From a fantastic opening credits scene performed by Puddles Pity Party to its final exciting moments, I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar delivers exactly what fans of the first game have come to expect – a campy spy adventure with increasingly deadly stakes, dramatically elaborate puzzles, and lots of physics objects to pretend to eat or simply throw across the room. For anyone with a fondness for James Bond stories or 1950’s noir – and access to a VR headset – The Spy and the Liar is a fantastic choice.
I Expect You To Die 2 is a clever, surprising, and fun escape room-style puzzle game that’s certainly worth exploring. You’ll need to stomach a lot of restarts to see it through to the end, but its best interactive moments and its focus on comfort and ease of access make doing so worth dying over and over again for. Regardless, once I’d unraveled everything there was to see across the three-hour campaign, I was left without much to do except hope that an actual spy came along and flashed my memory, Men In Black-style, so I could play the whole thing again with fresh eyes.
I Expect You To Die 2: The Spy and the Liar hasn’t come to reinvent the wheel and it didn’t need to, what was required was achieved; an entertaining puzzler that you can’t put down. An extra couple of levels would’ve been nice with the possibility of a handy nudge in the right direction yet they’re only minor quibbles. If you’re looking for a VR puzzler that really pushes the technology then this isn’t it, I Expect You To Die 2 is all about playing to the masses and that’s no bad thing either.
Sequels are often expected to be bigger and better, but sometimes a good sequel is just more of what made the original geat. I suppose I would have liked to see Schell Games push the mechanics and missions further, but ultimately I’m satisfied to play another round of cleverly designed spy puzzles. It’s not particularly ambitious, but it’s consistently good from beginning to end. If you liked the original, there’s absolutely no way you won’t like I Expect You To Die 2.
