Ghostrunner

Ghostrunner is a fast-paced first-person action game set in the vertical cyberpunk tower Dharma Tower, the last bastion of humanity after a civilizational catastrophe, ruled from its peak by the tyrannical Keymaster along with her fanatical guards and her own army of machines. The player takes on the role of a cybernetic warrior armed with a katana, whose only defense and attack alike is a single precise strike – one hit means instant death for both enemy and player, making the game an extremely uncompromising yet immensely satisfying real-time action puzzle with no room for error.

One More Level built the game around rapidly repeating short, brutally difficult segments where the player combines parkour, temporary time slowdown, and precisely deflecting projectiles back at enemies, with absolutely minimal room for error or hesitation. The level design fully exploits the tower's verticality – wall-running, double jumps, and ziplines pull the player upward toward a final confrontation with the tower's ruler, while a pulsing electronic soundtrack underscores the pace and synthetic atmosphere of the entire dark cyberpunk world full of neon colors.

On Xbox Series X|S, where the game launched as one of the new generation's launch titles, it benefits above all from lightning-fast loading after frequent deaths and the stable framerate needed for the player's precise, split-second reactions. Reviews praised the adrenaline-fueled feeling of gradually gained mastery and a surprisingly satisfying learning curve despite the game's high difficulty and its occasionally merciless traps. Ghostrunner became a cult title in its genre and received a successful, more expansive sequel two years later. The difficulty is eased by a fast respawn system right at the point of death, so even frequent repetition of difficult passages feels smooth and never comes across as frustrating.

Why play it: Anyone who can handle the high difficulty will appreciate the lightning-fast loading after every death, respawning right where you fell, and a satisfying learning curve that keeps the game from ever feeling frustrating.