This cyberpunk detective game is one of 2024’s best hidden gems

Nobody Wants To Die has almost every detective noir staple in one game. You play as a hard-boiled detective with a tragic past and a drinking problem. There’s a good-cop/bad-cop dynamic with your partner as you work together to solve a murder case that exposes the city’s morally corrupt underbelly. It takes place in New York City. It’s constantly raining.

It sounds like your typical film noir crime drama from the mid-1900s. I’ve seen all of these tropes play out in similar games in the genre like the grounded LA Noire, the haunting Murdered: Soul Suspect, and the anime wackiness of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code. So, what’s Nobody Wants To Die’s unique twist? It expertly blends cyberpunk elements with a gritty 1940s aesthetic. Even with some issues, Nobody Wants To Die kept me enthralled from start to finish.

Back to the future

Nobody Wants To Die is set in the year 2329, but I wasn’t able to discern that right away. The game starts with our protagonist, James Karra, as he sits next to his wife, Rachel, in a 1940s-era classic car. While watching a movie together, she glitches out and disappears. James then opens his door and there are flying cars right beneath him. What I thought was the start of another typical old-school detective noir game all of a sudden looked more likeBlade Runner. It left its mark on me; I wanted to see what other tropes it would subvert next.

New York in 2329 is still dealing with the same issues we face today, like capitalism and corporate greed. While these themes have been explored to death, Nobody Wants To Die throws in another twist: humankind has achieved immortality. Once you turn the age of 21, you have to pay a subscription in order to keep your body, and if you’re unable to, it goes off to auction to the highest bidder. This is how the powerful and ultra-wealthy can extend their lives indefinitely, by using poor people by transferring their consciousness to younger bodies.

By connecting that to a critique of capitalism, Nobod