Shadows of Doubt Critic Reviews

Shadows of Doubt is an incredible and must-play detective simulation game. Thanks to its procedurally generated world, you never know what to expect. Moreover, a vibrant but grim atmosphere hangs in the air like a bad smell. Can you solve every crime you encounter? Search for the clues, piece together the evidence, and point the finger! This is one indie title that you cannot afford to miss.

A few rough edges don’t prevent Shadows of Doubt from being incredibly unique, interesting, and utterly enthralling. It’s a game that manages to pull off a level of depth and complexity of simulation in the service of generative gameplay and storytelling that few other games have even attempted, and without any smoke and mirrors, too – it simply does the thing at an incredible scale. When the inevitable conversations about the most innovative games of 2023 begin to happen, Shadows of Doubt will be the first words out of my mouth.

The amazing open world of Shadow of Doubt deserves a better game.

There’s so much to do in Shadows of Doubt, from rifling through filing cabinets and cupboards, talking to people, hacking computers, security systems and locked doors, exploring the city, piecing together your case via mountains of documents and clues, and more. It’s a detective game with massive scale, and despite the game freezing when going into the option screen on multiple occasions and having to restart from prior save points, I enjoyed it immensely. Hopefully these issues will be resolved during the Early Access period because it has great potential going forward. It never holds your hand, allowing you to be the closest thing to a PI as you’ll likely get, unless you actually do the job for a living.