Shadows of Doubt by ColePowered Games is a revolutionary game that merges elements of simulation, mystery, and cyberpunk aesthetics. Set in a fully simulated, procedurally generated city, the game places players in the shoes of a private investigator tasked with solving crimes in a sprawling noir metropolis. Combining sandbox gameplay with intricate detective mechanics, Shadows of Doubt stands as one of the most ambitious games in recent years. This review explores every feature in detail to uncover what makes this game a standout experience in its genre.
Overview of Shadows of Doubt
At its core, Shadows of Doubt is a detective simulation game where the player investigates crimes ranging from petty theft to gruesome murders. What sets it apart is its procedurally generated environment, ensuring that every city, citizen, and case is unique. The game unfolds in a cyberpunk-inspired world, filled with neon lights, gritty back alleys, and morally ambiguous characters.
Developer: ColePowered Games
Genre: Detective Simulation, Sandbox
Platforms: PC (Windows)
Release Date: April 2023 (Early Access)
From the moment you step into this world, the immersive atmosphere is palpable. The city is alive, teeming with citizens who have their own routines, jobs, and secrets, creating an unparalleled sense of realism.
Key Features of Shadows of Doubt
1. Procedural Generation
The game’s standout feature is its procedurally generated cities. Each playthrough offers a completely new metropolis, complete with unique architecture, NPCs, and crime cases. This dynamic generation ensures that no two playthroughs are alike.
Unique City Layouts: Streets, buildings, and interiors are randomly generated, offering endless replayability.
NPC Details: Every citizen has a job, daily routine, relationships, and even personal secrets.
Adaptive Gameplay: The procedural system tailors cases to the city’s layout and its inhabitants, creating a cohesive experience.
2. Deep Detective Mechanics
Being a detective in Shadows of Doubt isn’t just about piecing clues together; it’s about how you gather those clues. The game offers a range of tools and methods to solve crimes:
Evidence Collection: Fingerprints, footprints, security camera footage, and personal items can all be collected to build a case.
Infiltration and Espionage: Break into homes, offices, and secure facilities to uncover hidden clues.
Interrogation: Question NPCs to gather information, though their cooperation depends on your approach.
Caseboard System: A visual representation of your investigation, where you connect clues, suspects, and evidence.
This meticulous attention to detail ensures players feel like real detectives.
3. Open-Ended Gameplay
There is no “right” way to solve a case in Shadows of Doubt. The sandbox nature of the game allows players to approach investigations however they see fit.
Freedom of Choice: Sneak into a suspect’s apartment or bribe someone for information—the choice is yours.
Multiple Solutions: Cases can be solved using different methods, whether through brute force, careful deduction, or technological hacks.
No Handholding: The game provides minimal guidance, encouraging players to think critically.
4. Immersive Cyberpunk World
The cyberpunk setting adds a layer of intrigue to the game. The world is a blend of retro-futurism and noir aesthetics, characterized by:
Neon-Drenched Streets: A stark contrast between vibrant neon lights and the grimy underbelly of the city.
Complex NPCs: From corrupt officials to desperate citizens, every character has a role in the city’s ecosystem.
Moral Ambiguity: As a private investigator, you’re often faced with tough choices that test your ethics.
5. Replayability
The procedural generation and sandbox gameplay provide endless replayability. Each playthrough feels fresh, whether due to the unique city layouts, different NPC interactions, or new cases.
Gameplay Experience
Investigation Process
Every case begins with a crime scene. Your goal is to analyze the scene, gather evidence, and identify suspects. The caseboard becomes your best friend, allowing you to visualize connections between evidence, locations, and individuals. The thrill of piecing everything together feels immensely rewarding.
Infiltration and Exploration
Breaking into buildings is a core part of the gameplay. You’ll need to disable security systems, pick locks, and evade guards to uncover crucial evidence. This aspect of the game is reminiscent of immersive sims like Deus Ex or Dishonored, adding an exciting layer of tension.
Dynamic NPC Behavior
The citizens of the city follow their routines, making the world feel alive. However, their behavior isn’t static; they react to your actions. For example, if you’re caught breaking into someone’s home, they may become suspicious and even report you to the authorities.
Combat and Survival
While combat isn’t the primary focus, it’s present when situations escalate. You can use weapons or improvised tools, but stealth is usually a safer option. Balancing aggression with caution is key to surviving the city’s dangers.
Graphics and Sound Design
The voxel art style might seem simplistic, but it perfectly complements the game’s noir atmosphere. Shadows, lighting, and environmental details create a sense of tension and immersion. The sound design is equally impressive, featuring:
Ambient Tracks: Subtle background music that sets the tone.
