Aaron and his younger sister in We Are Chicago
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We Are Chicago makes you confront tough choices to survive in a poor neighborhood

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 6 min

After four years of development, Culture Shock Games is launching the We Are Chicago adventure game on Steam for the Windows PC. Built by a diverse team in the Windy City, the game is unlike other in its realistic portrayal of what it’s like to grow up on the south and west sides of Chicago.

Those mostly black neighborhoods are among the poorest and most segregated in the United States, and Michael Block, programmer and founder of Culture Shock Games, wanted to depict what it’s like growing up in environment where there are no jobs and lots of pressures to join gangs.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.