KARMA: The Dark World

KARMA was provided by Wired Productions for review. Thank you!

When it comes to horror games, I can be quite specific with the titles I enjoy. I am not a fan of over reliance on jump scares and I am a sucker for abstract visuals ant atmospheric creepiness. It can be really captivating with realistic visuals, and I love how they can morph and add to the unnerving sense of the world around you. As soon as I saw KARMA: The Dark World, I knew it would be one of the horror games I could get behind, and it seemed like it had an intriguing story along with it. After playing through it, I am left with mixed feelings, even if the story is fascinating deep down.

Without going into too much detail, you play as Daniel McGovern, a Roam agent for the Leviathan corporation. Your job is to dive into people's minds to investigate crimes against the company and interview suspects. This leads you down into a curious case that is somehow connected to you, and could reveal the sinister purpose behind the company and the sentient AI that runs the show.

I love these kinds of stories. A futuristic, dystopian world, sci-fi machines that can do crazy things like diving into people's memories, and discovering what is wrong in this new society. The game also explores some pretty heavy themes in unique ways, making me question my role in what was unfolding and whether my actions were harming people more or trying to get to the bottom. And the core story itself is one I wanted to know more about as I played, which is great for this kind of experience.

However, I was not a fan of how the story was told. The first hour or so almost completely confused me as to what was happening, and while I got little hints here and there, it didn't all click until the end of the game. I don't mind not knowing the full story and having to piece it together as I play, but it felt a little too outlandish to do that in a pleasant way.

For example, one moment, I was in a clerk's office, and then the next, I ran down a hall and found myself in a red cloth-draped room. After running through, I was in the mailing room. I wasn't diving into anyone's mind then, and I am still not 100% sure how this happened. I understand why it happened, since it gave me some backstory on a character, but since I was in the real world, I can't say how it played out the way it did. The ending did help piece much of it together, and I started to understand why some things were off just a little throughout the game, but it didn't answer all of my questions, including the final scene before the credits.

Thankfully, thanks to the gorgeous visuals, I had a lot of eye candy to enjoy. Every scene in the game felt wonderfully detailed and hauntingly beautiful, especially when diving into brains. It got crazy with some of the scenes, but they all had some deeper meaning behind them that related to the person we dove into. The entire scene could change as the story was told, giving us insight into their psyche and showing more unique scenes with completely different art styles than I expected.

Combined with the soundtrack, KARMA has a fantastic atmosphere that I can't help but love. There are some little nuisances I have, like the near-constant intense breathing that comes from the characters in cutscenes, but it does help emphasize the distress these people are in. It's one of the more beautiful games that I have seen recently, and I enjoy the abstract visuals that help emphasize the story beats.

The gameplay is on the basic side, but it gets the job done. You mostly walk through different scenes, solve puzzles, and interact with objects. With KARMA being a cinematic experience, I am not surprised that the gameplay is more of an addition than a main attraction. There are a couple of areas where you do have to run, though I felt the running was too slow. Still, I didn't mind in the end since it wasn't the main focal point for this game.

KARMA: The Dark World - Steam Deck Performance

Going into KARMA: The Dark World, I was wary that it would run on the Steam Deck at all. The minimum requirements ask for a hefty CPU and GPU that borders on being too much for the Deck's hardware. I was a little hopeful, considering these were the requirements for a 1920x1080 resolution at 30 FPS and didn't take upscaling into account, but I was still a little worried. However, after playing the game, I would say it is playable on the Steam Deck, but it does require some compromises.

There are a lot of areas in KARMA that can hit above 30 FPS, with some even getting to 60 when using low settings and upscalers, but there are also enough areas that will heavily drop performance. I noticed heavy drops at the Thought Bureau and in some crowded scenes, and it was enough that I felt I needed to adjust my settings for them.

After some testing, I came to two conclusions. First, we need to force the resolution down to 1024x640 and use SteamOS FSR at Sharpness 1. Both of these kept the game looking decent while also saving on performance to adjust for these drops. There were still some areas that couldn't be fully fixed, but this, along with a 30 FPS cap, kept the game mostly stable with a relatively low battery drain at around 12W - 13W average. This also makes some lines of subtitle text go off-screen, but it wasn't enough to negatively impact the experience.

Second, we would need to use upscalers and low quality settings. I ended up preferring to use XeSS over FSR due to making further away objects look better and the image overall to be less washed out. XeSS 2 on Performance also performed better than FSR 3 on Performance, so it was a win-win scenario here.

Is it the most enjoyable way to play? No. For a game like this, visuals are really important, and big compromises can hurt the experience. However, it isn't unplayable, and if you only have a Steam Deck to play (or its your most powerful device to play on), it can be played and still be enjoyable.

Accessibility

In KARMA, you can change field of view, sensitivity, crosshair size, camera shake, controller vibration, invert the camera, change subtitle language and size, and modify audio sliders.

The game does support 16:10 resolutions and has both cloud saves and controller support. It also recognizes HDR on the Steam Deck OLED.

Conclusion

KARMA: The Dark World is a beautiful and haunting experience that has a bit of trouble telling the intriguing tale that lies within. The world is gorgeous, and I love the abstract scenery paired with the solid soundtrack. The gameplay is on the basic side, but this is supposed to be cinematic, so I am not disappointed. However, the story is a mixed bag. I like the setting and the actual story being told, but I wasn't a fan of the way it was told, which was confusing throughout its run time. It was still worth playing overall, but I do wish it were easier to grasp.

I was shocked that the game was able to run as well as it did on the Steam Deck with some adjustments, but that doesn't mean compromising the visuals to run on the go. If you have no other way to play, this will suffice, but to get the best experience, I recommend using a device that can push the visual quality further.

Our review is based on the PC version of this game.

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