Nobody Wants to Die (PC)

Geoffrey Wright | August 16, 2024 | Review | No Comments

Unreal Engine 5 narrative adventures are slowly becoming a burgeoning genre, with Nobody Wants to Die from Critical Hit Games the latest to draw interest. Standing out from the crowd somewhat with a futuristic detective noire story of rebirth & riches, is it worth your time? Lets take a look

New York, 2329. Technology has advanced to the point that eternal life is in reach of all, so long as one can afford it. You take on the role of a detective, James Karra, who has recently returned to the living after a consciousness swap and takes an off-the-books case with only the help of a young police liaison, Sara Kai, to keep him sane and on the straight & narrow. What starts off with a supposed suicide, quickly snowballs into a larger conspiracy that will shed light on darker dealings among the elite of New York.

Playing a downbeat drink-happy cop at the end of his mental tether after 200+ years of life is both generic and interesting at the same time. It starts to pick up early for me when Sara is introduced, your conversation choices with her can also effect the flow of the story, as she can slowly warm to your view of cases in a convincing way. There’s plenty of choices throughout that can have an impact on dialogue choices later down the line, which can also change an investigations path, you’ll also need more than one playthrough to get a full grasp of the story and its multiple endings due to all these choices bringing different angles of attack. You’ll need at least a dozen hours for a couple of runs to the end, a single sitting can be done in around half that if you just want to play through it the once.

As seems to becoming a common occurrence these days, Nobody Wants to Die is another Unreal Engine 5 game that makes use of some features to stunning effect at times. The world here is futuristic, with its skyscrapers breaking clouds of smog and crowds of flying cars, yet clearly stylised in a 20’s/30’s way to really drive home that detective noire feel. The moody and rain-soaked world makes the most of Lumen for some atmospheric shots, the game allows plenty of opportunities to appreciate, and is further helped by excellent work elsewhere – in particular the modelling of everything from cars to buildings is pretty well done and gives the game a higher than expected visual quality.

Carrying that quality into the audio is a goos collection of ambient music and voice work, the chemistry between James & Sara is great for two talking remotely, just a shame there’s no Atmos to draw you into those quieter moments in the city. In typical UE5 fashion, performance can be tough with Lumen in use. My system (R7 5800X3D/32GB/RTX 3090) didn’t really have an issue locking to 4K/60 with a little DLSS at high settings, but you will have to compromise somewhere. Given 1440/30 with raytracing or 1080/60 without is what the PS5 version does, that should probably give you more of an idea at what to expect

Like a point & click adventure of old, you’ll find yourself on plenty of crime scenes trying to get to the bottom of this mystery through the clues you find on the way. There’s several tools at your disposal, such as xray scanners and UV lights, but the main one allows you to manipulate time within a pocket of space. The pockets hold the juiciest clues and getting the right moment locked in is simple enough, the clue itself can sometimes be hard to notice tho so you’ll need to be eagle eyed. Once you got all the clues its back to the apartment to put all your chips on the table with Sara and come up with a workable theory. This is the main loop outside of the odd puzzle or moody exposition with the bottom of a bottle as company.

I do enjoy these kinda games to relax to but something felt a bit off with this one, namely that the longer an investigation went on the less investigative it felt. These narrative based games generally will lead you on a little, but this one felt a bit on-the-nose occasionally. The second crime scene on the airship, which takes a while to get through, will no doubt have you feeling this as it drags on – but once past you should be fine for most of the game.

Nobody Wants to Die is an interesting cyberpunk noire premise wrapped in a generally fantastic presentation. The story piqued my interest, as did the world & visuals, and the constant choices meant it felt like it was my own story to craft. The pacing of some story segments can throw off the flow tho, while it does also feel like a carrot on a stick sometimes with clues, and you really need multiple playthroughs to fully grasp everything. Still, you may be able to overlook these rougher edges if this kinda narrative adventure is what you enjoy kicking back to.