Versus Dark, fresh off the likes of the Banner Saga 3 and Pillars of Enternity II: Deadfire, are trying their hands at a multi-player shooting game where you sneak around in the shadows/dark and attack other players. At Sundown: Shots In The Dark uses the dark as well as different light sources to help you get the upper hand on your friends as well as people you probably don’t know online as the game as online mode as well. It has a wide array of weapons that you can unlock by earning experience points during gameplay as well as a few that you start out with from the start such as the shotgun, one of my favorites in the game as it’s pretty simple to control.
Before you start out playing the local play and online play of the game, I suggest playing the training mode so you can get the basics of the controls and how the weapons work. You’ll also earn experience points for completing different training based around the different weapons. The control layout feels simple enough where you shouldn’t have problems but I did find myself using the stronger attack when I wanted to use the other as well as aiming attacks was a pain as well. There is a dodge feature that if you want to get anywhere in the game, you will need to become a master of fast as in training, the only way to get under certain lasers is to use the dodge feature as well as getting away from other weapon fire. One other Major issue I had while playing At Sundown was during the multiplayer aspect was that it was very difficult to actually tell where your character was on the map/area during gameplay even though you could press the “B” button to see a notification icon over your character.
It was still very tough to tell where the character was on the map as well as what direction they were facing on the screen in order to tell what direction I needed to aim. I understand that the idea of the game is shadows and darkness but this issue didn’t have anything to do with darkness, it felt like the screen was zoomed out too far during gameplay and could have been closer to the action so you could actually see where your character was. In a shooting game, you need to be able to see what direction your facing and if you can’t, it’s going to hinder the gameplay aspect and in this case, it did.
You could play quite a few gameplay modes from the start as well as unlock quite a few things with earned experience such as the sword weapon and the Subway level to fight on. Each level has different maps to fight on so you’ll have to learn and master each one if you want to be the At Sundown master! You’ll also have a few modes to start with too such as Death Match, Back To Basics, and Timed Death Match so choose carefully. Death Match has the players’ attack/kill each other, earn points and win the game. Back To Basics is one of my favorites where everyone has shotguns and can’t run or dodge whereas Timed Death Match is Death Match, only timed. During gameplay you can play solo or in teams and if you play solo, you can play with bots/AI that will keep you on your toes.
There are four characters to choose from and play right into the style of music for the game that is part future and part grunge/streets if that makes any sense. Personally that is an interesting combo for music as you don’t expect those styles of music to work together but they do and I’m a sucker for good video game music! You can also play online mode with your friends or complete strangers on the interwebs. You’ll have the options to play 1 on 1, 2 on 2, Free for all, 1 on 1 Ranked, 2 on 2 Ranked, and Arcade mode. I suggest you practice before you jump online just like in any game because if you don’t, you will have a bad time.
To sum up, At Sundown, Shots in the Dark is a multiplayer shooting game that pits players against each other in the dark. It uses different means to mess with the lighting to make it easier/more difficult to see you and your opponent. However, there are many times where it is very difficult to actually see your character; where they are on the map and what direction they’re facing for example. In a shooting game, you need to be able to see what direction you’re facing for precision aiming and At Sundown just doesn’t have it. It’s these reasons that I’m giving At Sundown: Shots in the Dark for the Nintendo Switch a 7/10. I would like to thank Versus Evil and Mild Beast Games for the review code.