PvP Spy Romp 'Deceive Inc.' Joins the Ranks of Live-Service Games Spared a Final Death

I only had a few chances to play Deceive Inc. since it launched in 2023, but it was a great little game. Sweet Bandits Studios made a frequently hilarious retro-futurist spy sandbox, as up to four teams of rival disguised spies competed to grab and extract a target from a bustling environment full of NPCs and security systems. Despite good reviews and an adoring fanbase, it still wasn't enough to keep the studio afloat, and while the servers were still up for the time being, it seemed the game's days were numbered. Good on Morgan Park over at PC Gamer for spotting that (befitting a master spy) the game has wriggled free of the laser creeping closer to its vitals.

In a surprise development blog, some former Sweet Bandits have got the gang back together for One Last Job. That job being porting the game's multiplayer back-end to interface with Steam's native APIs and community-run servers, ensuring that the game should be able to run indefinitely so long as at least somebody is holding a torch for it. The process is still ongoing, but when finished, they aim to have everyone's account progress, unlocks, and stats maintained and moved over to the new framework.

They also mention that while they're not in a position to offer an official modding toolkit and sharing services, a key goal of the back-end overhaul for the game is to "remove as many technical barriers to modding as we reasonably can", hopefully opening the door to future community-run expansions.

On a tangential note, I also noticed that defunct arcade platformer Killer Queen Black, previously delisted, is now up on Steam once more as a free title. While normally limited to local-only play as its multiplayer servers are sadly dead, the developers quietly released an 'underground' branch of the game capable of hosting private server instances. Manual IP joining and no matchmaking, sadly, so you'll need to bring your own buddies, but it's another excellent multiplayer game that you can just play free!

But back on topic, Deceive Inc.'s servers are still up and running, with the new community-focused back-end work currently ongoing. No date on when it'll be done, but the game should be available to play and fully functional for the foreseeable future. The game is still available for £17/$20, and frequently sees steep discounts, so slap it on your wishlist for a quick extraction next time. And again, thanks to the team formerly known as Sweet Bandits - work to preserve games like this is important and frequently unappreciated.