When it comes to gamer-gatekeeping, there are few genres as snootily guarded as the immersive sim. From PC classic System Shock to the Dickensian Dishonored 2, these system-heavy sandboxes are video gaming’s equivalent to avant garde electronica or the films of Darren Aronofsky, adored by critics and genreheads but largely baffling to everyone else. Much like those elitist fandoms, the im-sim’s loudest cheerleaders often look down on linear blockbusters with similar sneer. No, Assassin’s Creed player, you cannot sit with us.
While massive games such as Tears of the Kingdom have recently flirted with elements of the genre, there’s still a surprising lack of breezier, beginner-friendly immersive sims. Enter Blendo Games’ Skin Deep – an attempt to cosy-fi the genre. Doing away with the sour-faced sci-fi of Deus Ex, Skin Deep sends you hurtling into space with a premise ripped straight out of a noughties web comic. You play Nina Pasadena, an insurance commando sworn to rescue feline fleets from raiding pirates. As you answer each well-insured tabby’s urgent distress call, Nina quietly sneaks across the raided ship, using whatever tools she can cobble together to rescue her kitty clientele.
The story is incredibly silly – more on that later – but Skin Deep’s cacophony of colliding systems deserves to be taken seriously. As I stalk my prey with a book and a lighter, I quietly release a cloud of hand sanitiser before bashing his head in with a hefty novel. Before he can draw his gun, I leap backwards, chucking my flickering lighter into the cloud of sanitiser, engulfing the poor pirate in an explosion of glistening flames. It’s this gleefully slapstick approach that sees Skin Deep at its best – a playground that embraces the absurdity of its simulation with a Cheshire’s grin.
It’s not all design by worship and tribute, however, with Blendo introducing some fun gameplay twists of its own. Pirates can respawn after being taken out, detachable floating “skull savers” attached to their heads hovering desperately back to their lifeless bodies. Nina must swiftly dispose of each screaming head before they can seek revenge. From shattering ship windows and sending a skull hurtling into outer space, to flushing screaming heads down a toilet, finding new ways to bin each bonce adds a welcome layer of variety. The duplicating “duper gun” is another fun innovation, allowing players to sneak up to unsuspecting guards and instantly copy whatever items they hold – from weapons to those crucial cat-freeing keys.
Each fully mapped ship exterior also allows you to leap out of the airlock and scale the outside of the ship, surveying the vessel for sneaky new entry points. In one mission, I come crashing through the ship’s external window. As I land on the bridge feet first, I pull a bloodied glass shard from my foot and fling it straight into a pirate’s face, leaving me grinning like a cat-loving John McClane.
Blendo Games understands that the best immersive sims are inherently cartoony playgrounds, sandboxes where every item is a tool for maleficence. From chucking pepper at a guard and making them sneeze so hard they pass out, to riding a pirate’s back and charging them straight into a wall, you certainly couldn’t accuse Skin Deep of taking itself too seriously.
Unfortunately, I started to wish that the writers took it all more seriously. As freed cuboid cats leap from their rectangular cages with a sparkle and an enthusiastic MEOWW, and I reply to paw-penned emails asking me to find quirky VHS tapes, it dawns on me that I’m playing Deus Ex for Disney adults. While Skin Deep’s gags may well be catnip for the right player, the never-ending feline puns and overly-zany tone had me cringing, eliciting more grimaces than guffaws.
If the cat-filled concept wasn’t millennially coded enough, Skin Deep is made using Doom 3’s 2004 id tech engine. Swapping the PC classic’s dimly-lit corridors for brightly coloured environments, it’s a knowingly nerdy-nod to the hardcore. While a cool idea on paper, in practice the archaic aesthetic falls short of the intended retro cool chic, instead looking disappointingly primitive.
Still, if beauty is only Skin Deep, for £15, this is a colourful, breezy introduction to an infamously inaccessible genre. The end result is an enjoyable, if muddled game, a deceptively deep immersive sim that may be too silly for genre fans and too low-poly to entice newcomers. This isn’t the genre’s breakout hit then – a slapstick immersive sim using Doom 3’s engine was likely always destined to be niche – but if you can stomach Skin Deep’s saccharine silliness, there’s 10 hours of futuristic feline fun batting its paw in your direction.
