Sometimes, I wonder if Deus Ex’s JC Denton (or Adam Jensen, depending on when you arrived at the series) would’ve been happier in life if they’d just sacked off the whole world of high-level corporate conspiracies and shadow governments, and moved on to do low key private detective work. Between them, they have the grizzled voices and appreciation for hard liquors like you’d expect from a nihilistic hard-boiled PI in a noir movie, and it’s really not hard to envision them sitting in their dimly lit venetian-blinded office, poring over endless crimes of passion, blackmail, and low-level murder.
They’d still get to crawl through those warrens of vents like they always liked, hack into computers, break into apartments, snoop around and steal everything in sight, and even acquire some degree of augmentations (hough admittedly more understated than the ass-kicking tech they’re used to).
That’s basically how I see Shadows of Doubt–a noir-themed detective sim offering the kind of experimentation and freedom of exploration that fans of games like Deus Ex and Thief (like yours truly) can’t help but gravitate towards. I’ve played a 90-minute demo of the game courtesy of Steam Next Fest, and it was a really impressive slice of stealth, emergent shenanigans, and, ultimately, murder.
Shadows of Doubt throws you into a procedurally generated city, with the somber atmosphere and moody ambience that’s the calling card of immersive sims of old. As a PI, you assign yourself cases to solve from private clients then, with just the scantest bit of information to get you going, you head out to try and solve it. The idea is that you solve cases to earn money, which you can use to upgrade equipment and yourself, which sets up for solver bigger, better cases.
And this game is seriously intricate when it comes to how you gather information. You analyse fingerprints, break into computers and buildings, scour dustbins, look for weapons, look through a victim’s phonebook and call history. You can speak to absolutely anyone in this world–neighbours, work colleagues, regular schmoes in the street–but expect to throw around a few bribes to loosen tongues, because people aren’t particular trusting in this retro-near future–a world where computers are blocky and old-fashioned, yet you can go to clinics to get your very DNA enhanced.
Despite being procedurally generated, there is an overriding narrative at play here. In my short time with the game I learned that there’s a cult dedicated to neo-liberalism, and that the world’s beverage of choice Kola was invented during something called the Mustard War to treat radiation poisoning. Whether any of this stuff affects the lonely, solitary investigations of a PI like remains to be seen, but it certainly contributes to the image of a cold, corporatised world (again, perfect for a Deus Ex hero to retire to).
Seeing two dark figures circling their way up the stairs towards me felt like something out of a 90s thriller, yet was entirely systems-driven.
I’d be fascinated to see whether a game left so much in the hands of AI and systems retains my interest over multiple hours and cases, but the open-ended design and exploratory potential of the default urban cityscape hugely impressed me during my hands-on. Working only with a note slipped under my door saying ‘Find Craig Berlusconi,’ I headed out into the drizzling night–voxel people eyeing me untrustingly from the shadows beneath their umbrellas and hats. They were all right to regard me with suspicion of course, because the first thing I did was break into the backroom of the pharmacy neighbouring my home, steal a bunch of drugs, then disappear into the vent ducts–Garrett, Jensen, Corvo, and all the other immersive sim heroes of yore would’ve been proud…
What happened next though was a moment of pure procedural serendipity.
After crawling through the vents for a while, I dropped down into some company’s office. It was after-hours and no one was in, so I duly started helping myself to all the money and valuables I could find. When inspecting the lockers in the staff room however, I found that one of them happened to belong to the very man I was supposed to be searching for! Given the reasonably large size of the map, this was an awesome little coincidence; my curiosity (and penchant for trespassing and thievery) brought me to an important lead.
I checked my watch–3am–which meant I had a good few hours before employees of Gray Systems began filtering into work (yep, AI follow schedules in this world). I managed to find all of Berlusconi’s colleagues, and through his work record I found out where he lived too (admittedly, I could’ve just looked up his address in the directory, but where’s the fun in that?). I stuck the various bits of evidence on my pin board–where you can run threads between bits of evidence, write custom notes, even colour-code the strings–and planned my escape. But before I left, I broke into the security room, where I analysed the security camera footage to make sure I hadn’t been spotted (I hadn’t).
Once I got to Berlusconi’s, I let myself in by finding the key under the doormat (hardly a break-in now, is it?). I analysed the crime scene, and found that the last call he made before his death was to a neighbour. At some point during my snooping, I tripped some kind of silent alarm, which meant that private security was on the way. One of the most thrilling moments of my whole misadventure was going to the stairwell and looking down the middle to see two dark figures circling their way up the stairs towards me felt like something out of a 90s thirller; it was super-cinematic, yet entirely systems-driven, therefore all the more impressive.
Instead of fleeing the building, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and go question the neighbour about his relationship with Berlusconi. I ran up the stairs towards his apartment, away from the incoming security officers. Lacking the time to knock and wait for an answer, I lockpicked the door, snuck in, and switched the lights off. The unsettled (yet potentially murderous) occupant called out ‘Who’s there?’ before walking to the corridor and switching the lights back on. Staying out of sight, I rotated into the dark kitchen, but alas so did he, switching the lights on to find me standing in the far corner of the kitchen.
Everything from here happened in a blur. As soon as the lights came on, he started running at me, while I saw a gun on the counter, right within arm’s reach. I grabbed the gun, and pulled the trigger at my charging assailant.
Suffice to say, I didn’t crack the case during that run on Shadow of Doubts, but man was it a thrilling ride. The fact that all this took place in a procedurally generated and unscripted world was, frankly, mindblowing. Combined with the most manual and comprehensive detective and investigation system I’ve ever used in a game (and I do like my detective games), Shadows of Doubt ticks pretty much all my boxes of what I’m into. You can keep your Hogwarts and your… whatever else is coming out this year. If this pulls through with its potential, then Shadows of Doubt is a GOTY frontrunner for me.
If all this sounds a bit too good to be true, then don’t take my word for it and try it yourself. The 90-minute demo is available on Steam now.
