TL;DR – A solid social deduction game with a clear visual style that plays very well when you are with a group of friends.

Disclosure – I purchased this game

DEATH NOTE Killer Within Review –

When some friends suggested having a look at DEATH NOTE Killer Within, I did approach with a bit of caution. While I know of the anime series Death Note (デスノート), I am not someone who has taken a deep dive into its lore. Also, since the rise of Among Us, several other games have tried and failed at bringing that Mafia/Werewolf/Resistance social gameplay into the video game world. But a rough start aside, I think it nailed the brief.

So, to set the scene, there is a battle of wits going on between L (Kappei Yamaguchi) and Light Yagami (Mamoru Miyano), each creating a scenario where Kira survives and wreaks havoc, or who is arrested by the Investigators before they can kill everyone with their Death Note. For you see, Kira can only kill people who they know the name of, so the investigators must find the culprit whilst also making sure no one else gets their ID because if they do, it might be a chandelier to the noggin for you.        

I will say that right at the start. This is a game that is a bit rough to get into. I played this on PC, and it is clearly not optimised for it. A lot of the controls are just weird, such as ‘esc’ being open options and not going back, which is ‘z’ for some reason. Also, I am not sure how to close the game from the main menu; I had to shut it down manually from the outside. It took a bit of trial and error to get everyone into a match because some were not able to connect, and the game did not really explain why. If anyone leaves the game, the entire game crashes for everyone, even if they were just an investigator. Finally, the tutorials are not a great help, it took watching a video to be able to get my head around the game mechanics.  

However, while it has a bit of a rough start, it comes to life once you get into the game and get to play all four different roles. You have Kira’s follower who goes around getting everyone’s IDs to give to Kira so they can kill the investigators until they find L, and if they kill them, they both win the game. However, if at any time someone arrests one of them and they have any contraband on them, it could be over for the helper, and you win if you arrest Kira. The investigators have to go around piecing information together and noting anything suspicious. They are helped by L, who has powers that could be used to reveal who the traitors are.

The gameplay is not that complicated; as an investigator, you will spend most of your time running around talking to NPC, which will give you less than helpful information. However, the game wisely uses this basic gameplay loop as the groundwork for all the chaos. If someone stays near you for long enough, they can steal your ID if they are a bad player. However, there are so many tasks that force you to be close to other players. This immediately puts you on edge, even if you are both investigators, because you won’t know if your ID was actually taken until the investigation phase or if you get run over by a bus.  

In my playthrough of the game, we played with ten characters using Discord for voice chat, and I got to be all four characters throughout. Each of them plays differently enough that you have to shift up your gameplay each time. The accomplice has to go around trying to steal IDs without getting caught, but then they also have to offload them before getting called out. Kira needs to kill as many people as possible to find L, but every time they kill someone, they have to do a QuickTime test, and all of that time, the black book is out for anyone to see. The investigators are looking for anything suspicious, stopping large group events, and trying not to die. At the same time, L is trying to pretend to be an investigator while chilling and doing their own thing. Also, unlike Among Us, if you arrest someone, and they don’t have any contraband on them, they are not killed but get dragged around in chains for a round, which is just a hilarious choice.  

Another strength of the game is its visual styling, which makes it seem as if everyone is part of a giant board game. Everyone becomes these dead-eyed figurines that should not work, but they commit to it so hard in the cut scenes and in the game that it becomes so funny. Then you add the many cosmetic items that highlight just how surreal this is, and it becomes a delight. I didn’t feel the need to pay for the cosmetic expansions, but there are some wild options if you are so inclined. The board game feel is taken to the next level in the new map, which feels like someone’s toy room. However, it has dark rooms, and you can’t see who is getting close to you.

In the end, do we recommend DEATH NOTE Killer Within? Yes, we would, with a couple of provisos. First, I think this is a game that only works if you are with a group of people that you know and are on direct comms with. Also, you will need to break through a bit of a barrier before starting, but once you get into it, it can be a blast.  

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

Have you played DEATH NOTE Killer Within?, let us know what you thought in the comments below, feel free to share this review on any of the social medias and you can follow us Here. Check out all our past reviews and articles Here, and have a happy day. 

Credits – All images were created by the staff of DEATH NOTE Killer Within
Based on – DEATH NOTE by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata
Game Direction – Akihiro Igarashi
Lead Game Designer – Masahiro Yamada & Masao Suganuma
Art Director – Ryoji Nakamura
Lead Character Modeler – Kiyozumi Tani
Music – Tomoya Nakajima & Shogo Yasuda
Voice Acting – Mamoru Miyano, Kappei Yamaguchi & Aya Hirano
Developer – Grounding Inc. & Inspion Inc.
Publisher – Bandai Namco Entertainment