On the heels of Hitman: Blood Money came the inevitable Eastern European imitation, Death to Spies. To be clear, I absolutely love Eastern European imitations - in my opinion, they focus a lot more on fun (the only relevant metric) and taking chances with nonstandard gameplay (e.g. Heroes of Annihilated Empire's RTS/RPG hybrid gameplay and The Witcher's rhythm-based fighting) rather than being bogged down with optimizing "presentation" and "conventionality" as we see in a lot of Western video games. In many cases I actually prefer the Eastern European imitation to the original. This heuristic really only applies to games from the 90s and the 2000s from what I've seen as in the 2010s Eastern European game development really came into its own with games like This War of Mine (2014), the Metro games, and Frostpunk. It has been years since I've played Hitman: Blood Money, but I definitely do prefer Death to Spies to that game.
Death to Spies is a ridiculously difficult stealth assassination game where you play as Semyon Strogov, an agent of SMERSH (Soviet counterintelligence agency), recounting various missions to an investigator he ran for SMERSH during the years 1943-1946 after its leader, Viktor Abakumov, was arrested. The purpose of the investigation is to understand how affiliated Strogov was with Abamukov, and if he needs to be arrested/executed as well. Missions range from infiltrating German places of interest to spying on the Allied powers.
Originally in Russian, I played the American version which has pretty bad voice acting. As you are mostly messing around with the German army, all the enemy lines are in German. Because of this game, I've heard the phrases "Was ist das?", "Granate!", and "Wo ist hier" enough for an entire lifetime - these are effectively the only German voice-acted lines. There is little to no variablity in the music: when you are in a German base, some German song named "Bomben auf Engelland" plays. When you are in America, jazz plays. That's basically it.
I previously mentioned this game is difficult. This is perhaps an understatement. On normal "difficulty" (rank 2/4), this game took me 26 hours to beat over 10 missions. Unfortunately, the difficulty is not due to intelligent level design and AI but rather the developers' choice to stuff every map chock full of enemies. This is not insurmountable as towards the end I started to get a feel for the AI which allowed me to complete missions much quieter, but definitely not faster.
The game is like Hitman - from a third-person perspective, you sneak around with an arsenal of interesting tools, adopting disguises, stealing documents, and assassinating figures. The most useful weapons at your disposal are the garrot, chloroform, muffled revolver, and throwing knife - these can all be used to silently take out enemies. I used these items for a vast majority of the game. The game includes some Soviet rifles and SMGs, but there is literally no point to using them - I personally started every mission by stealing a soldier's uniform and having a Soviet weapon dressed as a German soldier draws suspicion.
For the disguises, there are generally three classes - civilian, soldier, and officer. As a civilian, most soldiers will be suspicious of you. As a soldier, most soldiers will not be suspicious but officers will be. As an officer, almost everyone trusts you. Occasionally, there are additional classes - adopting a certain mark's uniform may cause everyone on the map to trust you; if you are inside a hotel or embassy adopting an employee's uniform may get you into certain places. Every NPC has a line of sight. You can get as close as you want to an NPC that trusts you without getting them suspicious, but if you enter the line of sight of an NPC that doesn't trust you an alarm bar slowly increases at the top of the screen. If it reaches the max, the guard will inform his neighbors, who will inform their neighbors, until someone reaches an alarm and sets off the entire map. Once this happens, everyone will stop trusting you and you have to wait about 10-15 minutes before everything goes back to normal.
There are various traps you can set - if you carry a backpack (unless required by the mission, I have never bothered with this as it makes you look suspicious) you can carry mines, dynamite, and you can set up a grenade in a door or a dead body to explode when touched. This has led to some absolutely hilarious situations in the game, as the AI is really dumb so as long as you have a large enough supply of grenades, you can keep sabotaging a door and hiding in a room until everyone in the area is dead.
If a guard is in your way, you can also distract him by whistling or throwing a plate in his vicinity. This will cause him to investigate, giving you an opening. Walking behind a door when there's a guard on the other side will also cause him to investigate, along with loud noises such as gunshots, grenades, stunning, or dropping a dead body.
