Shadows of Doubt

I used to LOVE this game. I'd lock in for hours solving murders and kidnapping cases. I've recommended it to all my friends, who became interested in the game solely because of how much I raved about it. Sure, there were bugs here and there, but that happens with games. The game was fun enough, and the bugs weren't bad enough to ruin anything. I no longer feel that way. Every game I load into is bugged. Passwords for the illegal businesses don't appear, even upon reloading the save. The city hall labels you as a trespasser for entering. I've fallen through the mesh more times than I can count. Every which way you look is bugged. This isn't a BAD game. It can be a really fun game, but the dev is not putting enough love into it. Maybe, if the dev was able to commit more time to bug fixes or hiring on one or two people to help work through them, the game could be improved upon. Pulling it out of early access to quickly was a mistake, and hopefully Cole can pick up the pieces before the game is fully dead.

I really really really wanna like this game. But after 30 hours i just cant recommend it. It seems that every single murder case is broken for me. I've restarted countless times at this point and every case goes the exact same way for me: Murder happens, I immediately go to the scene. When i get there i scan the entire apartment, no finger prints other than the victims, no foot prints besides the victims - and im scanning every nook and cranny here, every light switch, every door handle, wall, curtain, floor, the body itself, and nothing. Scan the body and only get info on the victim. No weapon. Check the computer, no leads, check the call logs and it shows "unknow location", speak to neighbors and bribe them for info only to get "Oh, they died.", ask if they seen anything, tell me to ♥♥♥♥ off. I go to victims work, check every single computer, no leads. Check street and building cameras, no leads... I check the mail, nothing, speak to coworkers and they tell me he's dead - i know this already. Bribe them for info - get nothing. I do the minor tasks, like the infidelity missions and such, and they work fine. I get a lil tiny lead and am able to crack the case pretty quickly but the murders just don't seem to ever work. I've tried using prebuilt maps, small maps, every option i could because I REALLY wanna like this game... But nothing helps... I just cant recommend this game as much as i really want to. I've uninstalled, reinstalled, deleted all my saves... It just not worth putting time into because inevitably, you'll hit a case that just doesn't generate correctly - or in my case - every single time. Even the tutorial case feels broken because it just give you the lead without me having anything in my file that would take me to that lead... I don't recommend it. Its a cool idea, cool visuals, eerie atmosphere but absolutely broken in my case.

too many bugs. too much wacky npc behavior. the idea is great, but the execution is just not there. sadly i had spent so much time trying to enjoy the game, and not being able to, that here i am at 14 hrs, but i feel like i only really played for 2 or 3

A beautiful detective sandbox simulator. Too bad the dev completely abandoned the game.

This game is ruined by bugs. ENDLESS BUGS. Im not talking, Being crap at the game bugs. I mean like, A guy asks me to retrieve his stolen prop gun. ( He must have 2 btw cuz his prop gun was right on his desk ) I find the guy responsible for stealing it within 5-10 minutes. The game does not register I picked up the prop. I try to put it in the mail box, He just throws it cuz its the same 2 buttons to interact with literlly everything... So I pick the gun back up pf the floor and the case resets. I have to call the Victim again. This is just one of MANY examples. I really tried with this game. I did. Watched countless youtube videos and they all have issues with bugs. I think honestly in this games case. Random generation is its downfall. Should just have 20-30 cities generated and bug free. Everything else about the game is so good. But its riddled with game breaking bugs. CCTV 9/10 are blank, or facing the wrong direction, There could be 3 turret sentries in one corridor where one would think some actuall CCTV should be there. Some crime scenes have NO TRACE. No finger prints ( fair they could wear gloves ) no cctc ( fair they could wipe the CCTV ) but when you go through ever guest list in the book, go round to every single house... I ended up using cheats in the end to figure out if i was being stupid or if things are just broken. The evelope quest, good luck with that... Dont save or reload cuz that breaks it. Almost everything you pickup for a Job does not register. And then theres immersive breaking thigs just happening all the time. Civilians shoving you out the way, Jamming you into corners, or worse, into restricted areas. Room-mates WILL shoot and try to kill you when you try to investigate there apartment. Ultimately- Random generation - Terrible Game setting - Terrible when your meant to be a Private Investigator. I get thats the world setting, But I don't think it was the right direction. Take all this BS out. and just give me the crime solving in a city where everyone isnt an over the top A**hole. I can deal with bad manners and rudeness, but when im investgating ur wifes murder you might wanna cut me some slack damn it. DESPITE these bugs, I really wanna keep playing. But I just cant. Give me the same game without the bugs and I could put 100s of hours into it.

