You Versus Them

Who can you trust? Only yourself. You wake up with five other strange humans, confused and lost, completely unaware of how you got where you are, but wanting to do everything in your power to get out. At first, you’re only equipped with a pistol and several rounds. You search around for something helpful, anything... Scattered around the area where you woke up, there are several puzzles that reward you and your ‘teammates’ with equipment. You find guns, flash lights, and even a scanner? What for? Weird. You notice there are several bags of blood around, but pay no attention to them, until one goes missing... then two... then three.

The lights go out. At least you have your flashlight and pistol to provide a sense of safety. All five of you are scattered around, trying to get some form of light to figure out what is going on. There are no more blood bags left, but you don’t care — you want to be able to see, more than anything. You ‘friend’ tells you he has the last core (to turn on the lights) and you run over to where you thought you heard his voice. Suddenly a flash of light illuminates the next room over, then another one, and now, screaming. It stops. You hear someone else calling for your help. In the next room, you find two teammates, one alive and shaken, gun in hand, the other... not so fortunate. Next to the less-fortunate teammate there is the body of something human like yet demented and misshapen. Quickly, you grab the last core to turn on the lights as your teammate covers you. As you insert the core and turn around you find you teammate isn't anywhere to be found, but in their place is another Terror, just like the one lifeless on the floor. But this one… this one has blood dripping from its mouth, and its empty eyes stare straight into yours.

Deceit. Didn't have trust issues? Well, you will now.

"Deceit tests your instincts at trust and deception in a multiplayer first-person shooter. You wake up in an asylum to the sound of an unfamiliar voice, surrounded by five others. A third of your group have been infected with a virus, but who will escape?" - Automaton

You are left trustingly teamed up with five other players as you try to navigate and survive the match. You must attempt to figure out who you can trust and who is infected. Or, if you are the infected, who you can befriend and then eat.

The objective is simple. Survive. Whether you are infected or a simple human, you must survive. How you do that is up to you. As a human, do you find someone you can slightly trust and keep an eye on them as you get weapons, gear and progress, or do you lone wolf it, choosing to see it as a five-versus-one scenario? As the infected, you can relax, pretend to be human, and have a bag of refreshing blood, or four, till you are ready to transform and devour your ‘friends’ the moment you get the chance.

The title's visuals are beautiful. Each map is unique and detailed, designed with care. But all of them leave you feeling uneasy. Whether you are in an asylum, forest, snow facility or elsewhere, all of them drive you to escape. They are very dynamic, changing the flow of the game and, to a degree, the strategy, depending on in what phase or map you have the pleasure of being abandoned. Unfortunately, however, the game feels sluggish. Your characters feel slow and clunky, as do your weapons.

While the maps are wonderful it feels like the same effort would be in the usable items, but its not. With only a knife, pistol, and shotgun as offensive options, you feel underwhelmed with your choices and disappointed when you try to use them.