Best Dystopian Games on Steam
Games set in oppressive futures, broken societies, surveillance states, or failed systems.
Browse all Dystopian →
1Half-Life 2
- Players say: As Gordon Freeman, fight the Combine across occupied Earth using firearms, environmental physics, and improvised weapons. Players like: Gravity Gun Physics · City 17 Atmosphere · Varied Level Design
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Reawakened from stasis in the occupied metropolis of City 17, Gordon Freeman is joined by Alyx Vance as he leads a desperate human resistance. Experience the landmark first-person shooter packed with immersive world-building, boundary-pushing physics, and exhilarating combat.
Nov 16, 2004
In this game, you can…
- use a gravity gun to turn junk into weapons, tools, and stepping stones mid-fight.
- launch a saw blade and slice an enemy clean in half.
- pick up a random can, throw it at a guard, and watch him chase you down.
- carry one specific object for ages because the world stays physically consistent.
- drive a buggy across huge stretches of coast and ruins while the same looming tower stays in sight.
- storm a fortified prison complex as a full-scale set-piece assault.
- walk into a chapter the game treats like horror, with zombies howling and shadows jumping rooftop to rooftop.
- solve small puzzles by moving real objects through water, fire, and weight, instead of hitting switches.
2Stray
- Players say: A lost cat explores a sealed cybercity with a small drone, solving light puzzles and evading creatures to find a way home. Players like: Catlike Behaviors · Neon City Atmosphere · Emotional Story
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Lost, alone and separated from family, a stray cat must untangle an ancient mystery to escape a long-forgotten cybercity and find their way home.
Jul 19, 2022
In this game, you can…
- hide inside a cardboard box to slip through restricted areas and sneak past patrols.
- team up with a little flying drone that translates robot speech, unlocks doors, carries your items, and helps you recover lost memories.
- meow on command, purr, scratch things up, and shove bottles off shelves just because you can.
- fall through a broken pipe into an underground robot city, get separated from your cat family, and climb your way back toward the surface.
- squeeze through gaps, crawl along pipes, and hop rooftops to reach places built for humans but perfect for a cat.
- distract a shopkeeper with a blaring mixtape, sneak in disguised as a box, and piece together a path forward by poking at anything that looks interesting.
- dash through a swarming chase where creatures drop from above and you have to zigzag through alleys without getting caught.
- walk across keyboards to type nonsense, mess with board games, and nuzzle robot legs until they react.
3BioShock Infinite
- Players say: Hired gun Booker DeWitt enters the floating city of Columbia to rescue Elizabeth, fighting with firearms, powers, and sky-rails. Players like: Twisting Story · Elizabeth as Companion · Columbia's Visual Style
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Indebted to the wrong people, with his life on the line, veteran of the U.S. Cavalry and now hired gun, Booker DeWitt has only one opportunity to wipe his slate clean. He must rescue Elizabeth, a mysterious girl imprisoned since childhood and locked up in the flying city of Columbia.
Mar 25, 2013
In this game, you can…
- snap off a rail mid-ride, rain bullets from above, then drop back down into a brutal aerial takedown.
- tear open reality to pull in weapons, turrets, and other gear, then reshape a fight on the fly.
- reach the final reveal and have the story pivot hard into alternate realities that reframe what you just played.
- ride hanging rail lines between skyscrapers and keep firing without ever touching the ground.
- mix elemental powers with gunfire, like tossing murder crows into a crowd and shocking whoever survives.
- throw up a bullet-catching shield, soak incoming fire, then hurl it back as a blast that clears space.
- get a companion who actively tosses you ammo, healing, cash, and power refills during fights without needing babysitting.
4Stellar Blade™
- Players say: As colony soldier EVE, fight across a ruined Earth to reclaim it from the Naytiba and uncover the truth behind its fall. Players like: Timed Combat · Boss Fights · Strong Soundtrack
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Save humanity from extinction in post-apocalyptic action-adventure Stellar Blade™. Experience blistering combat and a twisting storyline as you unravel the mysteries of Earth’s downfall.
