It Has My Face Review (PC)

A blade in the crowd is best suited as a doppelgänger—a cloak-and-dagger assassin who can look like the target, move like the target, and above all, act like the target. Assassins, in general, have that expertise and skill set, whereas I, a ne’er-do-well who lacks the basic knowledge of a sidewalk prowler, have little to no understanding of how one would disguise themselves as another. But in It Has My Face, you don’t need that kind of experience to make swift progress; if you can walk the walk, then you can talk the talk. And frankly, if you can make stern decisions at a swift pace, then weirdly, you can also be an excellent assassin, too.

It Has My Face is a couple of different games melted into the one bubbling pot. It’s a bit like Hitman, what with the disguises and stealth elements and what have you. But, it’s also vaguely reminiscent of Among Us, with its gameplay mechanics relying on quick-fire judgement and assassination techniques. Together, It Has My Face establishes itself as a nerve-wracking game of luck, precision, and strategic timing. It’s Guess Who? with murderous undertones; it’s hide-and-seek with weaponized eyes and sadistic shadow-dwelling tendencies. And frankly, it’s a terrifyingly good time.

A Blade in the Crowd

It Has My Face slots you into the hustle and bustle of a dense crowd—a sprite-heavy world that’s teeming with citizens and, disturbingly, a killer who dons the same attire and hosts the same characteristics as you. With its procedurally generated environment in tow, the game invites you to fill the shoes of a blade in the crowd and participate in a good old-fashioned game of hide and seek, with the goal to successfully eliminate your roaming doppelgänger being your only concern.

The game itself doubles up as a rogue-like experience, with players not only having to identify their clone, but also having to gradually explore the nooks and crannies of the world to unveil weapons, items, and useful upgrades to boost their chances of successfully assassinating their doppelgänger in a timely manner. If the player fails to recognize or eliminate their clone in a timely fashion, then effectively, their chances drastically dwindle, and the game transitions into a heart-pounding series of cat-and-mouse-like chases and daring attacks. The hunter becomes the hunted, and so on and so forth.

There’s more to this: as you progress through the world and unlock more weapons and items, you also begin to recognize specific abilities and upgrades—tools that allow you the flexibility to switch up your strategies and unlock additional modes of play. The concept, again, is incredibly simple. But boy, does it have depth. And that’s something that I’m willing to praise here, because frankly, while the idea is about as basic as they come, the execution and general fixings are stupendously well implemented, all things considered.

Who Are You?

It Has My Face is weirdly terrifying. It isn’t visually horrifying, I’ll admit, but then, its lack of aesthetic detail doesn’t translate into a poor experience. Alas, the experience isn’t mechanically demanding, though it does require you to constantly remain on your toes and keep a second eye over your shoulder at all times. And that’s where the terror aspect rolls into play—in the paranoia that ties in with the fact that everyone has an ulterior motive, and that someone, somewhere, has the ability to slaughter you in plain sight at a moment’s notice.

Unsurprisingly, the procedural process of tiptoeing through the crowd and identifying the changes in the citizens’ behavior is arguably the toughest yet most enjoyable part of the game, truly. Again, while the idea is relatively straightforward, the act of finding your doppelgänger and thinking outside of the box is unapologetically unpredictable and bitterly troubling. But that’s sort of what I love about it: the fact that it keeps you second guessing, and that it forces you to juggle your nerves and limited supplies whilst adding obstacles to your uphill effort to keep your head above water. It’s tense, but to be honest, it’s bafflingly addictive.

It Has My Face comes clean with an online PvP mode, which is a great addition to the basic infrastructure of the vanilla experience, for sure. Granted, it isn’t massively different from the standard mode, and it doesn’t offer a huge advantage over its counterpart. That said, it does generate more content for you to shovel through, and frankly, it makes the process of scouring the world for looming killers both personal and deadly satisfying.

Verdict

It Has My Face establishes an erratically unnerving cloak-and-dagger experience that feels both intense and deeply personal in all the best ways conceivable. Although conceptually simple and lacking in full-fledged gameplay modes, it’s definitely the sort of game that you could quite happily skirt around for a couple of hours and still find something to take a stab at, whether it’s a fresh target to stalk or a secondary upgrade to unlock in its rogue-like progression track.

For a game that’s sincerely lacking in visual depth and aesthetic value, I’m actually quite surprised at just how much It Has My Face brings to the table here. The gameplay, in general, isn’t perfect, and it’s still a few tricks short of a complete deck. But, with thanks to its inclusion of a PvP mode and an extensive array of weapons, upgrades and rogue-like progression tropes, it does provide more than enough to keep you coming back time and time again to formulate new possibilities and synergies to experiment with. That counts for a tremendous amount.

If it’s a twisted version of hide and seek that you want, then It Has My Face is the perfect place for you to wax those doppelgänger tendencies for a while. It’s Hitman with harrowing eyes; Among Us with undertones of blood-curdling violence; and Guess Who? with morbid consequences. If that sounds like your idea of a good time, then you should definitely consider donning the cloak and joining the crowd the next time you’re feeling conspicuous.