Nobody Wants to Die

TL,DR: Great visuals, setting and atmosphere, *almost*, but not quite, ruined by undercooked mechanics and apparent lack of proper QA testing. Got this game at random, had no expectations. The ambience and visuals are great, especially the cityscapes. Some late-game scenes are very cinematic. The story is technically solid, but ruined by the broken presentation. Unfortunately, to get there, you have to slog through the first half of the game, which becomes more boring and less polished the further you advance. I got so annoyed at one point, that I started making a list of issues I have with this game. It's a wall of text, but nearly EVERY issue could have been caught and fixed if QA did a proper job. 1. More than half the secondary NPCs all share the same face across crime scenes. 2. Some controls are uneditable. If you edit the ones which aren't locked, in-game messages still mention the outdated controls. 3. Very early in the game, you see very obviously AI-generated stickers on the walls of the corridor leading to your apartment. Instant points off, sorry. 4. Half-baked UI. Inoperable scroll bars on some messages. Inconsistent tool prompt approach: early in the game, you are prompted to take out your tools manually and use them, but from the second scene on, you just click the prompt to start using what you need. Plus, you never, ever need to use any tools where a prompt doesn't ask you to. 5. Reconstructor automatically jumps to the beginning of a new segment once it's revealed. Which interrupts the flow immensely. It gets better for a minute in late game where the UI changes for one scene, but that's it. Cyberpunk 2077 had this much better implemented. 6. Transitions between locations are abrupt. One minute I'm at my apartment, the other I'm inside Icarus. This gets better in the late game, but why the lack of attention in the first half? 7. Cause and effect are often jumbled or miss-able. During Icarus investigation, I was getting remarks from Sara about stuff "we found" on Kovalev before I even started analyzing his clues. And as I found Salma's scarf, the protagonist mentioned seeing it on a photo while Sara confirmed it, but the photograph of Salma is super easy to miss during the evidence stage. 8. Many of the conclusions the protagonist jumps to make no sense to the player - it's almost as if a portion of the scenes were intended to be in the game but got cut out, with nothing added to fill in the gaps. 9. Annoying inconsistencies like, a few scenes after grabbing a special bottle from a safe, the protagonist sees another one like that and says that he "saw" one like it before. You didn't "see" it, you took it and you ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ drank it. In a notebook, the visual representation has one text, and the UI text has something else. Protagonist's reactions to names of people who apparently mean something to him but were never introduced in the game. Out-of-line remarks like "THAT's what you were hiding!" before the player even interacts with the prompt that makes "that" appear, whatever it is. Pointless prompts that do nothing. 10. Repeated VO lines. 11. There's no real "investigating" happening, to be honest. All you do is use the magic-wand "reconstructor" and look for prompts to click. You can't fail or make a mistake. If you can't find something, there's a "hint mode" which tells you what to do at a push of a button. On top of that, the "investigation" process feels disjointed: there is one instance where you find a bootprint on a flyer while investigating a victim using a UV lamp. The logical thing would be to check the victim's boot to see if it's the same distinctive pattern. Nope, just gotta keep reconstructing with your magic gadget. Cherry on top: the thing doesn't just simulate events - it literally, physically rebuilds stuff, apparently. Which raises a million questions and completely destroys any suspension of disbelief you may have started with. Also, unfortunately, it just plain gets boring by the third crime scene. 12. No journal. Unless you're playing through the game in one sitting, good luck remembering who's who the next day. Because let's face it, the story isn't that gripping. 13. The writing seems good, but I get the feeling the English translation is lacking and doesn't really help connecting the dots. 14. In at least one major scene, a character explicitly tells the protagonist what to NOT do. But the player is not presented with an option not to. It's not a cutscene or anything, the new objective just pops up and you can't not do it. And your car which you could've taken to leave, just disappears magically. 15. The "grand reveal" reconstruction in the early endgame is pretty damn misleading due to the suspect's model.

Nodoby Wants to Die is a first-person shooter unlike any other. Here, you play a detective in a world that blends LA Noire, Blade Runner, and Cyberpunk 2077 or Dark City—references from both cinema and video games. In this dystopian world, humanity has achieved immortality. Your spirit is extracted from your dying body and transferred to a younger one, but this immortality comes at a price: a life of immortality on credit. If you stop paying, you die. Squalor, pollution, darkness, and poverty are omnipresent in this world. You are James Karra, and you too have benefited from the possibility of immortality. You lost your wife, and it haunts you. On medical leave, your boss asks for a favor: investigate the suicide of a high-society man, but unofficially. The problem? It's not a suicide, but a murder. It's up to you to solve the case despite your superiors' warnings. Your weapon? Your perspicacity. And your reconstruction bracelet. A technology that allows you to manipulate time, moving it back or forward, stopping it to observe clues. Gather the clues to advance the investigation. Forget the cyberpunk edgerunners; this is a 1950s-style detective story. The dystopian universe of this game is incredibly rich, creating its own world by drawing inspiration from various sources. The atmosphere, the music—everything is perfect. The only downside is the lack of a French voice acting version.

This game I have enjoyed quite well except for the ending. It just feels that some parts are not flushed out properly in the end. Visual wise absolute masterpiece, the atmosphere is great, the music and voice acting. The game is on sale so why not pick it up and play for yourself.

Graphics and animations are from 2329, spectacular. The story gives you some pieces that seem to connect or that look important but in the end nothing comes together and you are left wondering if you are stupid for not getting it or the devs are. I choose the latter

Glorified walking sim. You aren't doing much detective work at all just kinda pressing buttons as their prompts show up (like a more boring version of QTE events)

🎀Just last night I rewatched both Blade Runner films, the original and the sequel Blade Runner 2049, and I thought about this game, which is much more than it seems. For me it was a pleasant surprise. The story is set in New York in 2329, a future where death no longer represents the end of life thanks to the possibility of transferring consciousness into new bodies. It's a fascinating but also unsettling idea, because behind this seemingly advanced society there is corruption, mystery and many questions about the value of human life. You play as Detective involved in an investigation into a series of murders that will lead him to discover increasingly darker aspects of this world. The story manages to draw you in precisely because it doesn't just focus on solving the case, but also explores identity, power and the consequences of a technology that has completely changed the relationship between life and death. The thing that impressed me the most was the noir sci-fi atmosphere. Many times it felt like I was inside a science fiction film, with strong Blade Runner influences, a city full of neon, endless rain, pollution, massive buildings and that sense of decay that makes everything fascinating and melancholic at the same time. It manages to recreate those same feelings. It's a much more narrative experience than an action game, but in my opinion that's exactly its strength. If you love old-school cyberpunk, Blade Runner-like atmospheres and detective stories, it's a game that deserves to be discovered. They've created a truly well-crafted cyberpunk setting and a world that manages to convey those feelings of a big-budget production. Cyberpunk 2077 should have been more like this, at least in terms of its setting; noir, dark and dystopian, rather than creating a generic RPG/FPS shooter that has nothing to do with this genre whatsoever.

Leads you by the nose - more of a visual novel with minigames that get a bit annoying. Too bad I didn't play it within 2 weeks of purchase

I thought this would be some detective game with some puzzles and actual effort gone into reconstructing the crime scenes but its actually just a "go here look at this item" walking sim with extra steps. Narrative kinda falls apart at the end in my opinion. and getting the "good" ending is only about 2-3 choices made along the way. The futuristic art deco film noir vibe was nice but thats about all.

Great story and atmosphere, but the controls are absolutely terrible. That almost ruins the whole experience. Since the setting is so good, I'm still giving it a positive review—you just have to be very patient so you don't lose your temper because of the lousy controls.