Shadows of Doubt, the procgen private-eye immersive sim, is leaving early access next month

Cyberpunk city at night in the rain — (Image credit: ColePowered Games)

When Shadows of Doubt hit early access last April, we quickly became believers in the potential of its procedurally generated cities and crime solving simulation sandbox. After 17 months of improvements, additions, and tune-ups, we'll see how well that potential's been realized when the cyberpunk detective sim gets its 1.0 release on September 26, 2024.

Since its early access launch, I've spent a couple dozen hours navigating the intricate web of simulated lives that Shadows of Doubt weaves for the citizens walking the rain-slick streets of its sprawling voxel cities. Every NPC has their own home, occupation, relationships, and routine that intersects with those of their roommates, coworkers, and acquaintances. When one of those NPCs inevitably commits a murder—it's a noir simulation, after all—every thread and connection is one that can be traced and investigated.

I've bribed desk clerks to let me into their apartments at 2AM so I can examine their bartending partner's shoe size. I've thrown chairs through businesses' windows so I can scramble in and check whether any of the fingerprints on their filing cabinets match what I found on a murder weapon. Every crime in Shadows of Doubt is its own puzzle, and there are so many ways to seek a solution that I barely mind the many times I've accused the wrong suspect. Unfortunately for the general public, the thrill of the chase is all the reward this private detective needs.

Across Shadows of Doubt's early access run, that chase has only gotten more interesting. Alongside performance improvements and bugfixes, Shadows of Doubt has gotten new building and location types for its procgen palette, greater variety in NPC conversations, emails, and documents, and new types of murder cases to crack—including snipers, who've occasionally been a bit lax in their trigger discipline.

Developer ColePowered Games says there'll be even more new stuff to see when Shadows of Doubt leaves early access next month, promising reveals of "major new content and features" in the weeks ahead.

Lincoln has been writing about games for 12 years—unless you include the essays about procedural storytelling in Dwarf Fortress he convinced his college professors to accept. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.