Reflect Studios is well known for its brand of unique, home invasion horror. Built upon the framework of Welcome To The Game and the more succinct Scrutinized, Dead Signal further tweaks its formula while giving a unique take on the newly popular “spot-the-difference” style gameplay. It culminates in a terrifying thriller that’s taught, tense, and demanding, if not a little safely within Reflect Studio’s wheelhouse.

In Dead Signal you monitor several video feeds throughout the city. Bedrooms, bathrooms, parking lots, torture chambers. You know, normal stuff.

Tucked away in the “safety” of your apartment, your job is to swap between these camera feeds and report any anomalies that show up. Nothing paranormal here, just things out of place or weird happenings. Maybe you flip to the parking garage and see a wallet on the ground, file that under “High Value.” Or maybe you look at the torture chamber and see a severed leg on the ground? That’s “Suspicious”, so file it there. Spot a woman bathing in the privacy of her own home? Log that as “Peeps”.

The list goes on. You’ll find odd packages, signs of break-ins, weapons, laptops left unattended, etc. The first comparison you’ll make is likely to the series “I’m on Observation Duty”. and you’d be right to do so. However Dead Signal has a much more grounded, slow-burn thriller take on the gameplay, to much success.

I was a little worried that this sort of gameplay would clash with the gritty tone and dark, internet-sleuthing vibes established in Reflect Studio’s previous work, and seemed to still be chasing in promotional material,  but it was actually quite the opposite. It feels right at home. You’re never spotting anything ridiculous like a painting that turned upside down or a seemingly random thing like extra silverware placed on a table.

You’re spotting things that elude to petty crimes like opened windows, or people prowling around parking garages. Simple things like suspicious duffle bags or laptops left unattended. Then sometimes you’ll find something macabre like a body dumped beside a storage locker, or a severed hand on the ground.  It gives this voyeuristic feel to the game, which is something always evoked through Reflect Studio’s titles.  Managing that swinging pendulum of mundane to macabre is a key factor in what makes home invasion games so thrilling, and I can safely say Deaad Signal understands this.

You’re also not pixel-hunting on these monitors. Every item or scenario worth filing is tricky but fair to spot. A bag tucked under a bench, or a pile of credit cards on the kitchen counter. They’re easy to miss, but never unfair, which is often a sore point in these types of games.

You must file a certain number of these reports per hour lest you get “terminated” by your employer. The clock is always ticking so you’re encouraged to work quickly. If you’re fast and keen-eyed you can get ahead of schedule to lighten the load of the next hour’s quota, which is a great touch that rewards proficient play.

Dead Signal plays perfectly into that dark web fantasy, one where you stumble across something horrible and can’t manage to look away. You’re watching something you probably shouldn’t, and you just know someone is watching you back. Still, you can’t make yourself stop looking, and so the deeper and deeper you go.

But you’re not only monitoring cameras, you’re being hunted

In Dead Signal you’ll find a returning cast of murderers from the Welcome To The Game series. Reflect Studios is building a little connected world between their games and I’m all for it.

Rather quickly into the night you’re informed by a man named Adam–the chief antagonist in Welcome To The Game–that he’s sending people to murder you. This is one area that I think falters a little bit compared to previous games. In Welcome To The Game as well as Scrutinized, you’re targeted by these dark web hitmen because of your snooping.

You know the risks as you enter this ecosystem and the powers that be come down on you for doing that. There’s a sense of dread and suspense because you know you’re probing too far, peering into the dark web and refusing to look away. You’re ultimately bringing this on yourself.

However in Dead Signal Adam directly involves himself with you for seemingly little reason and commits you to death simply for doing your job. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, but it does cheapen the illusion of mystery just a little.  You must contend with three killers on the outset. Each involves their own mechanics to survive.

You have Lucas, the infamous hitman from past games

He’ll break into your apartment or snipe you with a laser-sighted rifle from outside.  You must frequently check your windows for his laser and dash away to hide if you see it.

But he’s not just confined to the outside. The programable lock on your apartment door is also scheduled to change about every half hour, so you must monitor it to ensure it remains locked by updating the code, or he’ll sneak in and snuff you out with a silenced pistol and a mutter of Russian.

Lucas is great because he’s a tangible, real threat that is designed to disrupt your time filing reports. His gameplay mechanics mostly come into play when you’re actively heads-down at your PC. You can’t get too focused or you’ll lose track of your surroundings and he’ll strike.  Did you forget to re-lock your front door after the code changed? Dead. Too focused on monitoring your cameras? That laser sight is drawn right on the back of your head.

