The story takes place in a dark, technological future, which is actually not much further away than one or two centuries from now. The improvement of technology and endlessly expanding powers of mega-corporations has led to a severe decay of mankind, resulting in people of lower social status living under more or less miserable circumstances in the unimaginable big cities. The technology is, however, available to absolutely anyone because of it's cheap price. Walk right out in the street and you can buy the latest military technology, computers, synthetic drugs and weapons for a non-important price. And you will need it, unless you want the next person ending your life just so he can scavenge on what little you have left.

You play a cyborg (cybernetic organism), a human being who through implants and technological modifications has had his body and reflexes enhanced for superior strength and agility. Our hero is not an AI (artificial intelligence) however. He was once a human being, just like anyone else, before his kalcium-based skeleton was swapped for solid aluminium, muscles injected with synthetic steroid hormones, heart exchanged for an electronic pump and eyes replaced with Sony colour-videolenses. He is not immortal though. His flesh is still sensitive to heat, and the bullet from a gun would still splice his nervous system and result in a collapse.

This may not have been something our hero wished for. It is very much possible that he once suffered a nearly fatal attack on himself, and ended up either crippled for life or with his brain in a glass jar. And it's very possible that he would still be there, had he not done this transformation.

Now, positioned in the streets and surroundings of BAMA (the Boston-Atlanta Metropolitan Axis), aka "The Sprawl", our hero sets out on a vigilante mission of both survival and revenge.