Jun 11, 2025
In this game, you can…
- buy 99 explosive shells and spam rockets to keep many bosses stunlocked for as long as you can keep firing.
- revive mid-boss fight with an item and restart quickly to try again without losing key progress.
- earn crossover outfits through a minigame-and-hunt process instead of having them just appear in your inventory.
- perfect-parry boss attacks, counter instantly, and interrupt their moves if your timing is precise enough.
- swap between different combat loadouts and build around burst skills, risky combo chains, and animation-locked attacks.
- find secret entrances, shortcuts, and hidden rewards by combing through dense side paths off the main route.
- jump straight into a boss challenge mode to replay fights, practice timing, and chase rewards without rerunning the campaign.
- spend hours in photo mode posing characters and changing expressions to set up custom shots.
5Dishonored
- Players say: Framed for an empress’s murder, Corvo hunts those responsible across plague-struck Dunwall with stealth, weapons, and supernatural powers. Players like: Flexible Mission Routes · Dunwall’s Atmosphere · Replayable Level Design
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Dishonored is an immersive first-person action game that casts you as a supernatural assassin driven by revenge. With Dishonored’s flexible combat system, creatively eliminate your targets as you combine the supernatural abilities, weapons and unusual gadgets at your disposal.
Oct 8, 2012
In this game, you can…
- stop time, disable an alarm, toss a grenade into the air, shoot it mid-flight, and let it detonate when time restarts.
- possess a guard or an animal to slip into restricted areas and bypass security from the inside.
- finish the whole game without killing anyone, including major encounters, by choking guards out and staying unseen.
- teleport onto rooftops, through windows, or behind guards, then drop straight down for a takedown.
- stop time, fire three arrows into guards, blink, fire three more, then drop-assassinate someone as time begins again.
- pull a whale-oil tank to drop a barrier, grab another tank, throw it, stop time, and shoot it midair to wipe out the area.
- summon a swarm of rats and have them tear enemies apart while you keep moving.
- peek through keyholes and listen through doors to learn what guards and targets are about to do.
6Papers, Please
- Players say: As Arstotzka’s border inspector, check travelers’ papers, enforce shifting rules, and weigh family survival against each entry decision. Players like: Moral Choices · Document-Checking Loop · Bleak Atmosphere
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Congratulations. The October labor lottery is complete. Your name was pulled. For immediate placement, report to the Ministry of Admission at Grestin Border Checkpoint. An apartment will be provided for you and your family in East Grestin. Expect a Class-8 dwelling.
Aug 8, 2013
In this game, you can…
- let a serial killer enter because the victim's father begs you to, so he can take revenge himself inside the country.
- spot a tiny mismatch, order a scanner, discover contraband taped to someone's back, and have guards arrest them on the spot.
- let the wrong person through and trigger an assassination or terrorist attack that changes what happens at the checkpoint next day.
- stamp passports approved or denied to decide who enters the country.
- approve a husband, then decide whether to deny his wife with an expired passport even if she says she'll be killed.
- watch a guy return day after day with a hilariously fake, hand-drawn passport that keeps getting "updated."
- take a cash bribe to let someone through, use it to upgrade your life, then get reported and have the government confiscate everything.
- escalate from checking one passport to fingerprinting, interrogating, and full body-scanning travelers when their paperwork doesn't match.
7Dishonored 2
- Players say: Choose Emily or Corvo to reclaim a throne through first-person missions built around stealth, supernatural powers, and combat. Players like: Creative Level Design · Freedom to Experiment · Detailed World Atmosphere
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Reprise your role as a supernatural assassin in Dishonored 2. Declared a “masterpiece” by Eurogamer and hailed “a must-play revenge tale” by Game Informer, Dishonored 2 is the follow up to Arkane’s 1st-person action blockbuster & winner of 100+ 'Game of the Year' awards, Dishonored.
Nov 11, 2016
In this game, you can…
- pull levers to reconfigure an entire mansion, turning rooms and hallways into a shifting mechanical puzzle box.
