Cyberpunk is an extremely versatile setting. It’s an easy vessel for a compelling story, and it’s a great excuse to deck your game out with cool environments and crazy technology. Even a few short years ago, Cyberpunk was very niche (and to be fair, it still very much is) but there have been several exciting video game additions to the genre lately t,he lastest of which being VirtuaVerse.

Of course, there is also the upcoming first-person RPG Cyberpunk 2077 and smaller titles like the character-driven narrative Neo Cab. But it’s great to see a Cyberpunk-inspired point-and-click adventure that takes its cues from favourites like Monkey Island and King’s Quest.

Right off the bat, VirtuaVerse absolutely looks the part of a Cyberpunk tale. Its pixel art style is beautifully nostalgic while still presenting its futuristic world with all of the neon flashiness it deserves. The world is clearly far more advanced in technology than our own, yet it’s clear from just the first few screens of the game that humanity is squandering its potential just as much as ever. Streets are grimy, public terminals are in disrepair, and everybody seems wrapped up in their own problems.

In this future, humans live with virtual reality switched on 24-7, meaning that what their eyes see doesn’t always match up with reality. What starts as a hunt for his missing girlfriend leads protagonist Nathan to a conspiracy with deep roots, going to surprising places. VirtuaVerse combines some classic Cyberpunk tropes with new ideas to create an interesting tale with a thematically challenging take on our future.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The gameplay is your standard fare for a point-and-click adventure, which is clearly exactly what they’re going for. There are no attempts to re-invent the wheel here. You have an inventory full of items to use to solve various puzzles, with most solutions involving exploring all areas and thinking outside the box. Most puzzles don’t delve too deep into the world’s technology, which on one hand means that its accessible to everyone regardless of how much they know about technology – but on other hand means missing out on a lot of what a Cyberpunk setting has to offer.

Not much ever happens to Nathan: he often comes in late, and an NPC will talk at length about the situation, why you should care, and what you need to do to fix it. It’s not always like this, but it’s enough that it starts to seem like a crutch.

VirtuaVerse has a lot to tell you in its 15-hour playtime, so it’s forgivable that a lot of its story is exposited to the player. Relying on this style of storytelling is to be expected of a puzzle adventure, where your main source of engaging with the world is listening to people talk. The lore is an interesting read for those who want to hear it, and easy to skip through for those who don’t. But it becomes more of a problem when that ‘tell, don’t show’ attitude extends to our protagonist, Nathan.

My only other bone to pick with the game is some of the puzzles: they can get frustrating, and not in a good way. Upon solving a puzzle, there are generally two reactions you can experience: “Ah, of course!” or “What? How was I supposed to know that?”. There is not a single puzzle adventure on Earth that has winning puzzles all the way through, but VirtuaVerse had more of the latter than I’d like. To be clear, the majority of its puzzles are good, and there were a few I found to be ingenious, but others are downright infuriating.

To be specific, some puzzles feel artificially dragged out. More than once Nathan will return to a quest giver with what they asked for, only for them to give you yet another task before they’ll help you. Other times the solutions to puzzles won’t be activated until you talk to somebody or look at something, even if you’ve already figured out the answer. The inevitable backtracking does nothing but turns Nathan’s slow walking speed into a genuine annoyance, and sours the better puzzles the game has to offer.