The controls are a bit wonky. Instead of having keybinds for every action, when you are near something a context menu pops up. You can then go through the context menu options by scrolling and then hitting "e" to do the action. This would work a lot better if the bounding boxes for popping up the context menu weren't so small, and if every action you did didn't require this elaborate, slow animation. This issue is especially bad when you adopt my playstyle of forming "body piles" of unconscious/dead bodies out of sight as the context menu can stretch the entire height of the screen.
The story features enough historical veracity to satisfy anyone mildly interested in the Eastern front of WW2 (like me), but the average American will probably know next to nothing about the background and I'm sure a hardcore history fan could tear this game apart. The entire story is told by the cutscenes which are, in my opinion, very forgettable. This is exacerbated by the fact that each mission took me, on average, a little over 2 hours so it was easy to forget everything in the meantime. Nevertheless, looking online it seems that there is very little information on the story of this game, so for convenience in case anyone ever finds this useful I list them here with a brief description of what I thought of them aided by my memory and a longplay series on YouTube. Since I played this game over the course of 6 months, the details of the early missions are a bit hazy to me and I'm not willing to replay them.
The missions are as follows
You sneak into an unnamed German base, kidnap a Sturmbannführer who has information on the Ferdinand (a novel German anti-tank vehicle), steal some documents, and escape. When I first played this, I was still getting acquainted with the AI's idiosyncracies so I ended up murdering half of the base. Nevertheless, I managed to converge back to the intended path by knocking out the Sturmbannführer and dumping him in the back of a truck, and had a hilarious time running over enemy soldiers while making my escape from the base.
You sneak into the territory of Vitebsk to meet a messenger with detailed information on the German lines in the area. The name is due to the fact that it is snowing mercilessly. I honestly have no recollection of this mission at all, but I'm sure I botched it as I did with every mission in the early game.
You enter a castle in which a busted spy, Boris Polyakov, is being interrogated by the Gestapo with the purpose of busting him out. This is the mission in which I developed my cheese strategy that carried me all the way through to almost the end of the game taking advantage of the extremely stupid AI. I first tried to play the game properly, slowly working my way up in disguises but then I got impatient as it was taking forever to progress while trying to hide from higher ranked officials. At this point, I didn't understand that officers were the highest rank and that adopting their uniform would have given me virtually unfettered access through the entire stronghold or that by playing properly and stealing the warden's uniform and documents would have made my life so much easier. Thus, my cheese strategy was born: I simply found an area with many guards, found the nearest room with rooms inside it, placed grenades on the doors, camped in the innermost room, and fired a shot from my MP 40. The resulting chaos of 10+ guards rushing into the outer room, tripping the grenade, causing a massive explosion, and attracting more guards who took long enough to investigate that I was able to place another grenade on the door was absolutely hilarious and effective. All the dead soldiers gave me virtually unlimited MP 40 ammo which I would use to pick off people that entered the inner room. I also found that climbing to the top of the castle towers via the spiral staircase and camping allowed me to pick off many enemy soldiers as well since the AI takes a couple of seconds to register where gun shots were coming from. In the end, I managed to murder every single enemy soldier in the entire stronghold and was able to waltz out with the captured spy unbothered.
The Soviets have found a mole who was supplying information to the British via a diplomat. You enter the Hotel Metropol at such an occasion with orders to assassinate the mole but not to cause an international incident by scaring the diplomat. After this, you have to replace the leaked documents with disinformation to poison the spy network. This was one of my favorite missions because it was the most "James Bond"-esque. You aren't infiltrating an enemy base but rather a hotel filled with civilians with the occasional soldier/bodyguard. Upon entering this mission, I promptly isolated a hotel employee and stole his uniform; after that, the mission was a piece of cake. I witnessed the information drop between the mole and the diplomat, and I was trying to figure out a way to do the mission the way the developers intended - some weapons were apparently dropped in a random room somewhere, but it was a pain to get to this room. Instead, I explored the entire hotel after stealing a soldier's uniform. As I was exploring the second floor, I noticed that there was basically no one up there. While hanging out in a room, the mark just randomly came up to the floor by himself and entered the adjoining room, so I rushed into the room, garrotted him, replaced the documents, and walked out the door. It was probably one of my most professional missions.
This mission has you infiltrating the town of Yuratsishki in order to assassinate 3 high-ranking German officers on the Eastern front. The developers had cute methods for dispatching two of them - tampering with a radio to electrocute the user and poisoning a bottle of wine, but I couldn't be bothered to do any of that nonsense. Instead, I simply locked myself in a building, set a grenade trap on the door, attracted enemies, and blew them up. I rinsed and repeated all the way through the town until all three of the marks were dead.
