Starfield, Baldur’s Gate 3, Diablo 4, Dead Space. In just one year you had all these games, and even then – even if you played every single one – it’s not even 0.1% of everything that actually came out. Gaming moves fast, and unfortunately, some releases that perhaps deserve more attention or a longer lifespan end up left behind. But that doesn’t mean their story is over. Seven years since its heyday, one multiplayer FPS, which feels like a blend of Left 4 Dead and Dead by Daylight, is suddenly having a resurgence. With thousands of players now online, it’s proof that comebacks can happen.
You wake up in a dark, baroque, and trap-filled mansion. Around you are five other players. They look human. They sound human. But two of them have a terrifying secret, and if you don’t watch your back and work together with your actual allies, you’ll all wind up dead. This is Deceit, a multiplayer FPS game from 2017 that, up until recently, seemed to have run its course.
Working together, you have to solve puzzles and bypass traps as you navigate your way through three separate zones. At the end of each zone, a blackout occurs, and the traitor players can mutate into their true form to eat the heads of their friends. The infected duo wants to kill everyone else. The rest of the team wants to weed out the monsters and shoot them dead before reaching the end of the third zone. Simple.
At its peak, Deceit enjoyed an all-time high of almost 17,000 concurrent players. But that was way back in 2018. More recently, the player count has dropped as low as 174 on Friday, February 2 – the rolling average in January was just over 500, according to Steam DB. However, that’s suddenly all changed.
Almost 2,500 players have logged into Deceit in the last 24 hours, with precisely 2,159 online right now, as of this writing. Rated ‘very positive’ on Steam based on recent user reviews, Deceit is available to play completely free. In terms of the sudden uptick in players, Deceit 2 launched back in September 2023, and has so far attracted a ‘mixed’ rating on Steam. Potentially, the sequel is less than players were hoping for, and so gradually people are returning to the tried-and-true original. If you want to try Deceit yourself, it’s right here.
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