Nobody Wants to Die is a noir detective game that is set in a distopian New York in the year 2329. You play as a detective named James Karra. In this universe, people pay a subscription for immortality via other peoples bodies. At the age of 21, if people cannot afford to pay the subscription cost, their bodies are taken to the “bank” to be auctioned.
There is a serial killer on the loose and the goal of the game is pretty clear: catch the killer. The journey to discovering the identity of the killer is in your hands. Yes, this game is choice driven. There are four endings to this game. Your detective skills and dialogue choices determine the ending. I understand if some might feel deterred from the game for that reason, but after getting one of the bad endings, I can confidently say that it didn’t lessen my experience. That alone is a rarity worthy of praise.
Upon your first crime scene you are given all the tools you will need for the entire game. A UV light, X-ray scanner, and a reconstruction tool. The reconstruction tool is the highlight of Nobody Wants to Die. You use this tool to piece together crime scenes.
When you walk in to the scene of a crime and witness its aftermath, using your reconstruction tool will help walk you through to what the crime scene looked like before any of the events took place. So by the time you are done with your investigation, you will be able to watch the crime happen like playing a video tape.
Not only will the reconstruction tool take you back to the crime scene before the crime happened, but you will be able to interact with the objects in the area. You even have the option to steal some goodies or burn evidence before setting the scene to its original state.
As for your other tools, you will use your X-ray scanner to trace bullets and the UV light is for scanning blood and following its trail.
The puzzles are never too difficult. They make you work for it while guiding you to what you need to see at a perfectly balanced level. You are rewarded the more you investigate an area, but you will never really find yourself left with no trail to follow.
Haunted by his past, the trauma of living over 150 years through 3 bodies, and the loss of loved ones in his life, Detective James Karra makes for a great protagonist. One that never wavers in his character despite what choices you make. The kind of person he turns out to be is entirely up to you in the end. But no matter what dialogue option I chose, it always felt in character. I never felt like I majorly messed up in my decision making. With many decision making games I always fight the urge to revert my save and choose differently. I always felt comfortable with my choices, despite their difficulty.
You do have an ally named Sara in your ear at all times. Their banter and chemistry is fun and their character development as a unit is very enjoyable. Which leads me in to the sound design of Nobody Wants to Die; I used my headset while playing this game and its sound quality stood out to me as much as the beautiful aesthetics of the game. The reason for this is because I listen to story telling dramas on Spotify. There were points in the game that I felt like if I was to close my eyes, the quality was on par with some of the best dramas I’ve heard over the years.
That being said, I did feel that there were times that the voice acting fell slightly flat or that the actors tones didn’t match the words they were saying. This was not frequent nor did it kill the vibe when I noticed. It was however noticeable enough that I felt it was worth sharing in the review.
As for performance, this game was reviewed on an Xbox Series X. In performance mode it looked and felt stunning. Quality mode bogged the game down in both frames per second and quality in my opinion. As for bugs and glitches, I only ever had one. There was a moment in the game that Detective Karra mentioned stealing something that I had chosen not to steal. Not a big deal, but definitely a bug that needs patched.
Summary
If you like a good old fashioned mystery, then you will love this game. I have never in my life played a game, got the worst ending, and yet wanted nothing more than to play the game over again…and again… and again. Like a good piece of art, every ending leaves you with your own interpretation of what might have happened. I felt that there was closure to be found, but I still wanted to know more. I want to go back and find more clues if possible. What else might I uncover had I made different decisions?
This game is on PC and all consoles for $24.99USD. It took me roughly 5 hours to complete and the quality exceeded my expectations.