Realistic Sound Effects: From footsteps to breaking glass, every sound enhances the experience.
Voice Acting: While minimal, it adds personality to key characters.
Pros and Cons
Pros
Unparalleled Freedom: Approach cases however you want, with no strict guidelines.
Highly Replayable: Procedurally generated cities and cases ensure every playthrough is unique.
Deep Detective Mechanics: The attention to detail in evidence gathering and clue analysis is unmatched.
Immersive Atmosphere: The cyberpunk world is rich and engaging.
Dynamic NPCs: A living, breathing city that reacts to your actions.
Cons
Steep Learning Curve: The lack of guidance can be overwhelming for newcomers.
Repetitive Tasks: Some mechanics, like breaking into buildings, can feel repetitive over time.
Performance Issues: Large, procedurally generated cities can strain lower-end systems.
Limited Combat: While functional, combat lacks depth compared to other aspects of the game.
Final Verdict
Shadows of Doubt is a groundbreaking game that pushes the boundaries of what detective simulations can achieve. Its procedurally generated cities, intricate detective mechanics, and immersive cyberpunk world make it a must-play for fans of mystery and sandbox games. While it’s not without its flaws, the sheer ambition of the project outweighs its shortcomings.
Whether you’re a seasoned detective or a newcomer to the genre, Shadows of Doubt offers an experience unlike any other. Its blend of freedom, challenge, and immersion ensures that you’ll be hooked from the very first case.
Phenominal. The amount of depth in trying to solve a case is insane. Criminally underrated game. Difficult, but there is so many ways to approach cases... but also sometimes you might only know that the murderer has internet and loves music. From there you have a procedural city to explore and figure it out.
Could you please make a book or a pc programm with a list of available appartaments, because it is super annoying to search for what you need, even though i have anough money to buy a mension? And everything else is perfect for the detective simulator.
Shadows of Doubt (undoubtedly) has the best atmosphere and gameplay for a detective-styled sandbox game, but it falls short in it's gameplay department, as well as general game polish that doesn't seems to be missing, considering the game is '1.0' and hasn't fixed some of the other issues the game still has since Early Access, and adds some more in too for good measure, such as Crunchers just randomly turning off, general clipping issues from world gen, and falling into someone else's apartment from the roof.While nothing feels 'out of place' and makes sense to have in the game world, there's generally some moments where the game generates an unfair case for you to solve, and this can extend to side-jobs as well. Not impossible, but then we get to Kidnapping Cases.They're genuinely the worst, giving you nothing to try and identify the perpetrator with constantly. If more Evidence was added to give a decent direction on where to look, then they'd be a nuisances at worst, but currently, they only give you a fingerprint and handwriting (handwriting that *can* be shared between NPCs).Not to mention, the game is also kind of buggy. I've had more NPCs fall through floors than what I'm comfortable with (probably based on the framerate I've had). Some NPCs didn't even let me buy stuff at a Diner to eat. They asked for a password, which is bizarre considering a diner is a public space.There's supposed to be an update this month (August, 2025) that adds a few things like Modifiers and stuff, but it's seemingly absent. Whatever the case is, this game really isn't ready for a 1.0 release.I like this game, but it needs more work.
Great Game Indeed, I Find It Quite Challenging Though. If You're A Rage Quitter, Don't Play. Well I Enjoy It Enough To Play It. I Smash People With Dust Bins Lol.
8/10
Despite there being a lot of bugs, I can sit a play this game for hours. This game is very addicting for those who like Puzzle games. Plus the atmosphere and visuals of the game are one of the best I've ever seen.
[h3] Welcome to Jank City! Population: NaN [/h3]Shadows of Doubt is a game set on a simulated city island featuring dozens of layers of proc-gen buildings and people with traits, relationships, property and jobs, with few cut corners. But you know all that. Let's get to the point.Despite the complex systems at play, the game gets very repetitive for the 25€ price tag. The developers have put an exorbitant amount of work on the simulation aspect of things, and it shows, but it leaves the gameplay somewhat lacking. For example, solving a murder feels unstructured. You find fingerprints, look at security camera footage, study documents and combine the data on your board, but there never is a motive, which takes away from the satisfaction of solving a case for me. The side missions add a bit of spice: Once you've found fingerprints, looked at security cam footage, studied documents and combined the data, you are to throw a hamburger at the victim's face, trash their apartment or find something of value where they work. The more difficult cases leave less evidence and therefore call for more brute-forcing instead of more brainpower, which could be my fault, the game's fault or just the nature of detective work, but it's not fun looking at a person's phonebook and scouring every single contact's apartment in search of their birthdate.All of this would be fine if the game wasn't built on such a shoddy codebase. There are plenty of bugs, some of which softlock a mission, leaving you searching for hours for a document that never even spawned (this one might already be fixed). You [b] will [/b] fall through the floor into another apartment and you [b] will [/b] suffer long loading times or low framerates. As of now, more updates are on the way, but nothing major, since technical debt has already set in: the developers cannot continue building on the game without breaking something in the process. This means that any suggestions I might have to improve the gameplay are most likely impossible to implement. I'll still give it a shot.[olist]
[*]Add motives. From what I can gather from the limited modding tools, the game already tracks friends, family and rivals for every citizen. It also tracks traits like aggressive, lazy and kind. The game gives absolutely zero indication to any of these variables in-game, so adding some pairs of "incompatible" traits and using them along with the relationship system to add dialog, mails and details in the apartments and workplaces to show who hate whom would be welcome. This will help with the murderers seemingly killing at random and add another layer in studying the social dynamics of the citizens.
