Hack into a world of cyberpunk horror next month in 'Observer'

If you think things are unendurably awful in the world today, maybe don't play Observer when it hits PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, Mac and Linux on August 15th.

Observer follows one of the darkest paths at humanity's feet, imagining a 2084 where corporations are the highest authority and much of society lives in Blade Runner-esque squalor. In Poland, Detective Dan Lasarski is tasked with hacking into the minds of murderers and degenerates, witnessing their crimes in twisted detail, first-hand.

"When you receive a mysterious message from your estranged son, a high-level engineer for the almighty Chiron Corporation, you journey to the seedy Class C slums of Krakow to investigate," the story goes. "But as you hack into the unstable minds of criminals and victims to look for clues, you are forced relive their darkest fears. How far will you go to discover the truth?"

And, speaking of Blade Runner (we totally were, promise): Rutger Hauer, the actor who played villain Roy Batty in the 1982 film, is Detective Lasarski in Observer.

Observer is a first-person nightmare from Bloober Team, the studio behind acclaimed horror game Layers of Fear -- so you know things are going to get creepy. We got our hands on the game at GDC, and reveled in its psychological thrills and unapologetically dystopian vibe. Cyberpunk has returned.