We had a lot of positive things to say about the immersive sim Shadows of Doubt since its (sadly no-longer-available) demo arrived in early 2023, much of it comparing the game to Deus Ex—which, in case it's not clear, is very high praise indeed. Its voxel-based world grows bigger today with the release of the big new Sharpshooter Assassin content update, unveiled during today's Triple-I showcase, which adds a new type of killer for aspiring detectives to investigate and pursue.
The Sharpshooter Assassin update is, of course, about a sniper loose in the city—cold, distant, and murderous. The update will include two new buildings to explore, with "new gated communities situated high among the upper floors of the city’s skyscrapers" that are only accessible to VIPs—or those clever enough to find other ways inside.
There will also be new points of interest to dig into, 11 new player perks including fast travel and instant status cures, changes to the UI, and a range of quality of life improvements. New Steam features including digital trading cards and badges are also being added.
A new "auto-travel" option has also been added that's a bit like fast travel, except instead of instantly teleporting to a chosen location, your character will find their own way there instead. There's still a bit of work left to do on the system "due to the variety of physical places the player can find themselves in," developer ColePowered Games wrote, but "basic travel works pretty well."
"Ever had it where you’re walking someplace and going over something in your head and not really putting much effort into the act of moving around as you know the route so well? This is trying to emulate that, kind of like a detective autopilot. It’s entirely optional of course, I expect some people to use it frequently and others to not, but it’s a feature I’m pretty pleased with. I also expect it could really help to make the game more approachable from an accessibility standpoint, or if you’re a player who is more interested in piecing together the case than physically moving throughout the world."
Shadows of Doubt is currently available in early access on Steam, and it has a lot going on out of the box—I found it almost overwhelming when I played the demo last year. The release of modding tools in December 2023 opened the door to even more possibilities. Unfortunately, there's not a huge number of mods available, and our dream of recreated Deus Ex maps remains unfulfilled, but you can still add everything from more immersive V-mails to entirely new cities to roam around in.
The Shadows of Doubt: Sharpshooter Assassin is available today. For a full list of everything it does, head over to Steam.
