Deceit, as the name implies, is a game predicated on the manipulation of trust. All of the players are cast into a strange area as some part of a twisted experiment. The “innocent” players are supposed to complete objectives and escape the area. The “infected” players, on the other hand, are expected to hunt down the innocent players and prevent anyone from escaping. The catch? No one knows who the infected are.
It’s a simple, yet intriguing premise. With everyone being a suspect for being infected, the innocents have to use their skills of observation, items and wit in order to keep themselves alive. But the game doesn’t really have an in-game tutorial. Just a video that shows the game’s premise and objectives—and even that glosses over a few details. So below is a list of a few things to keep in mind when entering a game session.
Know Your Role in Deceit
As has already been mentioned, the player can be put in one of two roles: the infected or the innocent. The infected try to kill the innocent. The innocent try to avoid the infected and try to escape. But what does that really mean? What steps should be taken in the game itself?
For the infected, this primarily means evading detection until they can transform into a beast known as a terror. This transformation can be triggered when an infected player’s blood meter is filled, usually by ingesting blood bags scattered around the level. Alternatively, the transformation can be triggered when the map enters a blackout period. (i.e. when the lights go out).
When transformed these terrors have increased health and movement speed. Plus better vision. Which is usually more than enough to pick off and eliminate any innocent player. But it is important to remember that if a player is perpetually away from the crowd, that alone will be cause for suspicion. Same for if anyone notices blood bags going missing.
Innocent players, on the other hand, have the responsibility of ensuring their survival until they can escape. Since transformed Terrors can easily kill innocents while being difficult to kill themselves, this means innocents will want to identify and expel the infected as soon as possible before they transform. That means damaging the suspected player until they enter a bleed out stage and then having several other players strike the downed player in order to expel them from the game session.
If the innocents are either unable or unwilling to vote anyone out, then the innocents need to prioritize collecting items, competing objectives, and surviving the blackout period in order to escape. Most of these objectives include things like collecting fuses, shooting three targets, or standing in a circle for a period of time. Completion of these objectives can result in item rewards, which have a variety of uses.
The Blackout Period in Deceit
Each map goes through a certain amount of blackout stages. As the name suggests, this results in the entire map becoming darker as the result of the electricity shorting out. In order for the blackout period to end, the player will need to find several fuses and place them inside of a fuse box.
However, this blackout period is the perfect opportunity for infected players to transform into terrors. With the map being as dark as it is, and with the fuses likely encouraging players to split up, this is the perfect environment for infected players to kill off innocent players. Infected players don’t even necessarily have to fill their blood meter with blood packs in order to transform. With the virus becoming more and more active in darkness, it is possible for an extended blackout period to trigger a transformation even though the infected player did not touch a single blood bag. These long-lasting blackout periods tend to occur when the innocents try to play it safe and form a temporary blackout club, and stick together in order to combat any threat that comes their way.
It should also be noted that the ability to vote out a player is disabled during the blackout period.
Find and Use Items in Deceit
It has been mentioned before, but one of the benefits of completing objectives scattered around the map is that they give the player items. The use of some of these items is relatively self-explanatory or easy to figure out. The tracker is able to track a person, the lethal injection can down a player, the inspection kit can determine if a player is infected, etc. But some of them have less obvious uses.
This particularly applies to torches and cameras, which are arguably the most useful items in the game. Both of these items can be used to stun terrors, which are naturally sensitive to light. Although of the two of them, the camera is the most effective since it has a wider flash rage in comparison to the torch.
There are other items that can be found scattered along with the map, like armor and ammo, but the most useful items tend to be found by completing side objectives. Since none of them offer negative effects to the player, there is currently no real reason to not pick up an item if the player is able.
Deceit is available on PCs through Steam.