Another one of my favorite missions, this one has you infiltrating Los Alamos National Lab to steal America's progress on nuclear weapons for the Soviets. Since America and the Soviets were still allies at this time, you really aren't allowed to kill too many people. This was fine, as all I did was chloroform a guard to be able to walk around almost entirely freely. You have to photograph three posters depicting plans for nuclear weapons, but you can't be seen while photographing it. This all was a simple matter of waiting in a room until everyone left and hastily snapping some photos before someone walks in: nothing too difficult, although I would imagine that the Soviets could have developed a mini camera inside a pen or something like that so I could surreptitiously take the photos. Beyond that, I had to steal some documents in safes whose keys were held by a couple of scientists. This proved to be difficult as I couldn't find a higher ranking official. I unfortunately had to eliminate around 5 scientists and soldiers in a room as I could just not find a way around this, ruining my potentially perfect score. The second key was located on a scientist who was working by himself inside some kind of nuclear centrifuge thingy or something, so that was an easy chloroform. Upon stealing the documents, I was able to waltz out due to wearing a soldier uniform. All in all, not that hard of a mission but still very fun.
I honestly don't remember much about this mission except that it was definitely the hardest one. You are sent to Krakow, Poland, specifically the Abwehr (German intelligence) school in order to steal some documents on German agents and to assassinate the principal of the school and his assistant. This one took me forever, because apparently the Soviets couldn't get me into the school. Instead, I'm dropped on the street in just my civvies with suspicious guards all around. In the end, I got sick of trying to figure out how to get into the school so I used a silenced pistol to shoot my way in. Once in, I stole a uniform from a guard and was able to walk around freely. I garroted the principal and stole his uniform which made the mission even easier as I was able to walk around essentially unbothered by any enemy soldiers. Getting to this point was a huge pain, as the developers stuffed the school full of enemy soldiers. In the end, I had to stealthily kill tens of people which contributed heavily to my perceived difficulty with this mission.
As a continuation of the previous mission, I had to travel to a nearby bridge and blow it up. This bridge was contributing heavily to troop movements so destroying it would significantly hamper the war effort. This task is complicated by an extremely heavy guard scattered all throughout the bridge, in addition to a total of 8 snipers that can one-shot kill you (hence the name) stationed up in 8 towers along the bridge. This mission is where I started figuring out the stealth mechanic. I was able to sneak out in the open past several patrols without killing or alerting them, making it to the first sniper tower. Using some whistling, I was able to coax the guard to the tower away from his post, sneaking into the tower and garroting the first sniper. At this point, I realized that using my Soviet ghillie suit was not doing me any favors, so I decided to adopt the sniper's uniform. Unfortunately, bombs must be carried in the standard-issue Soviet backpack which would draw suspicion among soldiers, so I had to drop it temporarily. I proceeded smoothly in the same manner for the next 3 towers which were on the same side of the bridge. Crossing the bridge proved to be a Herculean effort as there were plenty of high ranking officers. I found that I can take a ladder to the top of the bridge and crawl across unseen among the superstructure. Getting down proved to be an issue, but I found I was able to cheese this by simply crawling forward when the superstructure sloped downward. Despite the structure being super steep, the game didn't register me as falling so I didn't take any fall damage. The animation was pretty hilarious too. It was here that I figured out my super secret tactic wasn't going to work, as a patrol had finally found my previous work. I spent a nontrivial amount of time in this save trying to figure out how to maintain my professional playstyle, but I found it impossible. Unfortunately, I had to shoot my way to the top of the next tower, kill the sniper, and snipe all the guards down below on the bridge. I then moved to the next 3 towers repeating the same thing. The AI is way too stupid to figure out that I was up in the tower quickly, and by the time they figured it out I was able to set a grenade trap on the door; this along with my stashing an MP 40 up in the tower made this part of the game quite easy. Once I eliminated literally all the guards on the bridge, I went back for my backpack with the dynamite. I suffered a near heart attack when the game didn't allow me to pick up my backpack, but for some reason I stood on top of the backpack, applied first aid, and then tried again and it magically worked. It was just a weird glitch. Since everyone was dead, I was able to plant the dynamite unbothered and escaped easily. This mission was one of my regrets playing this game - I really think that if I were to redo it, I could sneak around all Bond-like and silently complete the mission.
