I discovered this little gem while browsing the indie dev hashtag over at Twitter (X). Deep State is a two-man developer operation that takes heavy inspiration from Goldeneye 007, Deus Ex, and Resident Evil, according to their site. All games I enjoy, and going by the demo, I can clearly feel the Goldeneye and Deus Ex influences since those things are part of the gameplay. Resident Evil, not so much just yet, as you only fight humans in the demo. However, through the cutscenes, you can tell there are major supernatural government/corpo shenanigans going on, which sets a somewhat unsettling atmosphere.
Selleck returns
You don’t get that much story in the demo, but you play as some kind of retired Tom Selleck-esque agent, that is equipped with a good one-liner for every occasion. Once again, the government needs your help, and you reluctantly decide to go with them to be shown a new super secret base. But before that (which is the demo mission) you are thrown back in time to your past, four years to be exact. To a mission in Afghanistan where you lost your hot female partner, and saw some creepy unnatural things.
The shooting & visuals
Since the demo is very early days (it’s pre-alpha after all) some crucial stuff is missing. Like stealth, and having the enemy soldiers reacting properly to you and seeing their comrades lying blasted with holes in the dirt. However, the potential sure is there. Beyond the cool aesthetics of early 2000 low poly models, the feel of movement, shooting, and skulking is great. Now, since the AI is a bit limited, the game didn’t feel particularly challenging. What makes the game marked for greatness though (if they can majorly improve the AI) is that Deep State plays a lot like Deus Ex of old. If you have played that game, you will know what I mean.
The inventory is there, the equipment bar is also present, and it seems you can interact with most things, like a true immersive sim. It just felt great. The base you had to infiltrate was pretty open-ended, having several approaches, and the game even had everyone’s favorite: vent crawling. And not to forget, it has a cool 90s setting, at least that’s my impression from checking the computers with their bulky CRT monitors. Also, on a final note, I do hope they go full-out on conspiracies, just like Deus Ex. The more outlandish, the better.
There is some serious potential here. Deep State is unfortunately listed for 2025 if we go by Steam, so it’s far from complete. But you can always try the demo like I did and get a sense of what is to come. You can find it here.
Thanks for reading.
/Thomas
Tom's Gaming Vault 