16 hours in Shadows of Doubt, and I've got mixed feelings. Watching someone play this? Absolute cinema it's like a noir detective movie where every clue matters. Actually playing it? That's a different story. The immersion is insane, the procedural city feels alive, and piecing together murder cases is genuinely satisfying. But man, the UX is clunky, the inventory system is a mess, and sometimes the game just refuses to cooperate. I spent more time fighting the interface than solving crimes. I've heard others say the same it's a brilliant concept held back by jank. Would I recommend it? Yeah, but with a warning: watch a stream first. If you love the vibe, you'll tolerate the flaws. If not, save yourself the headache.

DO NOT BUY, THIS GAME IS ABANDONED, THEIR LAST UPDATE WAS IN JANUARY AND IT WAS ADDING STEAM WORKSHOP

Listen I LIKE this game and will probably continue to play it but at the same time I don't think I can recommend it. It's horribly optimized, first of all, and has been since early access, with little to no effort made to fix it. Especially considering what a small game it is, there is no reason for it to run so poorly on everything other than high end devices. The procedural generation is a cool concept in theory, and you will get a few hours where it feels really fun and unique. But you quickly realize that there are really only five or six case types that follow the same basic formula every time. There's a corporate killer, who is always the coworker of the victim. There's one who's always a former lover of the victim. All you have to do to solve these cases, once you know the formula, is find the killer's fingerprints at the crime scene, then go to the place where the two people are connected and search the database for whose fingerprints they are. The only case type where this method doesn't work are sniper cases, because they don't leave fingerprints at the crime scene, but once you learn how to determine where the shot came from, you can just go there and get the prints anyway. It becomes repetitive very quickly, and never really lived up to its promise of forever expanding cases. For example, they promised a missing persons case type, which was later changed to a kidnapping case type, which is the exact same as a murder case except that you have to rescue the victim when you find the killer. It seems like the devs realized halfway through early access that the project was too ambitious for them, and instead of trying to fix that, they just gave up, half assed the rest of the game, and then raised the price at the arbitrary deadline they set even though the game is still clearly unfinished. Which is a shame, because the game had a lot of potential and could've been something really special. It would be nice to see someone else take another swing at this type of game one day, maybe someone with a clearer vision of how to properly finish the game, but as it is now, this is not going to be what you want it to be. It is pretty much unmatched in terms of sci-fi noir aesthetic, though, and there's currently no other game that I know of where you can walk around chain smoking cigarettes in a retro futuristic dystopian city. It also occasionally leads to some unintentionally funny moments, like when a cop accused me of following him (I wasn't) so I threw my cigarette at him, causing him to mag dump at me in the middle of the street, so I in turn knocked him unconscious and rifled through his pockets directly in front of City Hall and faced no consequences. Still, even if you really like the cybernoir vibe and you don't mind a game that's janky as hell, I still don't recommend buying it unless it's at a steep discount. Lots of unrealized potential and a developer that abandoned ship as soon as possible, so. I wouldn't recommend giving them money, at least not a lot of it, especially since it will almost certainly not be spent on any future projects, considering the early access money obviously did not go to this one.

The game is sadly full of game breaking bugs which is quite sad because i do see the potential

This game has gotten so much worse than when I bought it, now it's buggy, gets half the fps and has missions that just frankly suck, kidnapping is not fun to play the solutions are either unintuitive or boring. This game, the first time I played it was great, it looked great it played great, but now it just isn't fun and I cannot recommend it. Before you could excuse alot for early access, but this is a fully released game that still plays and feels like a demo while having dipped in quality during it's development. I Hope this game gets better but for now I recommend playing something else to get your detective or cyberpunk fix.