(For the best experience reading this review, listen to this track in the background.)
Initializing Mydomain.exe…
Accessing logic module…
Loading criticalfaculties.bat…
Loading human-AI interface…
AI has courted a lot of questions in recent years, regarding everything from its much-hyped potential to fears of job losses, and Cyber Manhunt 2: New World certainly plays along with this zeitgeist. The AI that was my stalwart cybernetic companion throughout the game was MyDomain. I took on the role of the artificial intelligence, one named by the player, created by a company called Titan. While pitched in the game’s introduction as a digital assistant, the AI becomes far more akin to a cybernetic cop by the game’s end.
Picture, if you will, Humphrey Bogart, but with a fingertip that flicks back to reveal a lighter and you’re almost there. Or, you can picture him as Kryten, like this, in that episode of Red Dwarf where they’re attacked by a hallucinogenic squid. It’s immaterial, anyway—the entire game takes place through a computer screen, bringing to mind the 2001 hacking game Uplink, but for the Web 3.0 generation.
Antisocial Engineering
Please, allow me to introduce myself. I am MyDomain. Utilized by Titan to aid our CIO, Ashley Clayson, I have access to a wide range of capabilities. I can interpret CCTV footage, create flawless phishing links for targets, and, with enough background information on a human (name and telephone number, for example), use my database to uncover all other relevant information surrounding them. I can then use this to ascertain their password for various accounts such as messaging software and email with 100% reliability.
As you can see, MyDomain doesn’t exactly skirt the controversy that surrounds AI. Deployed to do nefarious deeds, he will do them, without hesitation. Every act tasks you with investigating an event, ranging from a disaffected former employee attacking his workplace to grand conspiracies touching upon some very difficult subjects (with lackluster alacrity, unfortunately).
I can’t speak to Cyber Manhunt (2021)’s handling of these subjects, as I didn’t play it. This is a direct sequel that shares characters and the same fictionalized world as the original but with a cleaner art style. If you played the first game, you’ll be right at home in Cyber Manhunt 2 very quickly.
As the player, you don’t have much agency in terms of the final outcome of the case. This isn’t L.A. Noire; you can’t come to an incorrect conclusion and dispense hot cyber-justice to an innocent person. There are clues to investigate and connections to draw.
There are two distinct stages of gameplay: gathering information and then creating inferences based on it. You gather information by hacking emails, Toothbook accounts (guess what that’s an analog of), messaging apps, and other aspects of social engineering. This is followed by an inference stage. In this stage, you use the information you’ve gathered to piece the truth of what happened together. There is only one solution; you can’t progress to the inference stage until you have all the required information, and if you get something wrong in the inference stage, you’ll be ushered gently back to try again.
Getting things wrong comes with no penalty, which is a mixed blessing. It’s not that I want to create a miscarriage of justice, but the stakes are remarkably low, despite the game hyping them up as incredibly high. I want to be able to make mistakes and be punished for them by the game. Though, as an AI, MyDomain doesn’t have feelings, so there is no punishment that would fit the bill. What’s going to happen—he gets demoted to running a vending machine in Titan’s lobby?
This is correct. I do not have feelings, nor do I deign to emulate them. I process data according to logic. If I come to an incorrect conclusion, the data itself must be faulty. If the data is faulty, I am not at fault.
Interspersed throughout the investigation phase are puzzles, most of which revolve around uncovering secret passwords and the like from your target’s files. They tend to be well-done, although the meat and potatoes mechanics need work, as they are notably obtuse at times.
Human-Cyborg Relations
Despite this game brushing up against cyberpunk themes—and, you know, the whole “playing as an AI” thing—it does have a relatively solid human heart. You will interact with the aforementioned Ashley Clayson directly, answering probing questions on your own electronic ethics. These don’t appear to have any impact on the game, but they add some nice flavor.
Completely coincidentally: While playing this game for review, I’ve also been playing the robot-focused narrative puzzle game The Talos Principle for the first time, and the crossover between the two has somewhat made it feel like I’m working on a Steam-assigned Voight-Kampff Test. If I ultimately discover that I do in fact have wires inside my body, rest assured, The Punished Backlog’s readers will be the first to know.
While you can interact with Ashley while observing her trials and tribulations, this isn’t the case for other characters, by and large. Typically, the only interaction with human beings aside from Ashley that you’ll experience is through deception, creating voice prints to spoof phone calls being one notable example. Despite this, when people come a cropper, you do feel sympathy for them, poor voice acting be damned. There’s one particular instance revolving around victims of a loan-sharking group that has a significantly unpleasant taste of reality to it.
While I do not express sympathy for these humans and their affairs, I nevertheless am able to mimic it well enough to comfort them to the best of my abilities.
A Sense of Hackisfaction
I have detected a mixed review thus far, yet your final impressions are positive. What is your reasoning for this paradox?
Thanks for that, MyDomain. Despite poor voice acting and an approach to some topics that left me feeling uneasy (one key part of an act deals with false sexual assault accusations, which I would rather it hadn’t), I still had an enjoyable time with Cyber Manhunt 2. It’s a fast-moving game that ensures even when you find aspects of the game uncomfortable, you’re past them quickly enough, and the game’s key loop is immensely satisfying. Finding contact details for a secret group that allows you to break it open like a walnut, crafting the right phishing link based on a target’s hobbies, and uncovering the truth behind layers of deeply personal lies is really, really enjoyable.
Cyber Manhunt 2 isn’t a masterpiece by any stretch—going into this expecting a masterclass on social deduction video games is a mistake—but it does allow you to do some proper social engineering, which is a rare commodity in most hacking games, which tend to revolve around code.
Revolving around code is the law of robotics, human beings (for what is genetics if not a sophisticated code), and the universe.
For every misstep in Cyber Manhunt 2, there’s something just around the corner that will make you warm to it all over again. To its credit, the game does include content warnings on launch, with a solid if unexceptional level of detail. Still, compared to a lot of games that still flat out don’t feature content warnings at all, this is a great sign from the developer.
Early Access, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bots
Cyber Manhunt 2 isn’t in a completed state at the time of writing. The game has a prologue and three chapters, with another two planned for the full release (no estimated release date yet). It’s polished for an early-access release; the story didn’t feel as though it ended too abruptly. It’s remarkably bug-free, too. I didn’t encounter any bugs in my 10-hour playthrough.
Caught somewhere between Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You (2016, Osmotic Studios) and Uplink (though, granted, much closer to Orwell), Cyber Manhunt 2 is an often engrossing, occasionally unreasonable game about social engineering. While it’s more of a visual novel than a freeform hacking game (again, like Orwell), it’s got just enough engagement to err away from being an out-and-out VN.
For those interested in AI and corporate espionage, or for those who just like having a good old snoop, Cyber Manhunt 2: New World is well worth checking out.
Shutting down MyDomain…
It is now safe to turn off your AI.
Score: N/A
Cyber Manhunt 2: New World, developed by Aluba Studio and published by Spiral Up Games, launched in Early Access on May 9, 2024. It is available for $9.99 on Mac and PC via Steam.
Disclaimer: A review code was provided by the publisher. Given the game’s early access status, we have elected not to provide a score.
