I have played many detective games in the past like Shadows Of Doubt. From the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘Agatha Christie’s Poirot’ series to the excellent ‘L.A. Noire’. However I have never played a game quite like ‘Shadows Of Doubt’, the new detective game on the block from ‘ColePowered Games’ and ‘Fireshine Games’. It’s an immersive sim that puts you in the shoes of a detective and makes you solve crimes using your own intuition.
When It comes to the story of ‘Shadows of Doubt’ there isn’t really the typical set structure like you would find in normal games. You get handed a case to solve and the story is created around how you decide to play it out. It really is ambitious right off the bat and it pays off so well. Each playthrough will be different as the game is procedurally generated, so my time in Shadows Of Doubt will be different from your time in the game.
This means you have the option to either play in a procedurally generated city or in a pre-generated one. The choice is up to you. But it doesn’t stop there. Shadows Of Doubt has two modes. The first mode is called ‘Dead of Night’. This acts as an introduction to Shadows Of Doubt with a specifically created case for you to solve and in doing so helping you learn the mechanics of the game along the way.
I would suggest starting off with this mode as it helps as a great tutorial to get you into the swing of things and training you up to become that seasoned detective that you aspire to be.
The second mode is Sandbox mode. Here you solve and explore the city the way you want to. The idea is once you solve a case you can then explore the city waiting for the next murder or crime to be committed which you can then solve and bring about justice.
As I say, I started out with the ‘Dead of Night’ mode as I originally jumped straight into sandbox mode and got immediately overwhelmed with no clue as what to do.
But it doesn’t stop there. Oh no!
You have more options available to you when creating your neo noir detective thriller to tailor your experience to how you want it.
You have the option to change the amount of money and lock picks you start out with. You have the options for procedural murders making the experience even more unique. Options to change the length of Shadows Of Doubt to either short or long, whether to have permadeath turned on.
You also have the choice of which status effects to have turned on or off. These vary from the cold affecting you, how you smell, hunger, hydration, tiredness… the list goes on.
I’ve never seen a game with so many options available to the player to tailor the game to how they want it.
It’s amazing really. And as I say the story of Shadows Of Doubt is how you make it.
For me my story turned out to be one of thorough detective work meets complete stupidity and lack of subtlety. There were times when I felt like ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and other times when I felt like ‘Jacques Clouseau’. It was funny and highly engaging at the same time.
I admit it was a bit of a slow start for me as I learnt the mechanics of Shadows Of Doubt but once I got into the rhythm of things I was piecing together clues to get that final solution quite quickly. And I tell you when you follow the line of clues to your suspect and they turn out to be the killer, it is such a rewarding and fulfilling experience to say that you did that all on your own using your own intuition. What a gameplay experience!
And in terms of how you solve a case Shadows Of Doubt is very generous at what it gives you in order to do this. First off your main tool is your evidence board. From here you can pin whatever evidence you find onto it to form your investigation. Linked lines of inquiry form together by coloured string letting you know their importance.
As you can see from the image below I was extremely thorough with the evidence that I collected over the course of my ‘Dead of Night’ investigation (although not entirely neat, there is method in my madness).
You can choose to have as many or as little pinned pieces of evidence on your board as you want. But it’s a great tool to refer to to help you with your investigation.
The next mechanic is your investigation leads. These come from evidence you collect at the scene of the crime and are avenues to follow in order to collect more evidence and clues to help solve the case. Once you’ve exhausted one lead you can move onto the next one and so on until you come to your conclusion. Once you’re confident you’ve cracked the case you can enter all the relevant details like the killer’s name, evidence tying them to the crime scene, killer’s address etc. and then close the case.
Once the case is resolved you can then wait for the next one and go to the city hall to collect your new case file and start your next investigation.
The tools you have to help you solve the case range from a fingerprint scanner, lock picks, handcuffs, police baton and (my favorite) the code breaker which you can put onto any key pad to automatically crack the code and open said safe or locked door. It’s a one time use so you have to go back to the vending machine at city hall to buy another one if you need to, but be
aware that you can only hold up to 4 items at a time in your inventory so be wise on what you carry. I would suggest always having a pair of handcuffs on you at all times, then save a slot for either an item of food or drink (these can be bought from street vendors throughout the city) and also a slot saved for a medical item. You will need to be wise with what you carry as status effects come into play if you don’t keep an eye on what you’re doing.
An example of status effects that I experienced when playing was feeling the cold while sneaking into my suspect’s apartment at night through an air vent (you’ll be traveling through these a lot to sneak into places) and it was snowing outside so my character immediately went cold and started to shiver causing the screen to shake. The next was the fact that my character smelt as I went into the flooded basement of the building prior to this.
I thought this would be fine, however I hid under my suspects bed while he was asleep as I wanted to get onto his computer to access his emails to gather more evidence (look out for the passcode on a note near the computer to access) however I knew it would make noise and wake them up so I decided to wait until the morning when they would leave for work. What I didn’t anticipate was that when they woke up they could smell my character and were trying to figure out where the smell was coming from.
Eventually they left and I got the evidence I needed but I learnt after this to maintain my status effects before going into any other similar situations. Again another example of my experience being unique.
Now with every greatness comes its downfalls, and with ‘Shadows Of Doubt’ that comes in the form of bugs. And unfortunately I did experience a lot. Nothing game breaking, but it did detract from the immersion.
The most annoying out of the lot was a glitch when trying to access the street CCTV computer and when I went to skim through the time codes it would then put me into the perspective of the CCTV camera until I backed out and the screen would be slightly brighter and all the NPCs became invisible. I did have to reload my save here to revert it to normal again, which was a tad bit annoying.
Other bugs I encountered were the occasional light flicker when going in and out of buildings, the frame rate dropping and then the audio completely cutting out. Again nothing that would cause the game to crash but I would have to save and reload in order to fix it.
In terms of visuals ‘Shadows of Doubt’ is unique in bringing that futuristic neo noir style to a 1970s setting with the retro futuristic tech similar to that in the first ‘Alien’ film. The art style is also a bold choice which really works opting for a Voxel Art look that feels the part and again draws you into the immersion.
Overall ‘Shadows of Doubt’ is a truly unique game that completely blew me away with its ambition and scope. While it does come with its flaws in the way of technical bugs, its promise to have you fully immersed in a detective simulation really pays off with engaging and addictive gameplay that leads to satisfying conclusions of cases which gives you a tremendous sense of pride in your own detective skills. That’s why ‘Shadows of Doubt’ gets a well-deserved 9/10.
Shadows Of Doubt Trailer
‘Shadows of Doubt’ is available now for Xbox Series S & X, PlayStation 5 and PC.
This review was based on an Xbox Series X playthrough.
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