Recent reviews by ShadowDoctrine

Drug Dealer Simulator 2 looks great and runs smoothly on my PC, but the gameplay is far more linear than advertised. Yes, there’s an open world to explore, but no real freedom—either you follow the narrative’s direction or you do nothing at all.
Considering this is a drug dealer simulation, I expected more autonomy—the ability to set up seedlings, build a proper hydroponic grow, and expand organically. While that might be possible later in the game, early progression feels strangely restrictive. The game allows me to buy everything needed for growing except a basic flower pot, which is locked behind a reputation milestone. So now, I have a bunch of seedlings that I can’t actually grow until I unlock the ability to buy a pot—a situation that makes little sense.

This reputation system affects interactions, purchases, and gameplay progression, meaning even simple items like flower pots require street cred. If this were real life, there might be a lot fewer drugs on the streets—because apparently, even basic supplies need approval.

Despite these oddities, I do recommend the game, as it’s still fun. But if you're expecting a truly open-ended simulation, be prepared for a rigid, narrative-driven experience. DDS2 plays more like a structured crime RPG than a freeform drug empire simulator.

While I understand it’s just a game, I would have preferred a more organic progression system for example, starting with a single seedling, growing it into a full plant, and gradually expanding my business one baggie at a time through offshoot propagation. Instead, the game throws you into the dealer role with little buildup or realism.
Speaking of progression, it feels completely off-balance as you start as a weed dealer with no indication that you’ll be selling harder substances until a sudden milestone unlocks amphetamines. Meanwhile, despite shops selling lab equipment, hydro setups, and grow supplies, you’re somehow the only dealer operating in the region. There are rival gangs later in the game, as missions involve taking out their members or raiding warehouses, but early progression makes it seem like you’re the sole supplier.

Ultimately, while the game refers to you as a cartel, the reality is you’re just an independent distributor—which is fine, but not quite how the game frames it. A cartel implies multiple organisations colluding to control the drug trade, whereas here, it’s just you and your homie in a bunker, carving out an empire alone. There are no rival cartels trying to undermine your own, there is no gunplay as the game has no guns at all. The most violence I've encountered so far has been 3 guys with Machetes and baseball bats who I beat with my fists and some fancy dance moves to avoid their slashes. I nearly died, but came out on top ultimately.

The rivals exist to make the islands feel less empty and reinforce the idea of a criminal underworld but the reality is they are only there to serve a singular purpose of giving you some punching bags to level up your 'street cred' and the occasional mission to take them down, making them more of a scripted enemy than true rivals.

For a game that simulates the rise of a dealer, it’s surprisingly restrictive locking basic mechanics behind arbitrary milestones rather than letting you organically build your empire. The reputation system limits interactions, gating even fundamental items like flower pots, making early progression feel forced rather than earned.
That said, the game has potential. If future updates introduce more freedom, dynamic rivalries, and a less scripted progression, DDS2 could evolve into something really cool..

I'll keep at it and maybe update this review later once I've been allowed to purchase more common household goods LOL.

I built this PC since 2020, reformatted a couple times since then but never had a BSOD issue from a game in the 4 1/2 years, within 2hrs of installing this I had my first, thought nothing of it the PC is near 5yrs old, could be my end.. kept playing, another 2hrs go by and another blue screen. Had a look on google and noticed it's apparently a common thing here something to do with a recent patch, figure it's only 1 thing every few hours it's tolerable, right? annoying for sure having to reboot every couple hours, but not a deal breaker.. So I keep playing until I find another bug, the matchmaking gets stuck on 63/64 consistently.. I thought perhaps it was a player count issue but it was happening while steam charts said there were 84,000 players online. I shut it down, restarted the PC, went back on 63/64 for 15min, closed it, opened it sat here for another 15min 63/64 did this repeatedly until the Blue screen appeared. So ultimately, when I couldn't even play in the couple hours between blue screens, I uninstalled it.

In terms of gameplay it's good fun when it works, it looks good, plays good I had everything on Ultra and was getting 140fps (i have it limited to 140 via Nvidia) it plays smooth, sounds great but between the forced restarts and not being able to get into a match periodically, there's no point continuing at the moment. I'll keep an eye on updates but from what I saw on reddit they don't seem to give a crap despite knowing the issues exist, i'm hoping they fix it because it IS fun, would 100% recommend it if it f*cking worked consistently

At first I thought it was the same as Men of War.. and I was right, but it's slightly better.. I'm not a huge fan of either of them, but they're fun sometimes.

was good at first, bit of fun but then a couple of patches ago it stopped working altogether.. I just get a black screen every time i try to open it.. I kept it installed though thinking with all the hot fixes these guys pump out (and they do, frequently) it would be fixed. Several patches later it still hangs on a black screen. I've reinstalled it a couple times now and none of my other games are having any issues so it's not hardware or driver issues.. Everything is updated and functioning as intended except this particular game. So no, I can't recommend it as it stopped working after 30hrs of play time lol. There's 34hrs logged as I've left it in the black screen infinite hoping it would fix itself at some point. It did not. I wasn't really into it anyway, people were getting in trouble for being friendly in the PVP areas at the time it stopped working so I dodged a bullet there I think anyway, I enjoyed this game for the lone-wolf experience i don't give a f*ck about the group play i got this for the dungeon stuff not for PVP explicitly I am happy to have PVP as an option in the dungeon but being forced to do it is something draconian. I had the most fun working with others against the monsters rather than stabbing c*nts in the back.. I wish i could refund it still. Even if it worked I wouldn't keep playing it. I happily supported the devs with initial versions and DLC/skins etc but as patches progressed so did the issues until ultimately it sh*t the bed. I haven't played (not for lack of trying to) since September i think.. I've uninstalled and reinstalled as mentioned, updated even today updated and tried to play again before writing this.. Black screen of boring.. I'm finally uninstalling it. Maybe I'll come back to it eventually, probably won't though..

