Babylon 3013 – Hitman Meets Fallout in Floating Cyberpunk City RPG

Firewall Enigma launched the Steam page for Babylon 3013 in November 2025, unveiling their ambitious cyberpunk stealth RPG set in the year 3013. The game takes place in Aetheran, a massive floating city divided into five distinct districts where players navigate as a third-person stealth operative. Combining Hitman’s social stealth and precision takedowns with Fallout’s open-world exploration and choice-driven narrative, Babylon 3013 promises a nonlinear mission system where silent eliminations and strategic planning determine survival. No release date has been announced for this Windows PC title built for players seeking flexible approaches to objectives in a dystopian sky city.

The Floating City of Aetheran

Babylon 3013’s setting is Aetheran, a floating cyberpunk metropolis hovering above a world we know nothing about yet. The city divides into five massive districts, each presumably with distinct architecture, populations, and challenges. Floating cities in cyberpunk fiction typically exist because the ground level became uninhabitable through pollution, war, or environmental collapse, creating stratified societies where the wealthy float above while the poor remain below.

The five-district structure suggests substantial content scope for an indie project. Each district likely functions as a major hub with multiple missions, side activities, and exploration opportunities. Games like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided proved that a single detailed city hub can provide dozens of hours of content when designed with vertical exploration and hidden pathways. Babylon 3013 multiplying that by five indicates either ambitious scale or potentially smaller but distinct districts.

Hitman’s Social Stealth DNA

The Hitman series revolutionized stealth gaming through social stealth systems where disguises and blending into crowds mattered as much as staying in shadows. Instead of purely avoiding detection like Metal Gear or Splinter Cell, Hitman let players hide in plain sight by wearing appropriate disguises, behaving naturally, and eliminating targets without witnesses. The freedom to approach assassinations from infinite angles made each level a sandbox of creative murder.

Babylon 3013 adopts this philosophy with its emphasis on silent takedowns and precision shooting in a treacherous dystopia. The nonlinear mission system suggests Hitman-style flexibility where objectives can be completed through multiple approaches – disguises, environmental kills, sniping, or direct combat. The cyberpunk setting adds potential for hacking, augmentations, or technological manipulation that Hitman’s contemporary settings couldn’t explore.

The Fallout Open World Formula

Fallout’s influence brings the open-world exploration, choice-driven narratives, and RPG systems that define Bethesda’s post-apocalyptic franchise. Fallout games let players explore vast wastelands at their own pace, discovering locations organically rather than following linear paths. Quests often feature multiple solutions based on player skills, dialogue choices, and moral decisions that shape how the world responds.

Babylon 3013’s description emphasizing flexible mission structure and open-world design suggests similar freedom. Players presumably wander Aetheran’s five districts, accepting missions from various factions, making choices that affect reputation and story outcomes, and building characters through RPG progression systems. The cyberpunk setting replaces Fallout’s retro-futuristic wasteland with high-tech dystopia, but the core philosophy of player agency and exploration-driven narrative remains.

Third-Person Stealth Challenges

Third-person perspective for stealth games creates different challenges than first-person. Games like Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid, and Hitman use third-person cameras to give players spatial awareness of their surroundings, showing what’s behind them and making cover mechanics more intuitive. However, this removes the tension of first-person stealth where limited visibility increases fear of the unknown.

Babylon 3013’s third-person choice suggests they’re prioritizing spatial awareness and cover-based stealth over immersive tension. This works well for games emphasizing precise movement and positioning over atmospheric horror. Players can see Agent 47 crouched behind a crate and judge distances accurately, making stealth more about tactical positioning than nerve-wracking uncertainty.

The Indie Ambition Question

Firewall Enigma appears to be a small indie studio with no previous releases, yet Babylon 3013’s scope rivals AAA productions. An open-world RPG with five massive districts, nonlinear missions, stealth systems, shooting mechanics, and RPG progression represents years of development for even medium-sized teams. Games like Cyberpunk 2077 took massive studios hundreds of developers to create, while smaller cyberpunk games like The Ascent scaled down scope dramatically.

The risk with ambitious indie projects is spreading resources too thin, resulting in shallow systems across a large world rather than deep mechanics in focused environments. Games like Deus Ex managed this by creating smaller but incredibly dense hubs rather than sprawling open worlds. Whether Babylon 3013 can deliver on its ambitious promise or needs to scale back expectations remains to be seen as development progresses.

FAQs

When does Babylon 3013 release?

No release date or window has been announced. The Steam page launched in November 2025 with the game in active development. Given the ambitious scope and apparent small team size, expect at least 1-2 years minimum before Early Access or full launch.

Is it really combining Hitman and Fallout?

The developers cite those as inspirations. Hitman influences the social stealth and assassination mechanics, while Fallout inspires the open-world exploration and choice-driven RPG systems. Whether they successfully blend both or lean more heavily toward one remains to be seen.

What are the five districts?

Specific district names and themes haven’t been revealed. Based on cyberpunk tropes, expect variations like corporate luxury zones, industrial manufacturing sectors, entertainment districts, residential slums, and underground black markets, but this is speculation until official details emerge.

Is there a story or just missions?

The Steam page mentions uncovering the city’s deepest secrets, suggesting an overarching narrative beyond isolated missions. The choice-driven nature implies your decisions shape story outcomes, similar to Fallout’s branching narratives.

Can you play non-lethally?

Not confirmed. Hitman games reward non-lethal takedowns and accidents, while also allowing violent approaches. Whether Babylon 3013 includes similar flexibility or focuses primarily on eliminations hasn’t been specified.

Will there be character customization?

As an RPG, likely yes, though details haven’t been shared. RPG systems typically include character builds, skill trees, equipment loadouts, and potentially cybernetic augmentations fitting the setting. Check future updates for specifics.

Is it single-player only?

Nothing suggests multiplayer features. The description focuses entirely on solo stealth gameplay with player choice and narrative decisions. Open-world stealth RPGs typically prioritize single-player experiences over multiplayer.

Who is Firewall Enigma?

An indie studio with no previous commercial releases. Babylon 3013 appears to be their debut project. The lack of portfolio makes it difficult to assess their ability to deliver on the ambitious scope they’re promising.

Why Cyberpunk Stealth Still Resonates

The cyberpunk stealth RPG niche has produced some of gaming’s most beloved titles – Deus Ex, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and aspects of Cyberpunk 2077. These games succeed by giving players agency to approach objectives through stealth, hacking, combat, or social manipulation. The cyberpunk setting’s stratified societies, corporate conspiracies, and technological augmentation create natural narrative frameworks for choice-driven gameplay.

Babylon 3013 enters a genre with high expectations set by Deus Ex’s branching level design and Hitman’s creative assassination sandbox. If Firewall Enigma delivers even a fraction of what those franchises achieved, they’ll have created something special. The floating city setting differentiates it from ground-level cyberpunk cities in Deus Ex and Cyberpunk 2077, offering unique verticality and environmental design opportunities. For now, the Steam page is wishlistable for those intrigued by the concept, though realistic expectations should account for this being an indie debut from an unknown studio attempting AAA-scale ambitions. Time will tell whether Babylon 3013 becomes the next beloved cyberpunk stealth RPG or a cautionary tale about scope creep.