer perspective on how Neon City got this broken, and the plot earns at least a couple of genuine turns. For an Early Access title sitting comfortably in the pixel-art aesthetic, the writing has more ambition than you'd expect. The neon-drenched underground cityscape - clubs, alleyways, buzzing signage - reads as a love letter to the aesthetic rather than a checklist of cyberpunk tropes. The pixel artistry is careful, and the audio does the quiet work of keeping you inside the world. The caveats are honest ones. This is still Early Access, the concurrent player count is low, and the current content volume won't satisfy players who need dozens of hours of variation before a full-price purchase makes sense. The developers are visibly engaged on Steam and Discord, patching and expanding, but that's a promise, not a guarantee. Level variety was a concern raised as far back as the demo days, and it's worth watching whether the full launch resolves that or leaves it as a recurring friction point. What's here works. Whether it grows into everything it's reaching for is a question only time and a few more updates will answer. For a sub-five-dollar entry into an actively developed pixel roguelite with a ridiculous shark weapon and a Steam community that clearly loves it, the risk-reward math is easy. If you have any softness for handcrafted indie weirdness with a genuine story beating underneath it, Neon City is worth the look right now, in whatever state it's in today.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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