Deceit 2 Hands-On Preview: Mixing Social Deception With Eldritch Monstrosities

ign.com:

Our small group of survivors enters the medical room together. “I’ve never seen how the testing machine works,” I say to the others in the room, my words piped into their ears by proximity voice chat, “is it alright if I try it out?” One of the more experienced group members says, “Sure,” then another player hops onto the testing table.

I press the button to begin the test and the old-fashioned computer begins to process. When it’s finished, a giant “Infected!” warning appears on the screen, visible only to me. “It says he’s clean,” I lie, and the group begins to disperse. My Infected partner gets up from the table and each of us follows a different Innocent player from the room, ready to kill them as soon as we are out of earshot of the group.

These tense cat-and-mouse moments are what Deceit 2 is all about, and its consistent ability to create a wide variety of them through mini-games, phases, and even items, is what makes this 1st-person social deception game one I’ll be keeping my eyes on.

Set in a Lovecraft-like world, a sinister gamemaster has trapped a group of people (6-9 players) in an abandoned asylum, fitting them with strange wristbands that allow them to harvest energy through performing ritualized activities, but that’s not all they can do. Activating the wristbands before each round, the game master turns two of the victims into eldritch monstrosities (masquerading as humans) to kill the others and appease the dark gods he serves.

To win a game, Innocent players need to complete enough tasks (in each of the asylum’s many small rooms) to earn the escape key, or discover and banish both Infected players. Infected players need to isolate and kill all the Innocent players without being discovered, or use