Procedurally generated detective sim Shadows of Doubt leaves Steam early access in September

Shadows of Doubt, the procedurally generated first-person detective sim from developer ColePowered Games, is leaving Steam early access on 26th September, and it’s getting a PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S release on the same day.

Shadows of Doubt entered Steam early access last April, challenging players – in the role of a private investigator – to snoop and sleuth their way around a noir-ish open-world sci-fi city, aiming to complete enough investigations that they’re able to hang up their trilby and retire.

It’s the procedural generation at the heart of the game that makes all it so nifty, though; everything – from the simulated city and the daily routines of its citizens to the murders and odd jobs players can tackle – is different each playthrough. And it’s coupled with an immersive-sim-like level of freedom that lets players hack, lock-pick, shimmy, snoop, explore, break-and-enter, interrogate, and more in order to solve its unscripted cases.

“The biggest [mystery] rattling around my brain right now,” former Eurogamer editor Martin Robinson wrote back in 2020, “is how is this possible? This is a work of staggering ambition and no small amount of artistry, presenting an evocative, fully-functioning cityscape for you to explore, complete with several intricate systems underpinning your sleuthing. I’ve played 20 minutes and I’m simply staggered.”

Shadows of Doubt has continued to expand throughout its early access development – last September saw the arrival of infidelity investigations, for instance – and there’s still more in the works for its 1.0 release. ColePowered Games is promising a “big update that would make any private investigator twitch with intrepidation”, and more details are due “in the coming weeks”.

Shadows of Doubt will make its PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S debut on 26th September, the same day it leaves early access on Steam. ColePowered Games notes its Steam price will rise from $19.99 USD to $24.99 on 23rd August, a few days before its full release, so if you’ve been eyeing up a purchase, you might want to do it sooner rather than later.