ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE
ACE COMBAT 8: WINGS OF THEVE
Game
Game2025
Skin Deep
Developer Blendo Games
Skin Deep is a first-person shooter science fiction video game developed by Blendo Games and published by Annapurna Interactive, released on 30 April 2025 for Windows. The game follows an open-ended structure, heavily influenced by immersive sim mechanics, which allows players to approach missions using various playstyles. The player assumes the role of Nina Pasadena, an "insurance commando" who is cryogenically… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
366 reactions from 3 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Mastodon) · newest Nov 2, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
90
LovedLoved
204 positive · 22 negative
95% range 86–93%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 204 | 22 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 59 | 1 | 66 |
| Mastodon * | 7 | 0 | 7 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
1,462 of 1,542 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
90% recommend · 196 yes, 21 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 217 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (1,690 of 1,792 positive).
Players praise Skin Deep as a creative and funny immersive sim with a quirky, Kojima-esque style. [1][2][3] Many note its bite-sized, highly replayable levels and clever environmental mechanics. [1][4][5] Some reviewers find it gets repetitive in the second half and ends too soon. [1][6][7]
Liked
Representative posts
- [11]
I really liked the idea of this game, multiple creative ways to solve combat puzzles. Realistically, levels have MAYBE 2 choices of how to actually solve it. You have to do the same things in the same sequence just do you sneak or kill your opposition. There's no mid mission save which just seems like a mistake. Most stealth games know its frustrating to have to keep repeating a boring section of a game to get to …
- [1]
This is a stealth game made entirely out of quirky Kojima-esque mechanics that'd give youtube video esseists a throbbing hard-on. Way too many cool ideas put into flesh, and way too polished, for a tiny dev team. A genuine effort to push stealth genre forward past stale AAA tropes. Every mission is bite-sized, highly replayable, has unique gimmicks and overall well put together. The only real downside is the game …
- [2]
A very funny, clever and cute immersive stealth sim where you travel to different themed ships to rescue blocky little cats from space pirates. I love games which reward experimentation and it's pretty awesome when the game's systems react to cause chaos. The game lets you take your time on how you want to take out your enemies. Crack a gas pipe and then throw a lighter at it to set them on fire, override the …
- [13]
Skin Deep is a short and mostly sweet immersive sim set on a succession of small self-contained spaceship levels. It has a fun sense of humor infusing both narrative and mechanics. If you like immsims like Deus Ex and Prey and Dishonored, you will almost certainly find Skin Deep to be worthwhile. That said... If you haven't played those, I don't think this is an ideal introduction to the genre. And if you didn't …
- [7]
A wonderful and uncharacteristically short and tight immersive sim — a collection of small (30-40 minutes each) levels centered on achieving objectives via the typical imsim combination of stealth, vents and workplace hazards. Comes with funny writing and a smart approach to getting game mechanics across. Does get a bit repetative in the second half (there are only so much ways to dispose of enemies and the levels …
Summarised from 34 of the 339 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 12, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
Players who liked Skin Deep talk about creative and funny immersive sim with unique mechanics; those who didn't talk about gets repetitive in the second half. Which matters more to you?
Critics, per Wikipedia
According to review aggregator Metacritic, Skin Deep received "generally favorable" reviews. Fellow review aggregator OpenCritic assessed that the game received strong approval, being recommended by 73% of critics. Reviewers generally praised the game's open-ended immersive sim design. Giovanni Colantonio of Digital Trends enjoyed the "emergent moments of chaos" from the use of the game's objects. Describing the game as the "best and deepest stealth sandboxes I've ever played", Morgan Park of PC Gamer stated the item-based design allowed for "complex simulation" and pushed him to "intimately learn spaces and look for utility in mundane objects". However, other reviews critiqued the game's…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 366 · most liked first🎉 Skin Deep is RELEASED! 🎉 👉 Steam store.steampowered.com/app/301280/S... 👉 Epic Games Store store.epicgames.com/en-US/p/skin... This game was made with a crew of wonderful folks: blendogames.com/skindeep/cre... We hope you enjoy Skin Deep! ✨
neutral · AI labelView post →Hi, I'm Brendon 👋 We're releasing our game SKIN DEEP next month! Here's the folks making the game: blendogames.com/skindeep/faq... Wishlist here: store.steampowered.com/app/301280/S...
neutral · AI labelView post →I genuinely did not like the game. Additionally, Annapurna is owned by the Ellison family... the largest private donors to the IDF in the world.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Skin Deep ✨ BEST IMMERSIVE SIM OF THE YEAR ✨ Thanks PC Gamer! 👉Get it! store.steampowered.com/app/301280/S... 👉Skin Deep was made by insanely talented crew of folks; this game only exists because of them: blendogames.com/skindeep/cre...
neutral · AI labelView post →Skin Deep is out!!!!!! This was an incredible game to work on and I'm super proud of what we created. Please play it and leave a review and all that jazz!! store.steampowered.com/app/301280/S...
positive · AI labelView post →Here's a new video about Skin Deep. Think of the title/thumb as daring the YT audience to check out what I think is one of the best games in years, while also trying to make sense of the challenges currently facing indie devs/critics in the most heavily industrialised artform of all. Hope you enjoy!
positive · AI labelView post →I wouldn't say it's the BEST (only because its peers are often SO wildly different) but Skin Deep is a heavyweight amongst a whole wave of great indie immersive sims It fixes the problem of 'I can't do violence because the game will say I'm mean!' by making the enemies immortal comedy punching bags
positive · AI labelView post →📌 I'm a game designer and writer. Previous work includes: - Skin Deep (Additional writing) - Fallen London (Lead designer) - Neo Cab (Narrative Design) - Pathologic 2 (Localization writing) - Where the Water Tastes Like Wine (Writing) ...as well as op-eds, criticism, and interactive fiction.
