Shadows of Doubt Preview

There’s been a murder, and I’m the only person in a city of 440 people who — well, 439 now — who cares enough to do something about it. I’m a private investigator who is down on their luck — okay, 438, steady now — and I’ve got a bone to pick with justice. Wait, 437 now? Okay, I’ve got to stop monologuing and investigate, there’s a serial killer on the loose!

Shadows of Doubt comes to Early Access, bringing along all of the promised first-person procedurally generated voxel-based murder mystery that the Next Fest demo showed. There’s a tutorial case to set you up and show you most of the ropes, then you’re free to do whatever you want. As my introduction above suggests, the tutorial case involves a serial killer. What you may not know is that the city is full of them!

Since you’re down on your luck, you need to make some money. The fastest way is by solving murders, but don’t worry there’s only ever (from my experience) one serial killer working at a time. In between killings you can do side missions, found at diners, which involve things like taking photos of people with a vague description or locating secret documents.

To solve a murder, first you need to check out the victim. The police don’t want you doing that, so you usually have to sneak in to find the corpse. Find clues, such as receipts to show where the victim was before they were killed, or fingerprints, calling cards, murder weapons, emails… there’s a lot of clues is what I’m saying. Then follow the clues; does the trail go to a shop, their place of work, maybe you found a diary… Everything you investigate can be pinned to your crime board, and from there you can connect clues together with string and reposition them to your liking. Once you have a suspect you can optionally handcuff them, then fill in your report with their name, address, proof they were there, and the murder weapon. Hand in the form and wait a few moments, then you’ll either be rewarded or fined, depending on if they did it or not.

The main thing you’ll be doing while looking for clues and evidence is breaking and entering, if you’re anything like me, picking every lock and stealing every key. You can also bribe people to let you into places and give you door codes, but that can get expensive especially if they don’t take 50 credits. You can keep offering a bribe, the money going up and up each time, but a P.I.’s gotta eat!

That’s actually a fact, you have to eat otherwise you’ll take more damage if/when you get into a fight, and I assume you’re eventually hospitalised if you let it get too bad. There are diners and vending machines all over the place even if your sandbox city is set to “small”, so it’s easy to find food, and cheap too! In the event that you’re put in hospital, you can leave after paying. Or sneak out if you’re cheap, just don’t get spotted before you get out of the door!

Shadows of Doubt actually has quite an in-depth system of status effects and survival elements. If you’re out in the snow for too long the screen starts to shake violently until you warm up, either by going inside or consuming something warm. You can become addicted to Starch Cola — the world’s most popular drink — and need to down a can every 10 minutes to avoid withdrawal symptoms. Drink wine and become intoxicated, sleep in a bed to be well rested, run while wet if you want to slip over… I wasn’t expecting this in a game about stopping murderers, I’m just saying.

It’s honestly a delight to have a game giving me clues and just letting me investigate. Too many mystery games are story-driven, which means they’re pretty linear, but following clues in Shadows of Doubt can lead you anywhere. Maybe that diner receipt leads to a dead end, because the CCTV revealed that they dined alone. Perhaps the phone records make you investigate someone only to discover it was their roommate! How about you’re taking your sweet time and someone gets murdered right behind you, leaving you bewildered for a moment about why they’re down on the floor!

Everyone in the city has their own schedules, you can find work schedules in apartments so that you know when they’re out. Sure, you can delay their schedules by knocking them out, handcuffing them, or using gadgets such as a door wedge to block doors from opening, but sometimes they just need to go to the store. Of course, that means the killers are going to kill, even if you’re in the room at the time. Yes, the above situation actually happened to me, I was looking at a bookshelf and turned around to find the person I’d bribed to let me in was dead. However, since the culprit was on my list of suspects, I managed to chase them downstairs and handcuff them, but imagine if I didn’t know who did it! Staircases are used by all of the NPCs, allowing you to use the elevators whenever you like, but it also means stairwells get busy. However, all of the clues are there, I’ve made multiple arrests and never been wrong, except for the time I loaded a save to see what would happen if I was wrong. I got a fine and still had to catch the real killer, in case you wondered.

If you want a mystery to solve, Shadows of Doubt is perfect. The tutorial city is great, but there’s also a sandbox mode so you can choose a seed that you like, call it what you want, and even have your Twitch chat peeps become residents! Well, that last one is in name only, but still, that’s a cool feature. Anyway, if the loading speeds can improve before the game leaves Early Access, I’m going to be happy to endorse this for so many Game of the Year spots. I love the aesthetic, the music and incidental audio is all great and sets the mood, the gameplay loop is satisfying, and you can even buy and decorate apartments if you’re into that sort of thing. There is no doubt that you should get Shadows of Doubt.