First person shooters are a difficult genre to get right. If you lean too far into realism, you lose the casual fans who simply cannot compete. A good example of this is arena shooters or games like Arma, which are almost exclusively played by pros or long-time players. If you lean too far into the casual, you will alienate the competitive scene that helps drive content and awareness. Splatoon is probably the best example of this, even if they do have a robust competitive scene, the game is largely viewed as a “my first shooter” type of experience. So, getting it right is really hard and you usually have to be pretty innovative to make a mark.
Fortunately for Deceive Inc., they knew how to be innovative, creative, and adaptive all in one game. It can be hard to describe Deceive Inc. without using nebulous terms like stealth and deception, but I’m going to try my damndest. Deceive Inc. is an undercover stealth-based first-person extraction shooter. The main idea is that you are always in disguise, except for when you’re fighting or exposed, and everyone around you is also in disguise and able to change disguises. You have to gather enough intel and extract with the briefcase before either you or your team have been exposed or caught.
Similar to a hero-shooter, Deceive Inc. allows players to pick one of eight agents, each with different unique abilities, weapons, and play-styles. You only have access to three out of the gate, but it doesn’t take long to unlock others and there’s also a strong likelihood that players will pick one or two characters and run with them for most of the game, though they do offer incentives for mixing up your character and playstyle. You also can’t always rely on getting your character, as someone on your team may already have that character, forcing you to play as someone else.
After selecting your character and going through a brief training period, which is just as funny as it is useful, you can begin playing solo, with a team, or to run through practice scenarios. Each location is bright, detailed, and full of life and action. They also come with varying themes, most of which have that 70’s spy aesthetic to them. Outside of their special weapons, each character also has an active and a passive ability that is unique to them. The character I use the most, Rupert, gains an absurd amount of speed he can use to put distance between himself and his attacker for his passive ability and can find any valuable object in the room with his active ability. All of the abilities vary and provide some measure of protection or advantage to the player, in some cases allowing them to even the playing field instantly.
While you’re walking around disguised, you have the ability to put on other disguises that will allow you to throw off opponents, gather intel, and gain access to areas that would otherwise put up a fight if you entered without being allowed. Each disguise exists on a hierarchy with VIP being allowed everywhere but with only one or two existing on the whole map. You can disguise yourself as security, technician, maids, VIP, civilians, and more. How you use these disguises is up to you and could determine whether or not you succeed or fail.
As you avoid being caught by others, you have to gather intel and access cards. There are also field upgrades available to everyone located within safes that cost you intel to open, but you will lose them if you die and grabbing them will alert everyone around you that you are a spy. The intel you gather serves not only as your currency within the level, it can also power certain bonus items that give you limited ability to see through anyone and everyone’s cover. The intel will also allow you to gather keycards that open up three different terminals you have to shut down in order to grab the final briefcase and extract.
Once you grab the briefcase, it’s a race to the extraction point as everyone on the map can see your general position. You can use the case to identify them, but it will cost you a lot of intel and stopping to grab more intel only slows you down, making you more susceptible to being downed by an opponent. Once you reach the extraction point, you must then manage to survive while the vehicle arrives to pick you up. Should you make it out with the case, plenty of rewards will be given to you. If not, you can either watch until your round ends or take your accrued points and move to the next round. The choice is yours.
This game is pretty much a mix of Among Us, Escape from Tarkov, and any dinner murder mystery party ever. Trying to figure out who is who is truly a game of paying attention and watching your surroundings. It’s listed as a first-person shooter, but you’re honestly losing if you’re involved in any gun play. The real way to describe this game would be a sneaky stealth scavenger hunt with some light shooting if you happen to get caught. There are hours and hours and hours of fun here and you can easily play with friends on your own chat or the built-in chat the game houses. Either work just fine and you’ll definitely want to communicate with your team if you’re doing teamplay. There doesn’t seem to be cross-chatter or open lobbies, so you don’t have to worry about harassment or other players saying dumb stuff.
If you’re new to first-person shooters or looking for a new game to fill in the hours, I can’t recommend this game enough. I’ve been waiting for it to drop since I saw the trailer for it last year and we have more content on Deceive Inc. coming here on BSO soon, but I wanted to get this review out before too much more time had passed. The game came out on the 21st and is available for only $20 on PlayStation, Xbox and Steam. If it wasn’t for MLB The Show 23, this would have been the BSO Game of the Month.
Note: A review copy of the game was provided to BSO on the PS5, which is what our review is based around. That said, we’ve also played other versions for fun and they worked just as well and integrated together without issue.
BSO Rating: 9/10