No Law is an ambitious title to behold. A cyberpunk shooter that prioritises “density over scale” when it comes to building its sci-fi open world.
We were treated to six minutes of all new footage during a recent State of Unreal appearance, which highlighted the ways in which the Swedish developer has built a dense city that’s “uncompromised” and “lived-in at every scale”.
Neon Giant’s Tor Frick provides commentary on the studio’s design philosophies, and constraints.
“Our constraint was specific: We didn’t want the largest world, but the densest. A city that feels lived-in at every scale, where every corner carries history and every surface tells a story. Port Desire is shaped by human clutter: Cramped market alleys, layered graffiti, worn stickers on electrical boxes. Spaces that feel touched and re-touched by the people who live there.”
The Neon Giant creative director goes on to talk about how working as part of a relatively small team that “ambition came with real challenges”, and that Unreal Engine 5’s Nanite helped the team to deliver “extreme detail everywhere” without sacrificing performance.
“We prioritized density over scale, and we built a pipeline that lets artists handcraft spaces, without constantly stripping detail back, and without relying on procedural generation. Nanite is what made that approach viable. It lets us keep a high level of detail across surfaces without treating every asset as a tradeoff between fidelity and performance.”
What caught our eye during the presentation was how weather, time of day, and regions impacted the world and its inhabitants.
“To make the city feel alive, we leaned on the Mass Framework to drive our crowds. NPC density and types shift based on time of day, region, and weather. In the slums, a storm clears the streets but in the more sinful parts of Port Desire, even heavy rain won’t slow things down.”
He continues to talk about how No Law’s NPCs make the “city feel alive” utilising the “Mass Framework to drive our crowds” leading to an impressive amount of simulated NPCs at any given time.
“Mass (Framework) lets us simulate thousands of characters at once, over 3,000 at any given time, which is also more than the entirety of The Ascent, so the city always feels active, no matter where you are. We are also using MetaHuman paired with our own character randomization system. Together with MetaHuman Animator, we can generate and bring to life thousands of variations of characters, so the main characters, the Extras in the background are all unique.”
Judging by what we’ve seen so far, No Law is one worth keeping an eye on as development continues. There’s still no official release date, but I suspect we’ll be seeing plenty more of it in the months ahead.
For now, 2027 is the release window to watch, with No Law currently slated for Xbox Series X|S.
