Deceit 2 Review

"Doing Busy Work"

Campaign

May 2, 2024 at 8:33pm
By Jason Stettner

This is a free to play multiplayer game based around deduction. It’s essentially an Among Us type of game with a bit more of a grim, mature spin on the situation. As a group of nine players you’re venturing around a map completing tasks.

Among you are two monstrous creatures and maybe the odd mutated individual too. Those ranging from ones that mimic to perhaps a noble inquisitor. There are a few options. The general goal is to either escape as the regular people, remove the monsters from the match or if you’re those very creatures to eliminate all of the good survivors.

It’s an interesting setup with some depth, but it’s also sort of straight forward and repetitive. I did grow a strange intrigue in this one as I was attempting to get all the Xbox Achievements which was a grind.

So at times I could see how some enjoy the casual loop, at the same time I got more and more bored of the minimal setup the further along I went on that grind. Sort of like a parabola of enjoyment as odd as that sounds.

I can’t believe I ever fit that word into a review, I feel like I truly won today even if this game did not. The curve of enjoyment some may say. Whatever the case, it can be fun for some quick matches of either trying to execute everyone or trying to escape. It’s a neat premise that just needs a bit more content to it.

Gameplay

The game largely revolves around going about competing tasks. These tasks include things such as flushing toilets, matching cards or moving poster pieces about. Perhaps some simplification of the options but you’re basically doing activities that take a few seconds each to complete. There are many of these around the two maps available. On top of that you’re keeping an eye out for others doing things that they maybe shouldn’t.

Every so often, faster on if the monsters are interacting with dark spots while blending in you’ll be pulled into this otherworld. When in the special place between places you’re either running or being the one hunting others. The regular folks need to keep their sanity up and use some items to help as they evade. Once you survive, the common world resumes and the journey continues. This then cycles a couple times until the match ends as previously outlined.

Outside of tasks you’ll occasionally get an item from a special shop. These range from say a camera to stop the monsters in their tracks for a second or a gun to take out other people you believe may be monsters. As I mentioned it’s a game of deduction. You’re constantly trying to vote out people that are suspicious in order to get those monsters and shooting them with a gun sometimes is the way to vote them out. There are other tools that are more tame as well.

It’s a fairly straight forward setup despite sounding complex here. A lot of the game is chatter with voice chat and figuring out who’s manipulating people. Just like in Among Us I suppose you could say. When it comes to the visuals this game does run on Unreal Engine 5 with the Xbox Series X version being a dynamic 4k resolution at 60fps with some performance issues in spots but largely it runs fine. The game also looks decently solid, the locales of grime are rather grim indeed.

The Conclusion

Deceit 2 is a fast paced free to play game of deduction that offers a speedy way to either hunt or be hunted while using tools to assist either cause. It’s not terribly complex in design, but offers some fun. I did find the concept to tire out rather quickly, particularly since I was grinding out some Achievements in the process.

It’s got an alright loop and games are relatively fast which I did appreciate. I also believe that visually it’s generally solid and runs fine. I just wasn’t necessarily blown away by the game finding it to be repetitive and lacking in unique spaces. It really could use some more maps.

I did notice halfway through playing that some more tasks were added which helped a lot but it can overstay it’s welcome quickly if you’re playing a lot of it. Still, fun at times. I just wish there were more to it. It comes across as sort of generic, just being the same as Among Us but 3D and mature.

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Deceit 2 Review on Xbox Series X
Review Code Provided by Evolve PR

Rating Overall: 6.3