Hail to the Rainbow – a lonely walk through post-apocalyptic cyberpunk

Marci

2025.12.03

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If you ever felt like the “Eastern European post-apocalypse” setting has been milked dry, Hail to the Rainbow politely disagrees. This freshly released, story-driven FPS drops you into a bleak, snow-covered future where concrete blocks, neon glows and military ruins collide. You play as Ignat, a young man trying to scrape together a life after a disastrous military event – until a strange email lands in his inbox and kicks off a slow, unsettling descent into the unknown. The game launched on PC (Steam) on November 27, with a free demo still available for anyone who wants to test the waters first.

Rather than going full STALKER clone, Hail to the Rainbow takes a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk angle. Ignat’s world is all harsh brutalist towers, flickering tech and long, lifeless roads, somewhere in the ruins of the former Soviet space. He’s lost his parents, lives in a kind of grim “new normal”, and the game gradually peels back what happened – to the world, and to him – as you explore abandoned apartments, military facilities and frozen outskirts. It’s moody, slow and deliberately oppressive; the kind of game where half the storytelling happens in what you see, not what you’re told.

In terms of gameplay, this isn’t a non-stop shooting gallery. Officially it’s a first-person, story-driven adventure with horror and shooter elements: you explore, search for items, read electronic logs, solve technical puzzles, upgrade your inventory and, when you have to, fight back with melee and firearms. The demo is built around 1.5–2 hours of content and already shows the balance the full game is going for – lots of looking around and piecing together the world, with bursts of combat and a steady undercurrent of dread.

Behind the whole project stands a single developer, Sergey Noskov, whose previous works (35MM, 7th Sector, The Light, The Train) already proved he has a thing for slow-burn, atmospheric post-Soviet worlds. He’s been working on Hail to the Rainbow since 2020, describing it as a long, painstaking five-year journey that grew out of his love for environmental storytelling – the kind where graffiti, abandoned belongings and the layout of a ruined facility quietly explain what went wrong. This new game basically continues that tradition, just with tighter gunplay and a more cinematic presentation.

Early reception suggests that effort is paying off. The demo has been sitting on a wave of “very positive” user reviews, and the full release launched into similarly strong impressions from players and critics who like their shooters heavy on story and mood. One international write-up even singled it out as a “moody first-person narrative game” in a weekly “new Steam games you probably missed” round-up, putting it on the radar for fans of Metro and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.-style experiences – with the caveat that it leans more into introspective cyberpunk than open-world zone crawling.

There’s also a small, charmingly old-school touch: the developer lets you drop your own music into the game’s folder so Ignat can listen to it while driving. It’s a tiny feature, but it turns those long, icy road trips into something surprisingly personal – like a lo-fi GTA radio hack for a much sadder universe. Combined with the careful pacing and bleak visuals, it makes Hail to the Rainbow feel less like “just another indie shooter” and more like a very specific vibe you settle into for an evening.

If you’re after a twitchy arena FPS, this won’t be your new main game. But if you’re in the mood for a slow, atmospheric walk through a broken future, with enough combat to keep the tension up and enough narrative weight to make you care, Hail to the Rainbow is absolutely worth a look – especially since the free demo lets you find out very quickly whether this particular brand of post-apocalyptic melancholy is your thing.

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