A few months back, one of my favorite let’s play channels introduced me to Shadows of Doubt, a procedurally-generated cyberpunk detective game that plays like an immersive sim. I find it kind of fascinating, and love the look, the crowded, densely-packed setting, and the depth of the simulation, where it maps out stuff like every NPC’s routine whether they’re relevant to a case or not, where they live, even where they leave fingerprints.
I don’t play many games, mostly for lack of time, and tend to avoid proc-gen stuff that relies on emergent gameplay and emergent storytelling (I guess I have an easier time justifying a story-based game as it’s more like reading a book or watching a show? I don’t know). But I keep thinking back to this one and wanting to give it a shot because the cyberpunk immersive sim thing is very much my jam. I thought I’d see if anyone else has played it, and if you’ve had any good adventures in it.
Here’s an article I stumbled onto while gathering links, in case you want more info: https://www.pcgamer.com/this-procgen-cyberpunk-detective-game-is-like-an-endless-deus-ex-and-it-could-become-a-stone-cold-classic/
It’s got promise, but it’s not there yet. I wouldn’t quite call it an immersive sim yet either, although it has some of those elements. It’s in early access so will definitely give it more chances as updates come, but last I played about a month ago there were some pretty hefty bugs.
Still, the concept is cool, and it does show promise, so not trying to hate on it too much. For me I’d give it about a 5/10 currently, but hope to see updates improve the core gameplay.
Also, Zero Punctuation (a video game reviewer notorious for being overly harsh) had a positive review of the game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdI98aZ1xYc
As a gamedev there are some projects that sound for me more fun to develop then to play. This is one of them :p
I’ve dabbled in game design a little bit and know the siren’s call of ever-more-thorough simulation. I could definitely just spend all my time setting up little clockwork worlds and tuning them. I was miles away from anything this elaborate but that’s definitely part of the appeal for me
That’s a pretty cool concept, I always wanted games like that. I pretty much stopped gaming because all games are way too “rigid” for my tastes.
I’ve played stuff like Kenshi to death. I glad it doesn’t have procedural generation, otherwise my life would be over.
Ever since I was a kid I dreamt of infinite Fallout/TES games, where you could one-click generate a whole new world just like those games and of the same quality.
It used to be a total pipe dream, but now with generative AI, it doesn’t seem so silly anymore.
This is already one of my favourite games ever, though I’d find it difficult to articulate what I love about it, though I think it’s the feel of the “detective” part of piecing together info, to find the fingerprint, to look at the work place, to crawl past the security lasers to cut the power, to find the clue, the murder weapon then the murder etc - and if you get stuck doing that, you take one of the silly side missions like “smash all the windows in this person’s flat” or “throw food at someone’s face and take a photo”.
