Shadows of Doubt is an ambitious murder mystery set in a fully simulated sci-fi city

VIDEO: The PC Gaming Show indie montage, featuring Shadows of Doubt. Trailer also on YouTube.

Here are some words and concepts PC gamers tend to like: Cyberpunk, noir, stealth, immersive sim, voxels. Shadows of Doubt is a combination of them all, a new first-person detective game from ColePowered Games revealed at the PC Gaming Show. Check out the new teaser above. 

Shadows of Doubt is set in a fully simulated sci-fi noir city where a serial killer is killing serially, and it's up to you, a detective made of blocks, to stop them. How you choose to do it is Shadows of Doubt's true allure, though I'm still thirsty for more details. It looks like you'll be able to go about finding the perp anyway you like, be it breaking and entering, hacking into private computers, tailing suspects, and so on. There's even a conspiracy cork board, the kind of thing all good detective fiction requires, for connecting clues and chasing theories. 

(Image credit: ColePowered Games)

A gander at the Steam page descriptions widened my eyes further. The fully simulated city claim isn't bullet point jargon—every citizen has a job, an apartment, a daily routine, hobbies, and among them, probably a few secrets. Every building has thoroughly modeled interiors, meaning there's no door you can't open in Shadows of Doubt. You'll even need to take on extra jobs to keep the lights on. It's wildly ambitious, and I'm curious to see how ColePowered Games spins up an intriguing mystery in such a massive and massively complicated space. 

There's no hard release date for Shadows of Doubt yet, which is fine by me. As long as the immersive sims keep trickling in at a slow, steady rate, we'll be fine. We—the platform, need 'em. 

James Davenport

James is stuck in an endless loop, playing the Dark Souls games on repeat until Elden Ring and Silksong set him free. He's a truffle pig for indie horror and weird FPS games too, seeking out games that actively hurt to play. Otherwise he's wandering Austin, identifying mushrooms and doodling grackles.