Most of my hours are making/ testing a mod for the game.. Worth it though. If i had to go again, 10/10 would learn a bit of French & Python and spend many sleepless nights trying to squash bugs and find where i messed up to get back to where i am now lol. Game is great, Eugen did well, I'm just pedantic and trying to improve where I feel they compromised for 'gameplay balance' reasoning.. totally fair so I'm modding it to give it a little personal touch :)

Just like the first one, love it. Spent 4hrs from first install, haven't finished against Easy AI yet.. Only half way through the research tree.. It seems good, let the AI build up a bit in a 1v1 to see how it went on a 2 player map and although it's not aggressive being easy ai, it still puts up a fight. I took 4 of its planets in a neutral system and it near destroyed my fleets in response.. It defends well and lets you leave the system when you retreat. I mean it chases you out, but not beyond it's own areas.. Feels good. They've done well.

Beautiful game. Challenging, but fun it's not my usual type of game but it's a nice break from the norm. It's like Banished, but prettier. Nice soundtrack too, though sometimes I put my own tunes on and just zone out.. It's got combat too but I play it to chill.. just a decent game overall.

Hard to get into, but an amazing game. I put it off for many years, though after getting a HOTAS joystick setup for DCS I figured I'd branch out into other games and this one is incredibly fun, even if nearly 30hrs into it I'm only just getting started still.. a few game over screens are expected learning something new and you don't have to restart from scratch but I like the whole 1 life thing so that's what I do. I feel that's the intended way to play, otherwise there would be respawns.

Amazing on it's own and with mods even more fun. Definitely not what I was expecting when I bought it. I saw a comment on someone's YouTube video that explained it best, this game is like Eve Online with it's business-like management systems and Elite Dangerous or Star Citizen (though this is better because it's released haha). I find it difficult to learn the ins and outs as I'm not a numbers guy so it can be a bit overwhelming at times trying to build up your empire, also as a sandbox style game you're basically on your own when it comes down to what to do. I like the freedom of choice, not sure what the end-game is like or if there even is one. As far as I can tell the goal, like the ultimate goal is galactic domination lol..

There are a bunch of factions already established but as you're in charge of your own little Empire that grows I imagine you're only limited by your own ambition and I say why be 'one' of the top dogs when you could preside over them instead :)

It's fun, looks nice.. gradually gets harder as you progress, limiting your deployable units to 5 vehicles at a time is an interesting approach though, kinda forces you to go online eventually and play coop. Which Isn't necessarily a bad thing, but at the same time I have been playing these games solo since the first one back in 1999, i think it came out a year before but I didn't have a PC until i needed it for "homework" ha.. Anyway, besides forcing me to coordinate with other people against my anti-social old man personality.. It's decent.

Though a lot of us have been attuned to the mods of the last games where things have been realistically revamped and were hoping for this one to be in line with the modded gameplay providing more realism in terms of what your deployed teams can do but alas we have yet another arcadey style Emergency, the only reason it gets difficult as you progress is because the amount of tasks and rate of escalation increases. Not because the situations evolve to become more complicated, it simply comes down to being restricted to having 5 vehicles deployed.. One cannot achieve good results with 5 vehicles deployed across multiple incidents.. It just isn't possible to control a situation with 5 vehicles in total.. For example, my last play through solo had 8 separate incidents, a couple of fires, a riot, some kind of gang shootout, a car accident etc.. I have 5 vehicles in total to deploy to multiple areas.. Fire spreads, Riots injure people with fights, shootouts injure people with guns, fire injures people with.. well fire.. all the while you are expected to deal with everything in a 30min time frame while being restricted it's like having one arm tied behind your back. I understand it's to push people into playing Co-Op but doesn't mean I have to like it. Overall it's a decent game, just would've preferred less arcade style gameplay and more emphasis on realism.. I'm sure glad this one was free though, that's partially why it's a thumbs up still and not another negative post.

Goodluck with your next game guys, I'd pay good money for a good realism based Emergency game. Similar to the modded versions and I'm sure many others would too. Go back to the roots like in EM4 and you'll make some money out of us :)

Good fun, with a lack of decent RTS around lately this ticks both the boxes for another fun shooter and RTS. Graphics are really nice, gameplay is a little buggy, but with weekly updates and tweaks I can see a future for this. Many say otherwise, but I'm old enough to have played Command & Conquer: Renegade back in the day and it was fun, similar style to this with the RTS base building and on the ground FPS perspective. It's been attempted a few times before but Silica seems to be doing it right, so far anyway. I heard from the community during one of the sessions I played recently it's supposed to be getting some kind of aircraft update in the near future too, that'll give us an added dimension to gameplay. Looking forward to it, though some instructions or tutorials would also be good, took me a while to figure out the Alien team doesn't collect silica like the humans, they have a completely different resource collection method lol.. I'm not complaining i like that kind of variation but it would have been nice to know in advance haha. I got wrecked running out of resources constantly trying to harvest Silica with the Crabs lol.