>//:System.Hack

//:System.Hack is a sim-RPG set in 2049, where five mega-corporations and their subsidiaries own almost every business. Robotics have automated production, unemployment is high, and the divide between rich and poor has widened. Electronics and machinery—from phones and cars to street lights, door locks and entire buildings—are connected to the internet, which has developed into the Net.

The Net is a virtual world layered over reality. NetDiver Rigs let users project their consciousness into it and control Avatars. Its world is not bound by physical laws: constructs and programs can reshape it, so a steel wall can be changed by rewriting code. You play a programmer turned hacker, beginning a criminal career by entering cyberspace and exploring its digital dungeons. Spend your earnings on hardware and software upgrades, or use them to pay off debts.

Choose your career

You start indentured to a sponsor company. Staying with it lets you rise through the ranks, earn perks and bonuses, work on special operations and benefit from its protection. In return, you pay a steep commission on your earnings and must meet daily quotas.

You can instead buy out your contract and become a freelancer, earning more per job and taking on no obligations. Freelancers can launder money, rob banks and steal valuable PayData from secure systems. With enough money, you can start a company and hire other hackers. Alongside story and special jobs, dynamically generated hacking jobs provide money and experience, with no limit on how long you can keep working.

Develop your hacker

Software and skill ratings have no upper limit. The game calculates them with formulas rather than a fixed progression graph. You can build custom hacking programs by arranging subroutines, combining them for greater versatility or adding negative elements to make a program easier to build. Higher Programming skill allows you to create more complex software.

Your cyberdeck's chips determine your Avatar's stats in cyberspace. Slot Masking chips for stealth or Firewall chips to prepare for heavy IC resistance, upgrade the motherboard to add chip slots, or buy high-end hardware. Generated jobs scale up in difficulty as your skills and power grow, while story and special missions keep a set difficulty. You can retry a mission after failing it.

Work with mercenaries

In Overwatch, you join a team of mercenaries as its resident hacker. Handle legwork and preparation, then guide the team as it infiltrates secure facilities to carry out crimes.