This mission has you infiltrating the Moosberg death camp to rescue an informant. You aren't allowed to alert guards at all, as alerting the guards will cause the informant to be executed. Additionally, there are only a couple of heavily guarded ways into the camp. The camp itself is divided into many distinct areas, with only a couple ways in or out of this area which hampers running away when discovered. Luckily, I was able to isolate a single guard and steal his uniform, which let me move mostly unbothered through the camp. The developers included 2 helpful ways to exfiltrate the informant - a doctor's permit and a warden's permit. I accidentally stumbled onto the doctor in the hospital and managed to kill everyone inside and steal the doctor's uniform. This hospital became my "body" dump as I attracted many guards from outside and garrotted them to simplify moving about the camp. I tried disguising as the doctor but it had the same security level as the soldier. I then stumbled upon the warden's tent and lured in a couple of officers with warden's papers that let me transport the informant as well. The officers had a higher security level, and once I got this it was a simple matter of finding the prisoner and transporting him to the edge of the camp. I hid out in a munitions building lured in many guards, garroted them, and dropped them in a pile to simplify matters until there were only two guards between me and freedom. I tried coaxing the informant out, but it turns out he wasn't allowed to leave the area. I simply shot the two guards and booked it out of there without attracting any attention.
The final mission of Death to Spies has you infiltrating a British embassy in order to assassinate an agent by the name of Volkov who wants to defect to the British by handing over Kim Philby and the rest of the Cambridge Five. As the Soviets and British were still allies at this time, you aren't allowed to make a scene or cause any disturbance. After receiving a briefing using a ridiculously elaborate code phrase with the handler, you are dropped at the British embassy somewhere in Soviet territory. There's no immediate danger as everyone on the first floor is friendly and you need a soldier disguise to get onto the basement, second, and third floors. Sneaking into an apparently free-for-all restroom (both men and women go into both bathrooms) I stole an out-of-order sign, ran to the other restroom, and waited for a soldier to come in for a smoke break. I chloroformed him and dumped him into a bathroom stall while stealing his uniform. Hilariously enough, one attempt I forgot to put the sign up and an NPC came into the bathroom, opened the stall I was hiding in with the unconscious body, and proceeded to take a piss while not being bothered with the two men in the stall. Once I got the uniform, I had to grab a weapons dump that was locked in a room, the key of which was held by the head of archives in the basement. It was a simple matter of walking into the archive room and chloroforming the archive head and a random archivist. I had some trouble after this, as the body pile was apparently visible to a single guard down the hall from the room, but not anyone else. I had to experiment with moving the bodies around a bit, but I finally found a configuration that worked; I think it was just a glitch. I unlocked the locked door and got my weapons stash which contained a silenced pistol and a garrot. On the second floor, I chloroformed a random high ranking official and was able to walk around even less bothered. Reaching floor three, I found that the mark drinks coffee and I'm allowed to poison it, but the room is filled. At this point only the mark was suspicious of me - everyone else trusted me which made my life a lot easier. I hid behind a prominently placed piano in the room and found that at regular intervals, a random patron would start playing it attracting everyone else in the room to it, leaving the cup of coffee unmonitored. I simply waited for this to happen, dropped the poison in the coffee, and left the building. The mark died soon after with everyone none the wiser.
After this mission, the final cutscene plays. The investigation has concluded and Strogov is suspicious that they will choose to execute him so he hides a loaded gun under his pillow. Sure enough, as he sleeps someone slowly creeps in, gun in hand. Strogov opens his eyes, the screen snaps to black, and a gun shot sounds. At first, I thought he successfully executed Strogov but seeing as there's 2 sequels, each of which takes place at a later date featuring Strogov I think it's fair to assume Strogov outdrew him.
Game source - GOG (4.99 USD)
GPU - AMD RX580 8GB
CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 3600X
OS - Linux (ran with Wine on Lutris)
Control - Mouse/Keyboard
You really can't go wrong with this game. It's dirt cheap and in my opinion much more fun than Hitman mainly due to its cheesability. I probably won't play this game ever again mostly because I don't really like the genre that much. The sequels are supposed to be more polished, so I may give them a try eventually.