Should you know he’s after you, you need to push away from your desktop, kill the lights, and hide under the bed or in the bathroom. These moments are excruciatingly long because you’re keenly aware of the passage of time. Remember, you’re on the clock and need to meet your quota. Life in danger or not!

He’s a really excellently designed killer that disrupts your flow and forces you to waste a little bit of the night. I wish there was perhaps a way to be more proactive against him, whereas now it’s purely reactive. Maybe close the blinds? Fool him into thinking you’re not home? I’d love to see the punishment of lost time as the result of poor planning on my part, as opposed to an arbitrary visit from Lucas that I have no way of mitigating. One nice touch is if you kill the lights in your apartment, he’ll hang around for a shorter amount of time. I’d have loved to see more tactics to employ like that.

Then there is Noir, the enigmatic duo of sneaker-wearing cultists

I love these guys.

They show up like a flash of lightning, appearing at random and seemingly anywhere they want. They stand there, arms crossed, waiting to be discovered. The two Noir each have their own honor system that they absolutely must obey. If you abide by their rules, they won’t hurt you. But make a mistake? You’re getting murdered with a hammer.

Their rules involve how you approach and interact with them. For the male, you must flash him with a flashlight and face away, for the female, you must get very uncomfortably close and look away.

These two function to disrupt the gameplay while you’re literally AFK and moving around your building.

Another part of your job is delivering packages around the apartment. Your Shady boss will air-drop packages to the roof of your building and you’re tasked with delivering them to various tenants. This is where you’ll mostly encounter Noir. They’ll be standing on the roof or at the end of the hall and you need to deal with them before proceeding.

Another vicious design choice to burn time is the Noir’s hatred of running. Should you run near them, you’ll be killed on sight. This creates some great tension as you make deliveries because you’re punished for trying to hurry. You have no choice but to walk lest you want to quickly end your game.

Then there’s Mr. Delfalco, a new killer on the scene

He acts as a sort of hybrid of Lucas and Noir, showing up later in the night and hunting you with more fervor and intent than either of the other killers.

Mr. Delfalco will actively chase you around, which is a terrifying new addition. In Welcome To The Game as well as Dead Signal, the other killers can be evaded or dealt with by utilizing specific methods. Mr. Delfalco circumvents this by actively chasing you around the apartment. Now, rather than being able to rely on a surefire method to survival, you have to improvise.

While it always remains tense, a certain level of predictability comes from the other killer’s appearances–you’ve been through this before, you know how to handle it–but with Mr. Delfalco there’s a level of unpredictability and improvisation that you need to survive.

It’s the perfect switch-up to round out the cast of killers, and I think he’s a great addition I hope sticks around in future games.

It all comes together in an incredibly tense gameplay loop

It’s rather insidious how focused you get in scanning the cameras. You find yourself inches from your screen, squinting for any change as you flip from channel to channel. You get tunnel vision as it’s twenty-past eleven PM and you only have one report filed for the hour.

It’s disarming, and you forget about your surroundings. Suddenly you find your apartment door unlocked and a message from your boss telling you to deliver a package and you’re late on that, too. On top of everything else, maybe your satellite dish suddenly needs calibrating up on the roof, and you realize you’re swamped with tasks and little time to do them.

Everything is designed to waste your time, but if you’re careless, you’re dead. It puts this awesome and stressful expectation on the player to remain vigilant and focused at all times. I love this, as it gives this feeling of juggling multiple balls at once. You have your reports to manage, your deliveries to make, and the security of your home to check on all competing for your attention. It feels like resource management, with all the accountability of how the time is managed put on the player.  If you falter in any one of those areas, it’s game over.

Dead Signal is a fantastic home invasion thriller

It’s hard to find a developer in the indie scene who knows the genre better than Reflect Studios. There is a staggeringly high level of production value in every aspect of the game. The graphics are sharp, the lighting is moody and warm, the world is fully realized and the scares are measured and delivered only after a painfully long buildup of paranoia.

The gameplay loop is clear and fair, fun to master, and stressful as all hell as the night goes on and the killers close in. The overall offering might feel a little scaled back compared to previous entries, but that’s not a bad thing. I think a smaller scope and shorter runs make Dead Signal more approachable than Welcome To The Game, and the report filing feels slightly more engaging than pixel-hunting on the dark web.

This an incredible game, and one worth checking out for a tense, terrifying home invasion experience.

You can buy Dead Signal on Steam.