It seems false assumptions has led me to yet again roll the dice on a developer’s debut title. There I was, thinking that Nobody Wants to Die was (for whatever reason) that this was another game from the same developers behind Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. A quick Google, something I will usually do as part of my reviews, shows that no, there’s nothing between either of them that should have led me to believe that. There is a new game from those devs though in Still Wakes the Deep, which has been on my list too, but didn’t clock they were the dev I was actually thinking of. So instead I’m now sitting here, realigning my expectations for a game I thought was from a much more experienced developer when, in reality, this is their first time making something together.
What’s a reviewer to do…ugh.
It’s 2329 and that troublesome mortality that has plagued us as a species has been dealt with; for a price of course. Now human bodies are a commodity, given grades, a subscription price and an industry that’s hellbent on ensuring that everyone now leasing the very thing that makes them human. Somebody though has taken umbrage to this system and is now hunting down New York’s elite, destroying their ichorite ensuring that they’ll never be able to come back from death again. You are James Karra, Mortality Department Detective who’s taken the case, off the books of course, and are sent out to figure out who’s doing this and why.
The noir aesthetic of Nobody Wants to Die is very reminiscent of BioShock with it’s art deco stylings mixed in with fantasy level cyber augments. Whilst most of the game takes place in confined spaces the devs were deliberate with their use of wide open spaces, giving you and the story time to breathe. The dark theme does lend itself to a bit of visual confusion at times, the darkness making it hard to figure out where you should be looking or if you can traverse a particular part of the level. That being said though the craftsmanship on all the levels, set pieces and cinematics is top notch.
Nobody Wants to Die bills itself as a detective game and whilst I’d agree with this it’s more akin to a linear puzzler than anything else. You’re given a room, a crime and a device that enables you to rewind time to see the events that happened just prior to it happening. There’s also a number of other tools you’ll make use of to unlock other parts of the timeline like an x-ray magnifying glass that’s able to trace bullet trajectories, a UV light for blood traces and so on. You’ll be moving through time constantly, piecing together different parts of a scene until you figure out what actually happened. There’s also the case board which you’ll review after you’ve finished a particular scene, piecing together what all the evidence you gathered means and what you’ll do next. There are decisions to be made along the way but, if I’m honest, I’m not quite sure what effect they had on the overall narrative. All in all I’d say it’s a solid interactive fiction game.
Doing the detective work is always straightforward with you mostly following along with the conversation you and your police support agent are having at the time. The constant back and forth on the timeline does make it a little hard to discern exactly what’s happening at any one point but they usually do a good job of bringing it all together at the end. Some of the scenes are better planned than others, some of taking you on a really wild ride before revealing exactly what happened. The banter between you and the other supporting character certainly carries these scenes as otherwise they’d likely be an exercise in dull frustration.
The case board is a little less straightforward though and can often devolve into a “let me try all the things to see what works” situation. I mean, sure, if you’re paying close enough attention to everything then it should be obvious, but I felt like there were a few leaps I had to make in order to get some of the case boards completed that I didn’t fully understand. To the developers credit though there’s an inordinate amount of voice lines for exactly that happening, with a good few of them giving you enough of a clue in order to clear the particular board. Even if you have zero clue about what’s going on there though I don’t think you’ll struggle, there’s only so many combinations you can try.
I found the narrative to be compelling, although maybe a bit too lengthy in its overall execution. Each of the individual story vignettes are executed well, the characters are given enough room to ground and build their backstory and most of the subplots wrap up well enough. However it didn’t really have much of an emotional impact on me as whilst there were characters to root for I didn’t feel like I had the required emotional investment in them to care enough. Perhaps this was due to my perception that my choices weren’t really impacting the story that much and so couldn’t really connect with the characters. I was satisfied with the ending though, even if it wasn’t the one I was quite hoping for.
Nobody Wants to Die is a rock solid first instalment from Critical Hit Games, showing that the team they’ve assembled is very capable of delivering a solid interactive fiction experience. The retro-future noir stylings are realised exceptionally well, the game dripping style at every turn. The mechanics are interesting but very linear in their implementation. The story, whilst well crafted, failed to resonate deeply with this reviewer, perhaps because I failed to connect with the main character emotionally. This all being said though I’ve got high hopes for what these devs will achieve in the future, given what they’ve managed to achieve here.
Rating: 8.0/10
Nobody Wants to Die is available on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S right now for $37.95. Game was played on the PC with a total of 4.7 hours total playtime and 65% of the achievements unlocked.
