Ghostrunner

Ghostrunner runs on a one-hit one-kill economy. You die in a frame, the enemies die in a frame, and the entire question of combat becomes how fast you can read a room and execute a sequence of dashes, parkour, and katana strikes that drops every threat before any of them connects.

The setting is Dharma Tower, the last shelter of humanity after a global cataclysm, ruled from the top by the Keymaster, Mara. You climb the megastructure from the bottom up — through slums, factories, server rooms, and finally the upper levels where the regime keeps its secrets. The monomolecular katana is your only melee, but the moveset around it includes wall-running, grappling, sliding under fire, and a slow-motion air-dash that lets you redirect mid-combat.

Frequent checkpoints make the death penalty trivial; you're expected to die dozens of times per level, and the design is built around that loop. The soundtrack is electronic and heavy, the visuals are cyberpunk by way of Mirror's Edge, and the narrative threads of who built the tower and who you actually are unspool gradually as you climb.