- move through the same mansion in two different time periods and change the past to alter what's waiting in the present.
- make choices that let you skip entire levels, even in a story-driven campaign.
- pick one protagonist, then replay as the other with a completely different set of supernatural powers.
- mix both protagonists' powers together in New Game+ and build combinations the campaign wasn't originally balanced for.
- link multiple enemies together so one takedown or one shot drops everyone connected to the chain.
- possess a rat to slip through tiny cracks, then hop bodies to bypass defenses from the inside.
- drop from a huge height, stab someone mid-fall, survive the landing, slow time, detonate an explosive tank, then finish the survivors with a summoned rat swarm.
8Wolfenstein: The New Order
- Players say: In a Nazi-ruled alternate 1960s, soldier B.J. Blazkowicz joins the resistance, fighting with guns or stealth across a sci-fi campaign. Players like: Satisfying Gunplay · Story and Characters · Alternate-History Setting
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Wolfenstein®: The New Order reignites the series that created the first-person shooter genre. Wolfenstein offers a deep game narrative packed with action, adventure and first-person combat.
May 19, 2014
In this game, you can…
- storm a beachfront fortress, then later end up in space on a Nazi moon base.
- dual-wield basically every weapon, including shotguns, assault rifles, and laser guns.
- find a hidden Wolfenstein 3D-style game inside the modern campaign.
- stab Nazis from stealth with a knife or a silenced pistol, then instantly switch to loud firefights when you're spotted.
- take out commanders first so they stop calling in reinforcements during a fight.
- choose which comrade dies early on, then play through two different timelines.
- climb towers, fire giant cannons, and crush massive Nazi robots during the opening assault.
- wake up after a 14-year gap to a world where the Nazis won and the resistance is underground.
9The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series
- Players say: Guide survivors through a zombie outbreak in a choice-driven adventure of tense conversations, quick-time events, and hard moral decisions. Players like: Emotional Storytelling · Memorable Characters · Clementine's Growth
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The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series contains all 4 Seasons, 400 Days, and The Walking Dead: Michonne, which includes over 50 hours of gameplay across 23 unique episodes.
Oct 29, 2020
In this game, you can…
- start the apocalypse in handcuffs, crash the cop car, and end up protecting an 8-year-old alone in her house.
- stitch up your own wound as Clementine and insist, "I am still. Not. Bitten."
- get bitten as Clementine near the end, then later walk back into the courtyard alive on crutches.
- watch Clementine grow from a little kid you teach into the one making the hardest survival calls herself.
- play a side story as five different people, then run into some of them again later in the main seasons.
- choose who to save when two survivors are about to die, then deal with the immediate fallout from whoever you didn't pick.
- switch to playing as Javi and try to keep your brother's family together when a disaster makes it impossible to rescue everyone.
10SANABI
- Players say: A retired veteran scales a deserted cyberpunk megacity with a chain-hook arm, fighting through traps to find the entity SANABI. Players like: Emotional Story · Chain-Hook Movement · Expressive Pixel Art
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SANABI is an exhilarating stylish dystopian action-platformer. Play as a legendary retired veteran and use your signature prosthetic arm to jump over cliffs and skyscrapers, zip through bullets and traps and defeat powerful enemies.
Nov 8, 2023
In this game, you can…
- hook directly onto enemies to destroy them, then push off their bodies to keep your momentum and use them like extra platforms.
- get a second pass through stages where the same mechanics suddenly let you blast through three times as fast.
- get a story that unfolds out of order, then replay and notice clues and foreshadowing that reframe the whole conspiracy.
- swing through a mega-city without almost ever touching the ground.
- zip from room to room with a chain-hook arm, then boost, slow time, and keep the whole combo going in midair.
- turn movement tricks into a full toolset—boosting, reeling in, slowing time, grabbing enemies—and route through levels in wildly different ways.
- fight bosses with their own unique mechanics that force you to learn new ways to use your movement and hook.
- run with a hacker companion who opens locked doors, reveals enemy weaknesses, and pulls encrypted secrets out of the city as you climb.
