No Law's Dense Cybergrunge City Could Be the Most Alive Open World Ever

No Law is an ambitious project. It's a cyberpunk-style sci-fi action adventure set in a city teeming with thousands of NPCs and enterable buildings. But unlike CD Projekt's sprawling Night City, Port Desire prioritizes density and fidelity over sheer scale. That's a deliberate choice made early on by Neon Giant co-founders and co-creative directors Tor Frick and Arcade Berg, the minds behind the acclaimed cyberpunk twin-stick shooter The Ascent. With a shift to first-person perspective and an open world to explore, No Law doubles down on everything that made The Ascent great. The game debuted at this year's Unreal Fest (built on Unreal Engine 5) with an impressive tech demo. Ahead of the reveal, I spoke to Frick and Berg about their vision and what it means for players. There's plenty of talk about Port Desire being the "most alive" open world city ever created, but how will this relatively small studio pull it off? Through physics that never reset, multiple interconnected systems governing the behavior of over 3,000 NPCs, and careful design of which buildings players can enter, the developers explain. And yes, you can kill everyone in the game, and it will still function.