If the purpose of video games is to embed the player in a fantasy, Shadows of Doubt stakes a claim to being among the very best. It offers a remarkably embodied experience, though that fact, in some ways, holds it back from true greatness.
Playing Shadows of Doubt feels like working on a project (like working on this review, even). Minecraft or The Sims 4 regulars will likely understand exactly what I mean and recognize that that’s not a value statement. It’s simply a fact of the way you engage with the game. That said, I can’t draw exact parallels. Neither Minecraft nor The Sims 4 nor any other game I’ve ever played has held the “forever game” appeal for me. I have my fill, and I don’t want to come back; there’s too much freedom. Here, things are different. Shadows of Doubt offers an open-world sandbox where everything is procedurally generated, but there are clearly defined structures and rules to this world that give the proceduralism ludonarrative purpose — and that makes the game deliciously compelling.
You’re a private investigator in an alternate world city of sin. Regardless of the seed, it’s a grimy place of litter-strewn streets and perpetual semi-darkness. Every new game starts with some background worldbuilding about the hows, whys, and whats of the corporatocracy that governs the city. Though interesting, it has no real impact on the experience of play; it feels like window dressing. What does have an impact is the police force, which is the “shoot first, ask questions never”-type. Solving the problems of the city is your responsibility — if you want it to be.
The fiction and the fantasy of Shadows of Doubt run along parallel lines. The central conflict is a series of murders that you can solve. The fiction is a moral one. You’re a “good guy” helping bring “bad guys” to justice. Of course, there are shades of grey in the structure of power and questions of justice in this world, but those are abstractions. You don’t need to engage with them if you just follow the cops-and-robbers dichotomy of your place in the story.
The fantasy, on the other hand, is amoral. The murders have nothing to do with the end goal of raising enough money and social capital to retire. You can achieve that instead through side jobs found on notice boards throughout the city. These may reinforce the “good guy” roleplay through returning lost items to their owners or helping with business investigations. Or they can run counter to it, instead tasking you to cover up crimes or engage in petty vandalism. While the gulf between these positions is largely academic, it opens a space to think about how games situate their players. Playing by the predefined rules is, in some way, the richer experience, but taking a libertarian approach and pursuing an alternative path may well be the more rewarding. That will be determined by your subjectivity.
Regardless of how you choose to exist within this city, the processes by which you earn a living are the same. Each case starts with basic information; it might be a crime scene or a photograph of a location where you can find further details. Here, the tactility and fantasy building of Shadows of Doubt comes to the fore. It is a convincing detective simulation, with a smorgasbord of options to pursue. You can scan fingerprints, question potential witnesses, scour CCTV, read e-mails and personal files, trace phone calls, scrounge through rubbish bins, search databases, tail suspects, and more. Success requires meticulousness. Do it right, and you’ll amass a trove of information to sift through, details that you can pin to your case board, and leads to follow.
The case begins in earnest, and this is where Shadows of Doubt starts to feel less like most other games and more like a project. Progress is circuitous. An aggressive email from a colleague gives the motive of righteous anger, but the workplace and home of that colleague turn up nothing. The first draft of this review wasn’t working; I was almost 500 words deep before I scrapped it. Re-examine first principles. Who else could it be? What other motives are there? Start again. Pursue a different avenue.
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That unspooling of a mystery is simultaneously the most enjoyable and frustrating part of the game. The core loop is incredibly strong, and you have to throw yourself wholesale into the fantasy of being a detective. Unfortunately, the simulation is a little wonky. NPCs are extremely reluctant to give up even the most anodyne information, forcing you to find it out in other ways. The result: I spent way too long navigating same-y air vents trying to find a way into residences and businesses. And when I did, more issues cropped up. At worst, NPCs teleported through walls and leapt to violent aggression at my presence. At its most frustrating, two characters aimlessly wandered back and forth across a kitchen for a couple of in-game hours, breaking the routine of one of their work rotas in the process. These issues jerk you out of the experience, but they also remind you of the ambition on display here.
Considering that, a few quirks are to be expected. Again, everything is procedurally generated: endless numbers of jobs; hundreds of citizens, each with schedules and more than 20 identifying traits; dozens of residences and businesses; miles of air vents. It’s really a miracle the simulation functions as well as it does.
It’s all wrapped up in a lo-fi presentation built on voxel graphics. The style is evocative, really helping to sell the grunginess of the city. In the darkness, the tangibility, and blockiness, Shadows of Doubt is visually reminiscent of Alien, yet it’s also infused with cyberpunk sensibilities with some neon-drenched areas and physical stratification of places meant for the upper, middle, and lower classes of society. The game doesn’t really critique that latter aspect, however. Indeed, it exists within it, challenging you to ascend with its Social Credit system, which also gives you additional perks to help make your investigations easier.
That’s yet another layer, and there’s still more that I haven’t touched on. Status effects like hunger and thirst, life sim elements including the ability to buy and decorate apartments, gadgets including grenades and personnel trackers, body modding, the list goes on. Shadows of Doubt is an almost terrifyingly deep game, with some systems that will take you hours to discover, much less come to grips with. That’s another part of why I’m convinced this could become my “forever game.” I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of what it has to offer.
If an immersive sim is qualified based on how comprehensively it immerses and embodies you within its world, then Shadows of Doubt completely — effortlessly — outclasses the likes of Dishonored and Deus Ex. But games are more than one thing. Shadows of Doubt is many, many more, and not all of the pieces fit together as neatly as you would hope. Despite that, if it connects with you, I suspect it’ll connect in a big way and you’ll (mostly) be able to overlook its foibles and flaws.
Verdict: Recommended
Shadows of Doubt releases on September 26 for PC. A review code for the game was provided by the publisher. Reviewed on PC.
Published: Sep 23, 2024 09:00 am