Skin Deep review: Cat-tastrophe

Before Skin Deep came across my desk, I had never even heard of it. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong, but that I went in completely blind. What is this game? Who knows, let’s just boot this bad boy up and see what happens. That’s probably for the best, because “immersive sims” don’t do a lot for me, and that’s exactly what Skin Deep is when you boil it down. However it’s also weird, scaled-down, relatively simple and fast-paced, and also, weird. It’s almost like someone took Deathloop and tossed it into a blender with a bunch of YouTube cat video compilations.

Cats in space

The world of Skin Deep is a little confusing, but in a fun, silly way. Cats seem to have evolved to a higher tier of sentience, and are capable of things like speech, sending emails, and operating space ships. But they’re still cats, so humans doing things like space piracy have no problems scruffing them, locking them in little cat-sized boxes, and taking over their ships. Therefore it’s important to have insurance policies, and that’s where you come in. As Nina Pasadena, an “insurance commando,” your job is to infiltrate compromised cat ships, take out all the pirates on board, and of course rescue the kitties.

Unfortunately, Nina isn’t exactly Duke Nukem, and when she arrives on site she isn’t exactly armed to the teeth. She doesn’t even wear shoes for some reason! So in order to complete the mission, your most powerful tool is resourcefulness. You’ll be using whatever you can find in order to cause Looney Tunes-flavored chaos, as goofy objects like banana peels and tins of ground pepper are some of your most effective options. Meanwhile, you’ll be just as worried about stepping on broken glass as you are being spotted by the pirates. It’s an odd situation for a game like this, to say the least.

Ain’t I a stinker?

Skin Deep’s whole deal is “what if an immersive sim was slapstick comedy instead of ultra serious pop fiction?” And after a while I really started to dig it. You still have to deal with that genre’s inherent insistence on fumbly mechanics for the sake of “options,” but at least it’s silly and funny the whole time. The best part is the enemies are “immortal,” thanks to a device that yanks their heads from their bodies to revive them. So to truly defeat them, after hitting them with pepper, pouncing on them while they’re sneezing, then banging their heads into countertops, sinks, and monitors, you have to snag their heads. They yell and jeer at you from your inventory, threatening to give your position away, until you either flush their heads down a toilet or toss them out into space through an airlock. It’s an incredible bit.

The problem is things get annoying the more Skin Deep ramps up its challenges. Combat, from shooting guns you find to throwing random objects and people, is a last resort that usually fails. So of course as you get closer to the end, you have to deal with more heavily-armored pirates that require more muscle to deal with. These parts usually end up with tossing grenades, scrambling with the most awkward shotgun in videogame history, or trying your luck hitting and running through vents. Skin Deep is great when you’re goofing around with banana peels and freeing cats. When you’re escaping from the ship and having to use real weapons, Skin Deep loses a lot of its charm.

Desk work

Between levels, Nina hangs out in a sort of single-room hub, where she can play minigames, listen to hidden cassette tapes, comply with training requirements, or answer emails. Every time you rescue a cat, they start a new conversation with you. These are pretty cute as well, with each cat having some sort of wacky gimmick of a quirk, like a goth one who likes horror movies, or a skateboarder who doesn’t understand humans and cats can’t do the same kinds of tricks. This stuff adds to the charm as well, even if it’s just blocks of optional text you can read on the side that don’t impact the game otherwise.

Skin Deep is a neat, little game that takes recognizable gameplay conventions from immersive sims and repackages them into something smaller and sillier. Rather than gathering garbage, crafting endlessly, listening to pretentious audio logs and grappling with awkward combat physics in dark corridors, you’re doing similar things but in a framework more like The Three Stooges in colorful boxes with weird, blocky cats everywhere. It’s familiar yet distinct, and legitimately funny despite repeating the same three or so jokes over and over again. Combat’s still fumbly, though, and the parts asking you to do more of that are a buzzkill.

Skin Deep is available on April 30, 2025 for the PC. A 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.