Death Note Killer Within review: Just as planned, more or less

When it comes to games based on anime and manga licenses it’s always refreshing when something weird comes out. Arena fighters are the usual move, especially for properties under the Shonen Jump banner. But it’s always awkward to see Death Note, a series built around bored demons watching humans clash in life or death logic battles, contorted into fighting systems. The main character is a regular dude with a magic notebook, his arms are far too short to box with Goku. That’s why Death Note Killer Within stands out. Released practically out of nowhere, this is a social deduction game, something that resembles Among Us at a quick glance. It has some glaring issues, but lays a solid foundation for something more on the complex side.

Killer Within is presented in a novel way that combines Death Note's 2000s pop-goth aesthetic with a board game. The stage is set with Light Yagami (dude with magic notebook who kills criminals) and L (freaky goth nerd genius who works with police and has comically bad posture) playing a board game that more or less represents their conflict in the Death Note story. The pieces are all heavily-shaded, bug-eyed weirdos, giving a sort of macabre vibe to the silly premise. The pieces are broken into two groups, which then face off in a battle of deduction. Each team has multiple win conditions, but at the end of the day it probably comes down to yelling and voting people out.

Bring a mic or play something else

Therein lies a potential problem. There’s a messy web of factors to navigate to figure out if Killer Within is for you, even if you’re a fan of Death Note going in. For one, this game is almost impossible to play without using voice chat. If that’s an issue for you, it’s pretty much a dealbreaker. The first two lobbies I joined made me feel like I was walking into a prison cell full of hyenas that can speak English but only in slurs. Third time was kind of the charm, but also when I discovered the unspoken chat requirement. This might be a problem for a couple of reasons.

For one, Killer Within is very complicated and moves at a shockingly fast pace. The UI is a mess, the physical gameplay is chaotic, and there’s simply no way to keep up or really contribute using the in-game prewritten prompts. It’s nice that they’re there, but between pulling them up, scrolling to find the one you want and trying to use it, you’re already being yelled at for taking too long to vote.

Two, Killer Within requires ten people to play. So it’s big, complicated, and inherently loud. Even if you’re lucky to have a match without someone blaring music in the background, it’s still overwhelming to have ten people all trying to speak and resolve things as quickly as possible. It’s a lot, and makes trying to figure things out at any other pace a daunting task.

Now, it’s very possible these points aren’t an issue for you, and there’s a lot of appeal to this kind of social setting in a game like this. Among Us is popular for a reason, and that’s because when this style clicks with someone, it’s a hit. But if a player has needs with respect to accessibility or doesn’t like sifting through rooms full of racist hyenas, they should probably stick to Among Us for its more approachable, casual-friendly structure.

Smart adaptation, if you can hang

Learning how to play is going to be tough, no matter who you are. Like I mentioned this is a complex game, perhaps made more complicated than it functionally is due to its overwhelming and disorganized UI. There are tutorial stages, but Killer Within does an exceptionally poor job explaining itself beyond very basic instructions, and it’s weirdly easy to get off track and struggle to understand the task, especially if you’re playing as L. Being an Investigator is much more straightforward, and being on the villain side (Kira or an accomplice) is kind of in the middle.

It is fascinating to see how well the source material fits into this style. You have seven players who are basically bumbling cops, the two geniuses acting as team captains, and one lackey. That sounds horrifically unbalanced on paper, but it works out. The speed and chaos gives a sort of desperate chase vibe to everything, which the player holding the Death Note can easily take advantage of. On the other side, the L player has lots of sheep-herding tools, and there’s only so much Investigators can do outside of their ability to work together and reason as actual human people. Also, when you use the Death Note you get to choose the way your victim dies, which is both hilarious and on-brand.

Almost there

There’s a lot of interesting nuance as well, due to the multiple win conditions. It’s not just Kira trying to kill L or L exposing Kira. Each side also has an agenda fulfilled by tasks, and filling their respective meter up is a win. L and Kira also get special cards that can interrupt the action significantly if they get to use them. This stuff is cool, but I don’t think it actually amounts to much in practice. The simpler goal is the hunting part, and a huge part of that (stealing IDs or figuring out who is stealing them) involves the players bumping into each other independent of their tasks. So that’s what most matches boil down to, in my experience.

There are other speed bumps preventing Killer Within from getting a smooth landing. There’s a battle pass system (of course) with lots of cosmetics asking you to spend money after buying the game. There’s currently only one map, so depending on the release cadence of additional content, variety is a big question mark. Finally, the player count being so specific means a player dropping ends the match immediately with no winner declared or compensation (XP). That opens up the door for griefing, among other potential issues.

Death Note Killer Within is truly fascinating, even to look at from a distance. It’s a smart adaptation of a Shonen Jump manga that is famous for challenging what “Shonen Jump manga” could be at its moment in time. Seeing the characters pop up in games like Jump Ultimate Stars or Jump Force was always awkward, and the other games based on the series remain obscure. So it’s cool to see the folks who made this identify a trend and realize the IP is a good fit, then execute it in a way that both adapts Death Note and have fun with it at the same time. I think it has a pretty limited audience though, as you have to cross several barriers of entry to get what feels like the only way to have a good time. If the gameplay gave more time for its nuances to breathe and shine, was more adaptable to the inherent instability of online play, and was more approachable, there’d be something really special here.

Death Note Killer Within is available now for the PC and PlayStation 4 and 5. A PC code was provided by the publisher for this review.

Lucas White

Contributing Editor

Lucas plays a lot of videogames. Sometimes he enjoys one. His favorites include Dragon Quest, SaGa, and Mystery Dungeon. He's far too rattled with ADHD to care about world-building lore but will get lost for days in essays about themes and characters. Holds a journalism degree, which makes conversations about Oxford Commas awkward to say the least. Not a trophy hunter but platinumed Sifu out of sheer spite and got 100 percent in Rondo of Blood because it rules. You can find him on Twitter @HokutoNoLucas being curmudgeonly about Square Enix discourse and occasionally saying positive things about Konami.