Review: Death Note Killer Within is a love letter to the deduction genre

This month, anime fans got a new game to interact with friends in. Death Note Killer Within brings immersion to the animation universe, some players have the lethal notebook in their hands, and others must protect themselves from this threat at the same time as solving the mystery.

This title is at an extremely affordable price range right now, and is also part of the PlayStation Plus catalog. So, it's worth checking out our review of the game!

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5

Developer: Grounding Inc.

Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc.

Genres: Casual, Strategy

Release Date: November 5, 2024

Many people treat the game as if it were an “Among Us meets Death Note”, and it really starts to go in that direction, but it should never be considered a copy. Death Note Killer Within brings its own peculiarities and characteristics.

In a match, we will have the blue team, made up of L and seven other investigators, against Kira and his follower, totaling 10 players (8 against 2). Everyone walks around the city interacting with each other, and there’s only one map to play on.

The task of the investigators, and L’s, is to find the culprit, arrest him and burn the notebook. Criminals need to steal other players' IDs, touching them for a few seconds, to get their names and write them in the Death Note. If L dies, the match will end immediately, giving victory to the murderers.

It’s also possible to win by carrying out missions, they increase your team’s level and whichever team completes the progress first will win.

At the end of each day, there is a meeting for everyone to talk about the events of the match. We can vote for who we suspect with the aim of searching them for the notebook, and even if the accused has nothing on them, they will be chained in the next round, following a player selected by L.

Before talking about the gameplay, it’s worth mentioning a fear that many had before purchasing the title, the lack of friends to play together. Among Us, for example, does not have a microphone system and matches in public rooms are extremely frustrating, with tremendous disorganization.

But in Death Note Killer Within, it’s not necessary to have a group of 10 friends, an open lobby usually has people with a microphone for communication in-game.

It will certainly be your most played role, given that there are seven investigators per match.

You will be given some missions to complete. The green ones consist of talking to NPCs, who act as witnesses, they mention strange events in the city.

The yellow ones are interactions with other players, be it investigating one of them, or picking up an item on the map to deliver to someone.

You’ll have a notebook at your disposal, and it’s not the Death Note! It’ll contain all the members in the match, it’s possible to mark suspects with an exclamation mark, and it’ll serve as a valuable clue in case you are killed and someone finds you.

At certain moments, both L and Kira will send out missions to be completed, the blue ones will provide benefits to their team, such as security cameras for L to consult, as well as increasing their team's progress. The red ones must be resolved to prevent Kira's team from advancing, but be careful, they are a great opportunity to create a cluster of people, facilitating mass ID theft without suspicion for criminals.

Basically, you will risk yourself by carrying out these missions, but always paying attention to who you touched because when the end-of-day meeting begins, you’ll be able to mention those possibly responsible for this. For example, if I only ever touched player C and lost my ID, clearly he is either Kira or his follower, but if during the day I touched A, B, C and D, I don't know which one of them actually stole it from me.

If investigators can afford themselves the luxury of carrying out missions, L cannot. You will have to assume the same personality as the character in the anime, isolate yourself and provide as few gaps as possible so as not to lose your identity. Remember, if L dies, it's game over, so don't get found out.

In this role, we’ll have some specific mechanics, such as, for example, a mission capable of confirming that a person really is an investigator. This is the only one you can trust.

Avoid going on Kira's missions, even if your group is unable to complete them without you. It's better to give them some points than to put your ID at risk.

An interesting fact is that, during meetings, L may provide some messages, without revealing who he is. Citing that he suspects a specific player, or asking someone else to speak out.

These messages often define dialogue decisions. Even without assuming his identity, we know that L's opinion is one of the few reliable ones.

For most, it’s the best role in the game, Kira must create situations with the objective of disrupting the progress of blue tasks, in addition to concentrating many members in small points to facilitate ID theft.

Be discreet so as not to generate suspicion, but it’s still important to show up a little to generate trust in the team.

With the cards in hand, you can open the Death Note and begin the slaughter, killing up to two players per round. A curious aspect is that we’re able to select a specific cause of death, interfering with the animation.

Kira follower

As already mentioned, Kira has a helper, and they are responsible for obtaining more identities. Even without having a Death Note, you can still leave the game through the voting, if the search on you turns up a stolen card.

When the initial Kira is threatened, feeling that he may be voted out at the next meeting, one strategy is to hand the Death Note to his follower, switching roles.

Both of you have a radio, it's a way to communicate with your partner. Even if you are on the street or close to other citizens, no one will hear you, but be careful, witnesses can warn investigators!

It seems like a simple game of bluff and investigation, but my first few hours were pure learning, unlike other games where we “get the hang of it” in two or three matches.

The fact that there are two enemies, but only one notebook that can switch between them, makes the situation a little more complex, in addition to the entire ID theft system.

Kira and his follower can take someone's card in the first round, but kill them at the end of the game, or not at all. Then, the eliminated person did not necessarily bump into the criminals in that round.

Unlike Among Us, here you are never safe, an impostor cannot kill someone in public there, everyone will know who did it, but in Death Note, Kira can rob as many people as he wants in broad daylight, and use the notebook later, somewhere empty, so if you don't deduce it, you won't know who it was.

In some lobbies, depending on the configuration, it’s possible to toggle between the option to collect IDs or not. Good players can choose not to steal from anyone in the first rounds to be cleared in the discussions, generating trust and making the debate even more difficult later on.

The varied gameplay and mechanics allowed during the match may put off new players, but fortunately the developer took care to provide tutorials for each function.

Overall, they are great, I strongly recommend them to understand the basics of the game. But it’s clear that the entire dynamics of an online game, plus a conversation with other players, could not be replicated here.

Even in training mode, the bots stay still and, obviously, don't talk, most of your learning will have to be in online matches.

It’s not the focus of the game, it requires just 1GB of space to install, at least on Steam, and it’s supposed to run on most computers.

But still, the audiovisual aspect satisfies me. When we see L or Light Yagami on screen, they are identical to the animation, and the music together with the sound effects are of high quality and match the theme, contributing to greater immersion.

Customizations

In customizations, the title offers cosmetics that change your character or background in meetings. There aren't many free ones, but there are enough for us to modify those according to our taste.

You unlock them as you gain XP and advance in the “Customization Track”, which also has a paid track for those looking for more style.

But don't worry, the monetary aspect, so far, is only used for skin purchases, as you can see in the store.

During my hours of gameplay, I witnessed some problems. Even if a little, it was enough to affect the experience.

One of them was an unstable connection to the server. I, personally, didn't suffer from this, but many users reported frequent crashes in the game to me. This is related to another problem, basically, when a person loses connection or abandons the game, the match ends immediately. I took part in 5 or 6 matches that were not completed.

A bug that happened to me twice though, in a little over ten hours of playtime, was when I entered a lobby or match, but my call didn't work, I couldn't speak or hear my friends. When this happened, it wasn’t enough to leave and re-enter the room, I needed to restart the game.

Pros