Hacker and hacking games — the definitive list of the greatest hacker or hacking games

Gaming
#1

This is the definitive a list aiming to become the definitive resource for great hacking games.

I’m a bit of a connoisseur of these kinds of games, if I do say so myself, so if you’ve come across one that you think is cool and which hasn’t made the list post about it in the topic and add it into the OP (I’ll make this post a wiki).

EXAPUNKS

Code 7

Duskers

Mainlining

Else Heart.Break()

Digital: A Love Story

https://scoutshonour.com/digital/

Observation

Hypnospace Outlaw

Uplink

Quadrilateral Cowboy

Orwell

Her Story

While not technically a hacking game, the combination of the text search interface and the mystery aspect makes this game have a lot in common with great hacking games.

Histacom

Hacknet

Honourable mention: Enter The Matrix

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SIG's Most Epic reviews of hacker/hacking-themed games
#2

I didn’t realize Orwell was a hacking game.

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#3

I remember playing the crap out of Neuromancer back in the day

While games are fun and all, there’s actual skill building games like security CTFs https://old.reddit.com/r/securityCTF/

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#4

It’s listed under the “Hacking” tag on Steam and, frankly, I haven’t played it in a long time so I don’t remember it clearly.

It certainly has the core element of a good hacking game: solving a mystery from within a fake computer interface. And I do remember enjoying it a lot.

Come to think of it, Hypnospace Outlaw also doesn’t strictly have the player hacking in it. Unless you count the GeoCities/MySpace equivalent of BitTorrent as “hacking”. There are hacker NPCs, though.

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#5

Uplink was the coolest game ever as a kid. I remember it came with a grid with lots of numbers as a anti piracy protection.
I see it runs on Linux.
Got to get it again

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