[*]Add more variation to the quests. Some of the quests are very much about making the player the bad guy, asking to do some illegal thing in exchange for cash. What if there's a chance for it to be a setup by the police, or for the victim to try and outbid the original employer? Have the murderer leave behind red herrings that can lead the player astray or lead them to the real murderer based on clues like handwriting.
[*]Make the NPCs more unpredictable and more of a threat. As of now, once the player finds a katana (humanity's greatest weapon according to weebs), they can just knock on doors and slash the inhabitants to sleep, then gather leads and steal their stuff to sell them on before anyone wakes up. What if the citizens could equip bionics and do something other than walk up to the player to shoot or swing? I want NPCs to have a grudge against me for robbing them blind and I want consequences outside of the singular building I committed a crime in.
[/olist]
For a procedurally generated detective game, cases and how you solve them gets really repetitive really quick. But this is a one of a kind game. For what it is and how much it costs, the experience is worth it. 7/10
step 1. get kidnapping case
step 2. investigate case
step 3. find out everything you need to know about the kidnapper to catch him
step 4. go outside kidnappers den
step 5. realise your completely and get blackout drunk
step 6. forget you have the case and accidentally let the dude diepeak gaming experience
10/10
Woke up in my apartment ... lamps .... so many lamps. I can't believe he left me with nothing but a few dusty couch cushions and rent that was so far past due .... final notice.I tried to sleep it off ... but that window ... my reflect ... I couldnt look. The desk chair made quick work and the breeze caressed my cheek gently, drying a single tear that was owed to HIM.The bathroom ... that bottle .... ease the paint they said. Just one will make me feel better .... 16 more for good measure. Escape out the window from the 13th floor.10/10 would be in a black hole of depression again.
While I haven't completed this game or given it the right amount of playtime, it is a blast to try and solve cases in whichever method comes to my mind first. That said, the freeform gameplay can often lead to confusing scenarios of missing information, leading to softlocked cases. Regardless, Shadows of Doubt is a lot of fun to play, and very ambitious.
The non binary cringe quite literally makes the game unplayable, and I've also yet to have a case that hasn't bugged to the point of being impossible to complete.
I got it on sale and I can say I've definitely gotten my money's worth. It is a very fun game, but it is buggy sometimes, although I haven't run into any game breaking bugs, just some frustration in solving certain cases.The randomly generated city is the most fun part tbh, its surprisingly immersive living your little homeless pixely life in between cases. The art direction is nice and sleek and the music is perfect for the mood. It's very lovingly crafted, with a lot of attention to detail.The one very frustrating thing about the game is that it has so much potential to be so much more, to have even more nuance and little details, but the dev has moved on to make the next game and modding this one isn't too accessible.If you go in knowing you'll encounter some bugs, I think that will temper your expectations and let you enjoy the game for what it is, and maybe get excited for the next one, whenever that happens.
I love this game so much! Was exactly what I was looking for, a game that would let me solve cases and look for clues. There are some issues occasionally where information is seriously lacking to solve case, so there is a bit of a learning curve on what to do, however its worth the price if you enjoy detective games.
Unique and fun, but a bit shallow. You probably will have seen everything after 30 hours if you're not dumb.
Hopefully steam workshop support (that weird third party thing ingame has a crap selection) and proper documentation lets people put more variety into the game
This great game was recommended to me. The concept is great, since the cases are generated randomly! It took a few tries to get faster with solving the cases and with that minimizing the amount of victims, but the game is tons of fun. As a detective, YOU have to decide what is important evidence and what is not. Luck also sometimes helps, if you are not thorough enough. The simplistic voxel graphics are not an obstacle, instead they add much to the uniqueness of the game. Certain tools should be unlocked early to have it easier in the game. What are they? Get the game and find out! Recommended.
