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Eat a bag of chips. Realize a space pirate was drawn to the sound. Throw an allergy-inducing plant in his face. Pounce him and slam him into the wall. Pop his head off. Smash open a window into space, enjoying the rush of decompression as his head and a dozen assorted objects are pulled into the void.
That’s one more day in the life of Nina Pasadena, insurance agent extraordinaire and protagonist of Skin Deep, an immersive sim from the teams at Blendo Games and Annapurna Interactive.
Skin Deep is a lot of fun, with different gameplay systems to exploit that layer on top of each other. From exploring spaceships inside and out to figuring new and sadistic ways to dispose of space pirate heads, it never gets old and there’s always something else to find if you look carefully.
I’ve had a lot of fun across the 12 hours I’ve played in Skin Deep before seeing the credits, but there are some technical issues that I’d like to see the developers address.
I love immersive sims, and I have deeply fond memories of my first time stalking the streets of Dunwall or exploring Talos 1. I firmly believe this is a woefully-underutilized genre that shows games at the very best of what they can be compared to any other medium.
This review was made possible thanks to a review code provided by Annapurna Interactive. The company did not see the contents of this review before publishing.
What is Skin Deep?
- Skin Deep is a first-person immersive sim.
- It’s developed by Blendo Games and published by Annapurna Interactive.
- Skin Deep is available on Windows PC through Steam.
Skin Deep is a first-person immersive sim developed by Blendo Games and published by Annapurna Interactive.
|
Category |
Skin Deep |
|---|---|
|
Release date |
April 30, 2025 |
|
Developer |
Blendo Games |
|
Publisher |
Annapurna Interactive |
|
Genre |
Immersive sim |
|
Players |
Single-player |
|
Install size |
5.85GB |
|
Playtime |
11-12 hours |
|
Platforms |
Windows PC |
|
Xbox Game Pass |
No |
|
Reviewed on |
Windows PC |
Players step into the bare feet of Nina Pasadena, an insurance commando, someone who is frozen on board spaceships and then awoken in the annoyingly-likely event that space pirates board the ship, capture the crew of cats, and cause general mayhem.
As she does her job, Nina becomes aware of a dangerous, unifying figure behind the space pirates, setting off a silly-but-deadly chain of events.
Nina is always equipped with nothing at the start of each mission, relying on scavenging any trash, tools, or weapons she can get her hands on. That means carefully navigating the ships and finding information without being detected, at least early on.
As the missions progress, the complexity grows, with more dangerous enemies and more increasingly intricate level layouts, alongside additional items that can be cleverly used across the environment.
Skin Deep will likely take around 12 hours for the average player to complete, though there’s a great deal of variation available depending on whether or not players choose to pursue optional objectives and how long they take to explore.
Skin Deep review: Story and characters
- Skin Deep has a comedic tone, with consistent jokes and slapstick humor.
- The plot involves some twists and turns that can be a little ridiculous.
- Nina’s relationships with the various cats rounds out the cast.
While most of the game’s missions take the form of Nina’s day-to-day job, there is an overarching narrative, with Nina slowly uncovering the truth behind a figure working with the space pirates. I don’t want to spoil the big reveals, but it was always amusing enough to keep my attention, even if the main story often stayed in the background.
Outside of those twists and turns, the lion’s share (literally) of the writing is centered around emails, with Nina keeping in touch with all of the cats she rescues. These cats are artists, poets, LARPers, scuba divers, film connoisseurs, and more, offering sometimes-insightful-but-usually-silly thoughts on Nina’s life and predicaments.
Technically you can ignore many of these side conversations, but I highly advise reading through them, as the jokes and mini-stories they tell are well worth your time.
Skin Deep review: Gameplay and features
- As an immersive sim, Skin Deep has a huge focus on different gameplay systems.
- Reading is essential, and there are dozens of different interactions to exploit.
- You’re forced to start each mission from scratch.
Skin Deep opens in a weird way, jumping around frequently without letting me get a firm grasp of where I am and what I can do. Fortunately, things improve dramatically past the tutorial.
As Nina is forced to go into each mission empty-handed, Skin Deep forces you to be creative at a consistent level. The space pirates occupying each ship have heavy weapons and armor, and worse, thanks to their “Skullsaver” tech, they’ll regenerate even if you dispatch them, unless you can find a way to chuck their heads into outer space.
You have to scan and read everything in order to make progress. With time and practice, what first seems like an impossible situation becomes simple. Notes can lead to hidden caches of grenades, codes to unlock trash chutes and airlocks, or even unique, ship-specific features that can give you an advantage.
Each ship is completely explorable, inside and out, and sometimes hopping out of a window or airlock can lead to a hidden route or side objective that’ll make progress easier.
