REVIEW – In this game, of course, death is only optional, as it is possible to transfer consciousness to another body, but of course this is also a matter of wealth, and not many people can live forever. So the title of the game is apt, because although it sounds like a horror game at first glance, it is a much deeper game in terms of morality, a creation of Critical Hit Games.

Three hundred years from now, it may be possible to preserve our consciousness, and from that a rather interesting story could be carved out.

James Karra’s second body

New York, 2329. James Karra died, which is not an easy thing for a baseball star to do. He found himself in another body, but with muscles and reaction times worse than before. So the best he can do with a baseball bat from now on is to use it as a melee weapon, because he’s going to be a detective. He’s eaten a few bodies since his death and has spent a century or so as an alcohol-drinking, rule-breaking character rotting in the city, as his new case proves. A suicide case that James’ superiors seem to want to sweep under the rug, even though there is evidence that more may have happened, so James goes up against his employers to solve the case. Along the way he discovers more, there will be conspiracies and how depraved the rich are after their immortality is guaranteed by their wealth. May the poor die. James won’t be alone, because he will be helped by a colleague named Sara, who is hesitant at first, but eventually gets the hang of it. The opportunities in the dialogues will mainly develop her character, and in the end the ending will depend on the choices we make in the course of the four-hour story.

Even at a comfortable pace, Nobody Wants to Die should take no more than five and a half hours to complete. In that time, you can think about things like trauma, morality, and who you remember. In the game, we see the crime scene in a first-person view, and we can use ultraviolet light, X-rays, and finally we build up the events with the Reconstructor, often rewinding time. It takes a bit of experimentation to see who was shooting, from what direction, to look for hidden objects, locations. It may sound a bit fiddly, but it’s not too much, as the puzzles to be solved are not too difficult (but you can use the square button to get hints, as it will tell you what to interact with next). It’s not too easy, and it’s not too hard, so the balance is well struck, and because of that, the rhythm of Nobody Wants to Die is not broken, as you won’t get stuck for too long. As in the Poirot games, you sometimes have to put together evidence on a grid to speculate what happened (actually, it’s almost the same concept), and it’s no problem if you can’t, because you can try the available combinations with impunity.

We are surrounded by the future that reaches into the past

The vehicles, even though they fly, are at once futuristic and technologically infused, and retro, as they come from the years of World War II. This anachronism has been seen in bigger games (suffice it to say Fallout). New York is nice, but it feels like it’s always at night. Speaking of the city, the world building isn’t bad. You never feel like you have no idea what’s going on, but that you’re always in the picture, and there’s no character suddenly showing up and taking ten minutes to explain what happened, no questions asking you to remember, but dialog that tells you everything you need to know and gives you the location of the objects you’re about to discover.

The Nobody Wants to Die is visually appealing, though not perfect, as the character models didn’t always look that good in relation to the locations, but the city still felt alive, even if the investigator wasn’t visiting huge locations. Considering that this is a cheaper game, it’s only when you think about it that you realize there are some oddities. For example, we very rarely communicate with anyone in person. You can barely see the traffic in the background. There is very little room to maneuver. But that doesn’t detract much from the value of the game. The dialog, however, does: it was a little weak in places, and since it takes up a large part of the game, it left its mark on the rating. But other than that, it’s really hard to find any major negative points, because the experience was basically good.

No one wants to die, but everyone will

The only reason Nobody Wants to Die didn’t get an 8/10 is because it would have been nice to spend a little more time with it. The replayability probably makes it a good one. The great environments, the good themes, the right pacing all make it interesting, and the story makes it worth trying because it can easily grab you. David was able to beat Goliath in this one, as the game is not big, but it still felt big.

-V-

Publisher: Plaion

Developer: Critical Hit Games

Style: adventure

Release: July 17, 2024.