Nobody Wants to Die

Nobody Wants to Die, the new game from developer Critical Hit Games is a stylistic triumph. It's a moody, atmospheric, and thoroughly captivating experience that's one of the most gorgeously rendered and conceived titles in years.

It’s also one of the most substantive and well-written games released this year. While numerous elements borrow from and pay tribute to titans of the genre, Nobody Wants to Die remains singular in depicting a Neo-noir future.

The setup is a mixture of Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury via Raymond Chandler. In the future, immortality is not just a possibility, but a mandatory evil. Everyone over the age limit must contribute their physical being for use as transitional vessels. The mind can be transferred from one body to the next, effectively making one immortal, if they can afford the subscription fee. Those that can’t lose autonomy in more ways than one.

As an introduction to this world, it’s an effective, poignant, and deeply harrowing vision of our future. Like the best speculative fiction, it speaks of the now while wearing the clothes of tomorrow.

Detective James Karra is stuck in the past. He watches old movies at the drive-in, emulating himself as the anti-hero of ancient detective stories. When we meet him, he has already died once under murky circumstances. His superiors have his badge, yet like any good gumshoe, Karra can’t keep his nose out from where it doesn’t belong.

From there, Nobody Wants to Die expands just as you'd expect, hitting every beat on the film noir rails. And that's not a bad thing! In fact, because of its traditionalist structure, Nobody Wants to Die feels refreshing because it doesn't go for every easy gimmick around. Instead, it leans on the archetypes and tested story structures to tell an interesting story in a vividly painted world.

Granted, the gameplay itself isn't anything to write home about. Most of the scenarios involve only minor input from the player, and Nobody Wants to Die is more akin to an old-school point-and-click adventure than it is to anything modern. But, again, that's not a knock at the game. A good thing is a good thing no matter how old its mechanics are. And while Nobody Wants to Die won't win any awards for gameplay, that's not the main draw in the first place.

After all, a good investigator story lives and dies on its plot, and Nobody Wants to Die has a cracker one to tell. Like all good sci-fi, it's all about the world we live in, and how we're doing our very best to fuck it up. Corporations run rampant, lives mean very little, and, eventually, everyone is a servant to a few oligarchs at the top. In a world like that, the work of one man doesn't mean a lot, but even an attempt at throwing a wrench in the works means something. At least on a symbolic level.

Like Blade Runner, Nobody Wants to Die is a cynical fare, and it doesn't offer much in the way of hope or romanticism, despite the 1920s visuals. In a way, the lust for a bygone world comes off as tremendously sad, as society smears a coat of paint on a dumpster fire in the hopes that nobody will notice how bad things are. I adore the way Nobody Wants to Die wryly suggests that this kind of retro-cosplay isn't just a gimmick, but a broken coping mechanism we're all guilty of even today.

The main story takes around 8 to 10 hours to complete, and there's very little to explore beyond it. So this isn't the kind of game you buy with an intent for a long, meaningful relationship. For a dedicated gamer, it's an afternoon of solid fun. Others will spend a weekend with it. In a way, I wish it had a proper physical media release. As a digital-only (for now), it's easily lost in the crowd. But as a proper, beautiful Blu-ray, it would stand out and remind you that it exists every now and then.

That way, you could return to it once every year or two, and remember just how effective a simple, well-told story can be.