I think its funny the parasocial abusive relationship i have with this game and its dev.

So I picked this game up on early access in 2023 after I watched Insym play it. I LOVED IT. Amazing life Sim mechanics, incredible procedural world and solving cases was just top notch fun. Albeit, there was a mountain of horrible annoying bugs and spawning issues that made some cases just a miserable slog. But hey, its early access.

Developer had a road map woth 4 planned updates on it. First major update I THINK was liars and cheats (road map had 2 small technical and performance updates, and then 2 big updates.) So we all waited patiently. There was some delay but again, its one dev and its early access, thats how it happens sometimes.

Well end of 2023 was the steam awards and shadows of doubt got nominated for the category "Labor of Love". Community was hyped, i voted for it immediately, all seemed great. But Red Dead Redemption 2 was also nominated i think as a meme since Rockstar publicly announced they abandoned support for it years prior. RDR2 ended up winning as a meme and Shadows of Doubt got no special promotion or accolades. I sympathize with the dev and felt like that was stupid a dead game was voted for over this gem.

After the loss the game was radio silent for a bit. No updates on the game awards, no messages popping up on steam. I kept it installed to check on it and as soon as new content or fixes came out, I was ready to dive back in. No updates came out after liars and cheats dropped.

However. To everyone's complete shock, the game suddenly released as 1.0 in September of 2024. No new content in a year, tons of horrible bugs still in the game, cases still spawn incorrectly and ruin the experience, and day one issues that weren't fixed. Yet the game still dropped as 1.0 without any fanfare from the Dev.

It was a textbook early access smash and grab. Game had mild success, dev was ready to grab that money and skip town. Screw the community that backed and supported him. Screw any promise to build on this game. Just a ♥♥♥♥ you from the dev and they are out.

In 2025 however, steam updated its policy agreements. That new clause showed up demanding that devs cant advertise a roadmap, abandon it, and disappear with the cash. Its an obligation they complete their content pipeline before leaving the project.

Few days later I see shadows has a news post "HELLO DETECTIVES!!!" (Followed by the lamest "you've probably been wondering where ive been? HARD AT WORK ON ALL THIS DEVELOPMEMT FOR MY HALF BAKED GAME!" Kind of post)

Since then, its been tiny patches and no meaningful content. Almost like development completely ended in 2023, because butthurt, and a year and a half later hes gotta make something up to avoid a lawsuit.

This game is a great idea and had so much potential and goodwill around it, the dev could have raked in cash. But because hes such a backstabbing piece of garbage, he sank his own game and betrayed his community to go pout.

I quit recommending this game after 1.0. I may reconsider my stance if the dev delivers on any of their false promises or just apologizes for being a complete piece of ♥♥♥♥ after the steam awards. Dont buy this, its a broken frustrating mess thats lacking a ton of content being mismanaged by an idiot in a bear trap trying desperately to gnaw his arm off.

The game feels fairly hollow once you understand it, but it's interesting and still fun for a playthrough.

I broke into an apartment just to shower<3