Shadows Are Alive

I came into Shadows Are Alive looking for the same thing I look for in any PvP-adjacent multiplayer: is the cat-and-mouse actually tense, and does the design hold up once you stop being impressed by the premise. The short answer is: sometimes, and not quite yet. This is a 4v1 asymmetric survival game built around a 15-to-20-minute round structure where four players pick alter-ego characters and work through task-based objectives on a randomly generated map, while a fifth player controls The Shift, a dual-form hunter that can move in a physical state or shift into a fast, smoke-like state to close gaps. The Firefighter can blast The Shift's mana and cause temporary blindness, the Lockpicker handles mechanical tasks, the Psychologist manages sanity for the group, and the Inventor locates hidden objects. Each role feeds into the others, so random-queue play with strangers who ignore coordination is basically a loss screen on a timer. The map randomisation is the strongest idea in the game. Room layouts shuffle every match across a haunted mansion and a carnival setting, meaning you genuinely have to re-scout objectives each round rather than memorise a fixed layout. The proximity voice chat is a nice touch for atmosphere and callouts, and the art direction commits to a colourful-yet-grimy aesthetic where vivid player characters stand out against dark, run-down environments. Light management matters too: your lantern is both a navigation tool and a counter to The Shift's vision, which gives individual rounds a resource-pressure feel that a lot of games in this space skip entirely. Here is where the patience runs out. The bug count in Early Access is steep enough to interrupt momentum constantly. Reviewers and community members have flagged geometry clipping, items stuck on shelves, falling through floors, and getting locked inside wardrobes with no out. The tutorial is unskippable and has its own scripting bugs. More structurally, the game requires all five slots filled to reach its ceiling: without a human Shift the predator role falls flat, and The Shift AI is still listed as unfinished in the developer's own patch notes. Finding a full lobby through public matchmaking has been inconsistent, with the community flagging that random lobbies have come and gone. If you do not have a pre-made group of five, this is a much thinner experience than the mode variety suggests. The balancing pass still needs work too. The Shift catching survivors before they finish a single mini-game in the carnival map is a recurring complaint, and map corridors feel tight in ways that limit survivor strategy rather than create interesting pressure. The developer, Futura Games, is clearly active, pushing patches that address wall-clipping, mana feedback, and lockpicking feel, and there is a playtest channel with dense changelogs. That cadence is a good sign. But this is a game worth watching rather than a game worth buying for a solo player right now. For a group that already coordinates in Discord and can staff a full five-player lobby on demand, there is a genuinely fun session game underneath the rough edges. The role synergies work, the random maps keep it from going stale quickly, and playing as The Shift is legitimately entertaining when the netcode cooperates. Everyone else should put it on a wishlist and check back after another few patch cycles. Fred, Scout Team