Is the wait for CyberPunk 2077 too long? Are you thinking of taking the Eric Cartman approach and freezing yourself in a snowbank until it releases in April 2020? How very Cyberpunk of you! I have good news though: instead of freezing yourself, you could fill the hungry void in your soul by playing the best Cyberpunk games of all time!

The Cyberpunk literary movement reached peak popularity in the late 80’s/early 90’s, which lined up beautifully with the rise of the PC and the home console.

Millennial children grew up hacking into evil mega-corporations, foiling the plots of sentient AI overlords, and generally just blowing shit up with awesome futuristic weapons.

The non-stop flood of Cyberpunk books, movies, and games produced in that time period eventually made us all a little tired of the genre, and we collectively set it aside for a while.

But now it’s back in a big way, so whether you are a Cyberpunk rookie or you just need a refresher, here’s my list of the best that the cyber-enhanced world has to offer.

You could argue that Portal is simply Sci-Fi, but all of the hallmarks of a great Cyberpunk game are there: a downtrodden protagonist from the underprivileged class, an evil megacorporation, a technology-gone-awry crazy AI villain, and cool high-tech gadgets.

Portal also has a lot of crossover appeal, and along with Metal Gear Solid and Final Fantasy VII has a broader audience than most Cyberpunk games.

Portal is an absolute monster of a meme-generating machine, and is a commonly shared touchstone in the nerd community even among those who haven’t played the game.

You should totally play Portal though, if you’ve never tried it. It’s fairly short and the story, dialogue, and voice acting are among the best in all of gaming. The teleportation-based puzzles are some of the most fun you will ever have in a game as well.

The graphics on the original Deus Ex ain’t easy on the eyes, but this venerable Cyberpunk title is so iconic today that the bad graphics are a part of its charm.

It’s such a highly regarded, widely referenced game that even if you for some crazy reason don’t like the Cyberpunk aesthetic, you should still play through Deus Ex at least once just to be culturally literate. Seriously: it’s that important of a game.

Divergent storylines and multiple quest solutions are commonplace nowadays, but even by today’s standards the amount of player choice and the narrative depth of Deus Ex is amazing.

I remember how my heart sank when somebody told me that you could save an important character’s life if you were captured during an ambush instead of running away.

I hadn’t saved him in my first playthrough. I felt like such a coward that I immediately started a new save. Now that’s a good game.

Loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the Blade Runner franchise is one of the original icons of Cyberpunk.

The Blade Runner movie set the standard for visual elements of the Cyberpunk genre, and the release of the director’s cut in the 90’s helped the film maintain its cult status.

Capitalizing on that surge of popularity, Westwood studios managed to pull off the most difficult feat in all of games development: make a good game based on a movie.

​Westwood Studio’s Blade Runner got everything right; it wasn’t just the usual movie tie-in cash grab. The visuals were spot-on, some of the original cast members voice their characters, and the game included some pioneering gameplay mechanics like randomized NPC schedules and more.

Fortunately, Blade Runner is now available to play on modern PCs. It’s a fun adventure game to play even today, and it helps broaden the Blade Runner universe a little bit.

If you were into the Cyberpunk scene a decade ago, you’ll remember that the hype for Deus Ex Human Revolution was unreal. Cyberpunk had been on the decline in the 2000’s, and Eidos Montreal/Square Enix capitalized on the public’s desire to see a return to the genre.

Human Revolution went on to sell over 2 million copies, which is a gigantic number compared to the sales of earlier games in the series.

Reboots and new trilogies can make fans nervous, but Deus Ex: Human Revolution largely delivered what people wanted.

You have a lot of choices to make, and it isn’t easy to keep your companions alive through the whole game. Human Revolution demonstrated that Cyberpunk was ready for the AAA title main stage.

The Japanese have taken a liking to the Cyberpunk culture from the beginning and have taken it in their own distinct direction.

The popular manga and even more popular movie Akira is a world-famous Cyberpunk epic which has had an enormous influence on other works in the genre. Tetsuo’s bike is even making an appearance in the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077.

Many of the same themes appear in SquareSoft’s 1998 hit Parasite Eve, which arguably makes it a Cyberpunk or at least Cyberpunk-influenced game.

I know there is literally zero buzz over the Parasite Eve IP, but it’s my personal favorite dead videogame series that deserves a reboot.

Like Akira, Parasite Eve takes the Japanese approach of mixing Cyberpunk and horror together to make one of my favorite RPGs of all time.