2023-05-07 17:20:02
Game news Between Cyberpunk 2077 and Deus Ex, you can’t miss this hyper-promising open-world video game
If you are a fan of mystery games, Shadows of Doubt should not go under your radar.
What mystery game lover has never dreamed of this type of experience: a huge urban and nocturnal setting, lit by the simple glow of neon lights and corrupted by crime in each of its narrow and humid alleys; a kind of supercharged sandbox in a film noir where murders and crimes never end, for the pleasure of elucidating them for hours. That’s more or less the promise of Shadows of Doubt, an immersive stealth and investigation game that opts for a fully simulated, crime-ridden cyberpunk noir sci-fi setting.. Just made available in early access a few days earlier, it gives us the sweet pleasure of playing a private detective responsible for solving a slew of missions and, in addition, arresting a serial killer, the Holy Grail of the profession.
The dream investigator experience
Developed by ColePowered Games, a small studio with very big ideas, Shadow of Doubt inspires dreams with its crazy ambition, the execution of which is quite promising for the time being: a world simulated by procedural generation that houses hundreds of people, each with a name, a job, a home and a perfectly calibrated routine; all of which can therefore be shadowed for the good of a mission. Our great adventure begins in a shabby apartment for which we soon seem unable to pay the rent. Under the bottom of our front door, an illustrious stranger slips a note that portends a great epic: “Find Onni”. Here is what ignites our natural detective instinct and neither one nor two, here we are peeling the directory of the city in search of this nebulous character who turned out to be a corpse strewn on the floor of his living room.
Equipped with your fingerprint scanner and your little fists equipped via an absolutely impractical interface, you must then collect as much data and clues as possible before someone finds you at the crime scene and sends you at the hospital, enough to open up several leads. This is where the most exciting part remains: the investigation can be started by the piece you prefer ; thus, it is up to us to search Onni’s office at his workplace, to favor the index of the call received before his death, to go to the last bar where he had fun, or even to stop on one track along the way to start on another. Each small notable find can be attached to our large blank board which quickly becomes absorbing to connect each element with a slew of red threads. This is how the first investigation captivated us for a good ten or so hours already, before concluding, regrettably, with unanswered questions.
A long way to go
If we found the murder weapon and the culprit, it was very difficult to interpret the reasons for the wrongdoing. For now, the world of Shadows of Doubt suffers from a narrative that is too opaque and sorely lacking in logic.. During our infiltration sequences, it is a must to turn off the alarm system and the lights away from the cameras for the sake of discretion. However, opening the door of an apartment just hooked under the gaze of its inhabitant does not seem to pose any problem to him on the condition that you remain on the doormat. A few hours later, illegally opening a tenant’s empty mailbox will arouse the fury of a neighbor who will delight us with a slew of rifle bullets in the heart. Interactions with NPCs represent the main lever of the game to improve. Similarly, the discussions are still shown to be of little interest, the questions not being personalized and the individuals questioned always having the same predefined answers.
Remember that Shadows of Doubt is in early access, the studio taking care to collect player feedback for the final version: “The full version of Shadows of Doubt will include additional content and optimizations that will be introduced throughout Early Access. We are currently planning to add new content such as new and improved cases, new locations and options for interacting with citizens, as well as a more complete and polished game experience.”. The studio still has some way to go in crafting the ultimate investigator experience, whose sandbox appeal nevertheless kept us captivated for long hours. Other mechanics barely sketched during our run will be exploited in parallel: our character depending on a health bar, housing to rent and improve and a wallet to fill. Here, we can’t wait to discover the game in its complete and refined version.
1683482383
#Cyberpunk #Deus #hyperpromising #openworld #video #game
