Burning Daylight is a Stunningly Beautiful, Dystopian Cyberpunk Experience

Developed as a student project, Burning Daylight has a mesmerizing art style, soundtrack, and story. This walking simulator-style game has you wandering a neon-dystopian, nightmarish future world.

What is Burning Daylight?

Available for free on Steam, Burning Daylight is a short, free game. It features simple controls where you guide a mysterious person through a 3D scroller.

The game was designed as a project by students at The Animation Workshop of VIA University College in Denmark. As a first outing by the team, they put together a seamless and immersive world. While there isn't much action in the game, I was hooked instantly from the first frames in the game world.

While I won't go into details of the story, there may be slight spoilers in this review. If you want to experience the game yourself, go download it for free and play it before reading on. The whole experience should take less than one hour to complete.

Burning Light exists in a beautiful and nightmarish, cyberpunk world

This game is rated for Mature Audiences for nudity, sexual scenes, and disturbing imagery.
Waking up naked in one of the creepiest opening scenes I've ever experienced had me hooked.
Naked and vulnerable, your mysterious character will traverse a future, neon-glowing, cyberpunk world.

Being naked with your family jewels hanging gives you a sense of vulnerability and fear that I was not expecting. While not a survival horror game, Burning Daylight will give you a sense of dread, horror, and urgency right from the opening sequence.

The first act reminds me of Neo waking in The Matrix. A similar color palette and an ominous soundtrack will set the tone until you find your escape.

An homage to all things Cyberpunk

Once you find your escape, you'll enter a mind-blowing world. This neon dystopian world is harsh but beautiful. You'll encounter VR gadgets, Sex shops, giant glowing animated ads, and everything you would expect from a cyberpunk world. Think Bladerunner meets Cyberpunk 2077 but with even more neon.

I absolutely love cyberpunk fiction and worlds. Whether it's a masterpiece like Bladerunner or a campy 90s romp like Johnny Mnmenoic, I'm down to watch it or read it. Burning Daylight doesn't disappoint. While it can be seen as a love letter to the best cyberpunk books, films, games, and art, Burning Daylight still creates its own style. It feels like a brand new world.

The final act offers an abrupt change from the first two acts. I won't go into detail. Go play the game and enjoy the finale yourself!

The soundtrack and sound design is AAA quality

I honestly don't know how this game is free.

The art and animation aren't the only AAA features of Burning Daylight. Wait till you hear the sounds.

The sound design will transport you to each location. From the horrifying opening scenes to the sexy downtown scenes, you'll get to enjoy some of the best sound designs I've heard in a game.

Synthwave and techno music adds to the experience as well.

Gameplay

Burning Daylight has minimal gameplay. The gameplay is walking simulator style. You'll traverse the world looking for things that will allow you to progress to the next section of the game.
While not the most immersive gameplay, you'll still have no problem getting immersed in this world.
As long as you go into this game not expecting engaging gameplay, you'll have a great time on the adventure.

Should you try Burning Daylight?

If you haven't figured it out by now, I love this game. If you love creepy, dystopian, cyberpunk worlds, I would strongly recommend downloading Burning Daylight from Steam. It's avaialble for FREE as well. So what do you have to lose?