Minutes into my playthrough, I’m handed a Death Note and told to do my worst before I get caught. I whip out the notebook and start taking names, but another player sees me and I’m already getting flack. Out of desperation, I start felling all characters on my to-murder list, and steal some IDs so I can write down additional names to add to my spree. “It’s Shannon!” the players shout over voice comms. “Shannon is Kira! Arrest her!” My second-in-command woefully stands by me. “Pass me the Death Note,” he whispers. “I don’t know how to do that yet!” I say.
Such is the joy and fear you can experience in Death Note: The Killer Within, an Among Us-like social deduction game that fits up to 10 players. Recently launched on PlayStation and the Plus subscription service, already Death Note seems to be driving the kinds of bustling lobbies that Sony’s other recent game, Concord, was hoping to capture. Gathering enough players from your own friends to play Death Note can be a tall order (you need a minumum of 4 to play; the game is free if you have the subscription) and what’s more likely to happen is you can slip into a stranger’s lobby and join an already raucous party.
Death Note is an iconic piece of pop culture at this point, and I’ve watched the anime twice, read the manga, and even watched and covered the questionable film adaptation. It has a fun goth aesthetic at times, and lonely weirdos at its core that spread a message that’s still timely. A killer is on the loose, and he can write your name into a book to execute anyone, but a detective is determined to stop him. Also, death gods are real and love apples.
Death Note in video game form flattens much of this, but you can make up for any lost lore with your imagination. This experience is more about the weird shenanigans you can get up to online just talking to random people on PlayStation and Steam.
There are four roles you can get assigned to: L, who is the chief investigator; one of his subordinates; Kira (the killer); or his assistant and paramour, Misa. L and his allies’ goal is to stop the killer, while Kira and his assistant wreak havoc in the shadows and try not to be seen. Depending on your play style, you might prefer one of these roles over the others. I found the investigation roles extremely tedious, but I spoke to one person online who preferred to investigate, and whenever she gets assigned Kira, she says she just stands in one place not moving.
Just a few days after the American election, gamers seemed to be using Death Note to blow off some steam, naming their characters things like Kamala, trump, and JoeBiden1. “I didn’t kill everyone,” I insisted in the game where I did in fact take out five non-playable characters and two actual players, including trump. “It was Kamala Harris,” I pleaded, “She killed trump. It wasn’t me.” “There’s no Kamala Harris in this party,” someone responded to me, clearly trolling. “Have you considered that there’s just an ordinary woman here who happens to also be named Kamala?” In the end, my pleas went ignored, and I was arrested with the Death Note on hand. The game ended.
The nonsense of that moment and the general silliness of my teammates aside, Death Note: The Killer Within is a fine Mafia copycat. You complete small quick-time events to execute a murder or investigate a witness. Anime cut-scenes play out when Kira or L perform a pivotal decision. The tasks you have to do if you’re an investigator are lengthy and are all over the map. With time, I’m sure I could get better at accomplishing them in the tight time frame of a few seconds I was given, but as it currently stands, I’ve never played a game where L just won from completing tasks. Instead, more often, as the strangers in the lobby got to know me better from playing over time, they started to guess when I was guilty and when I was innocent.
“It was Shannon!” The strangers called out of habit on a different round when in fact I was the investigator. Someone cleared my name thankfully. “I stood near Shannon and I still have my ID,” said this person, helpfully vouching for me. “Thank you,” I said, although I still felt that this energy could just as quickly turn around in the next game I was assigned Kira. Online strangers had since tutored me on what to do better next time, so I was sure I’d be ready — don’t stand too close to everyone, realize that people can see when you whip out the Death Note, hand the Note back to Misa in case you’re arrested. I apologized for not knowing all the rules despite having already played through some tutorials, but nobody seemed fazed. They were all too busy debating whether Dragon Ball was the greatest anime of all time.
“Hey, everyone, I’m writing an article about this game. Do you think it’s good?” I said over voice chat. “It’s alright,” people replied. Not exactly a ringing endorsement — but you’d be hard pressed not to find a full room.
All in all, for the anime fans out there, Bandai Namco has made a pretty fun party game. It’s a bit stressful trying to fit everyone into one lobby, but the joys of running amok across town as a known killer, or I guess, if you prefer, as a self-righteous cop, make it worthwhile. I found in my time playing that strangers really prefer if you keep your microphone on and are ready to be communicative. In my play, I would note it was a heavily masculine environment. If you don’t mind all that, it’s fun to do a little online role-playing and maybe even grind to unlock some exclusive skins. One person who I played alongside bragged about her 40 plus hours she had spent in these lobbies, to unlock the cutest Misa cosmetic. “I’ve been here since day one,” she said. “It’s so fun!”
