Knight City is, by all accounts, a pretty dangerous place to live. This is true even in 2077, but things seemed even worse in 2045.

That's the time period in which the new tabletop miniatures game "Cyberpunk Red" was set: the Combat Zone. For those of you who don't know what "Red" means, it refers to the time after the Fourth Corporate War, when a nuclear explosion in Night City destroyed half the buildings and turned the sky red for several years. Cyberpunk Red is also a pen-and-paper RPG with simplified Cyberpunk 2020 rules, including weapons, economy, and life paths.

Cyberpunk Red Combat Zone is a fast-paced skirmish game, with combat taking place in the mostly lawless streets of Knight City, where post-nuclear reconstruction did not go smoothly. Factions vie for control of the devastated zone, and the gangs featured in the base game are the Maelstroms and Tiger Claws, with additional miniature sets available for the Combat Zoners, Bozos (a clown-themed gang that is definitely worth playing), Lawmen, and Generation Red

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"Become the leader of a gang that leaps from the pages of the Cyberpunk Red RPG and engage in frenetic battles and campaigns. Equip your gang, hire mercenaries, and build your street cred to dominate the hellish rubble of the Combat Zone and emerge as the new ruler of the streets," says the Combat Zone page on Kickstarter.

Combat is handled through a streamlined system, promising more action and less staring at charts and waiting for others to do something. No rounds, no turns, the game just keeps going. When a character takes a hit or is wounded, his or her abilities are reduced."

If you're curious about how a tabletop game with no rounds or turns works, check out this 40-minute video of beta gameplay. (Spoiler alert: there are definitely rounds and turns.)

Cyberpunk Red: Combat Zone launched on Kickstarter in April, and with just a few days left, it has already surpassed its $30,000 goal lightly; shipping is expected to begin in April 2022.

Thanks, Polygon!