So much of what makes Skin Deep an immersive sim is in the way different items interact with other items, as well as the enemy AI. The space pirates are a Numb Bunch (no, literally, they are) but they’ll investigate noises and break their routines if something strange occurs in earshot.
A loose banana peel could cause a pirate to slip and fall, letting Nina pounce on them and ram them into a loose bulkhead or sink to knock them out and pop their head off. If you know what chemicals will do what, throwing deodorant and loose bolts can cause a devastating chain reaction that clears an entire room.
Each mission even tracks of a log of every specific interaction, letting you see exactly how all heck breaks loose, even when your back is turned.
There’s an overwhelming amount of things to do and ways to deal with threats, and I loved the challenge of finding limited supplies and combining them to get past enemy patrols.
Unfortunately, I did run into a number of crashes that increased in severity as the game progressed. In the final third of the game (across the last five ships) the game began to freeze and crash, first only once or twice per mission, then double that by the end.
I recommend saving frequently just in general due to the way exploring in an immersive sim can go pear-shaped in an instant, but that’s especially important when the game is crashing like that.
Skin Deep review: Visuals and audio
- Skin Deep uses a simple but colorful art direction.
- It looks clean, with easily-identifiable structures that can still look nice.
- The game is built using the open source id Tech 4 engine.
Skin Deep isn’t a demanding game, and that reflects in the visuals, which have a simple art direction using lots of bright colors. It looks quite nice at times, especially on the outer hull of a ship, and I found myself drifting into space to admire the full ship models.
In particular, I admire how everything immediately stands out. Bold purple, blue, or yellow glows clearly mark different keycards, while red lasers are a dead giveaway of an active turret.
The game also has great sound design, with footsteps often pinpointing an enemy’s exact location before they were seen. The game’s soundtrack uses a flurry of retro-synths that are fun, with a particularly-catchy main tune.
Skin Deep review: Accessibility and approachability
- Skin Deep has a number of accessibility options.
- Players can adjust subtitle size and color.
- You can also adjust enemy reaction times and the damage Nina takes.
While immersive sims can be a bit difficult for newcomers, Skin Deep has some useful options that make it a more welcoming experience. Players can completely adjust the damage that Nina takes, which is set to 100% by default but can be reduced down to even 0%, if you so feel like it.
Enemy reaction times can also be adjusted, giving you more or less wiggle room to escape notice.
If you have any kind of visual impairment, you can also tweak the subtitles, changing colors and increasing their size to make them stand out more.
Skin Deep review: My final thoughts
✅You should buy this if …
- You like immersive sim-style games with lots of interacting gameplay systems.
Skin Deep offers tons of fun combinations, with enemies and physical reactions behaving realistically (for science fiction) to the point that every run through a particular mission could play out drastically differently. It’s not a super-long game, but there are tons to figure out and explore that you’ll like if you’ve enjoyed other games in the genre.
- You enjoy fun, light-hearted science-fiction that pokes fun but doesn’t take itself too seriously.
Skin Deep is a lot of things, but “serious” isn’t one of them. If you want a funny game with tongue-in-cheek writing, then you’ll enjoy seeing and reading all the ridiculous things that come with being a deep space insurance operative. There are jokes in here about everything from cloning and metaphysics to LARPing.
❌You should not buy this if …
- You don’t enjoy immersive sim gameplay.
Immersive sims are harder to quantify than many other genres, and it’s often difficult to tell if one game in the genre might click with someone more than another. Ultimately, however, I don’t expect you’ll like Skin Deep if you haven’t enjoyed any other immersive sims you’ve tried in the past, even though there are a number of accessibility options that can make the experience less stressful.
- You have low tolerance for crashes when playing games.
At the time I’m writing this review, Skin Deep’s final third or so is prone to severe crashes. The last five missions in the game all crashed on me at least once, and on two of them, the crashes were frequent enough that I had to start the mission over and/or reload saves. Only you can determine if that’s a deal-breaker, but it’s something to be aware of.
I’ve really enjoyed playing through Skin Deep. Oddly-paced opening aside, it’s a fun experience bursting with ideas that never loses sight of what it really is, handing out new systems and gadgets, continually stacking layers of creativity.
Skin Deep also doesn’t drag on to the point of feeling bloated, and it’ll only take around 12 hours or so to roll credits, though naturally, there is some variation depending on exactly how much you choose to explore across the fleet of vessels filled with pirates and cats.
It’s just a shame that it’s also a game that is prone to crashing toward the end. I hope this instability will be patched in the future, but for now it’s a necessary note to append on an otherwise awesome crock pot of gameplay systems and humorous writing.
Skin Deep is set to launch on April 30, 2025 on Windows PC via Steam.
Skin Deep is a fun immersive sim filled with comedy. There’s tons of interesting gameplay systems to utilize in zany ways, and the story never takes itself too seriously. Just be mindful of crashes toward the end.