neutral · AI labelView post →Skin Deep is one of our favorite games of the year so far, a kind of comedy Metal Gear Solid in space. www.pcgamer.com/games/fps/sk...
neutral · AI labelView post →Hi all - join the Skin Deep design crew for a developer commentary playthrough of our game, May 6 @ 3:30pm PT Featuring: ✨Brendon Chung @blendogames.bsky.social ✨Suzanne Will @binarypartitioned.space ✨Tynan Wales See you there! www.twitch.tv/blendogames
neutral · AI labelView post →The new game from Blendo, Skin Deep is coming next month! A wildly inventive immersive sim where you play as security operative Nina Pasadena and rescue cats from space pirates, and there's an awesome demo for you to try! Check it out. store.steampowered.com/app/301280/S...
neutral · AI labelView post →Skin Deep is on sale, 35% off! Get our cool video game 😺😺😺
neutral · AI labelView post →TONIGHT AT 8PM ET! We're rescuing cats in space in super stylish sci-fi stealth game SKIN DEEP! twitch.tv/secretsleepoversociety
neutral · AI labelView post →Reflecting on this year's game releases, and quite honestly? I only got to play maybe a quarter of the games I was interested in, it's been such a bounty of magnificent looking indie games. Still haven't played Hades 2 or Delta Rune or Skin Deep yet, it's truly been an avalanche of releases. Absurd!
neutral · AI labelView post →In the year 2025 I was really into this game Skin Deep and played it 1,904 times (I was making this game)
positive · AI labelView post →Finished Skin Deep... amazing game end to end, demonically funny, incredible level design. Up there with any immersive sim I care to name.
positive · AI labelView post →Skin Deep Demo is up on Steam buff.ly/41cc0D5 game releases April 30th
neutral · AI labelView post →The newest adorable member of my scale model video game goo shelf is the Walkie Talkie item from Skin Deep. It's roughly 1:4 scale, but that's just a wild guess because it's a fictional object to begin with.
neutral · AI labelView post →Skin Deep is amazing. It’s an incredible game that fully understands that if you give players tools like banana peels, black pepper, explosive hand sanitizer, toilets, etc that they can use to fuck with NPCs, then players will fuck with NPCs. Also you rescue cats:
positive · AI labelView post →Damn is that Nina Pasadena from the hit game Skin Deep now 20% off in the Steam Summer Sale???? www.endlessmode.com/video-games/...
neutral · AI labelView post →Reviewed Skin Deep for @theverge.com, a manic hyper-pop reimagining of classic immersive sims. Chung and the gang kinda knocked it out of the park. www.theverge.com/games-review...
positive · AI labelView post →Reading Skin Deep reviews this morning has been a thrill! People seem to be receiving this game in exactly the way we intended (which is: as the world's most advanced systemic toilet destruction sandbox)
neutral · AI labelView post →Skin Deep is 20% off in the Steam Summer Sale!! play our video game!! tell your friends!! store.steampowered.com/app/301280/S...
neutral · AI labelView post →I'm only a little ways in and need to echo that Skin Deep is an honest-to-god top tier comedy game. Laugh-out-loud moments all over.
positive · AI labelView post →I still haven't played the full game (soon, soon!) but the demo for Skin Deep impressed me a lot.
positive · AI labelView post →With the sheer amount of games I'm interested in releasing this month, I gotta be extra picky about which ones I can possibly play, it's been an avalanche. The 2 I'm most looking forward to though are Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and the new Blendo game Skin Deep. Truly a stacked release schedule.
neutral · AI labelView post →Skin Deep is that rare game whose madcap gameplay you can explain in very emotional heuristic ways and it turns out it's EXTREMELY accurate to what you actually do in the game itself
positive · AI labelView post →it's just a few days to go til Skin Deep and I understand why people use the word 'launch' to describe video game releases now. it does kinda feel like I'm watching something recede out of my reach at impossible speeds on a conflagration of liquid oxygen
neutral · AI labelView post →2. Skin Deep Another game I had been looking forward to, loved the demo, and bought it the moment it came out, only for me to be too damn swamped with other games constantly coming out that it too fell to the wayside. There's a pattern here, isn't there?
neutral · AI labelView post →I'm gonna speak at Game Devs of Color this year! :DDD For this talk I'm focusing on the trailer for Skin Deep by @blendogames.bsky.social. Everything from getting the job through finishing it up. It'll be a whirlwind walk through my process for making a trailer.
neutral · AI labelView post →Hi all - join the Skin Deep narrative designer Laura Michet @lmichet.bsky.social & me for a developer commentary playthrough of our game, May 12 @ 3:30pm PT Featuring: ✨Laura Michet @lmichet.bsky.social ✨Brendon Chung @blendogames.bsky.social See you there! twitch.tv/blendogames
neutral · AI labelView post →Brendon, Tynan and I were on a podcast about Skin Deep!! Come for the development anecdotes, stay for hot tips on how *not* to convince your parents to let you play Quake
positive · AI labelView post →This is a great thread 🙌 Derek made our Skin Deep release trailer and was a joy to work with. The prep work he did to dig in and deeply understand the game was amazing, and made the trailer truly sing imo (the trailer: www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SvX... )
positive · AI labelView post →My favorite game of the year, maybe the decade. If you like cats or comedy or immersive sims or stealth games, you're going to like Skin Deep.
positive · AI labelView post →I really liked the idea of this game, multiple creative ways to solve combat puzzles. Realistically, levels have MAYBE 2 choices of how to actually solve it. You have to do the same things in the same sequence just do you sneak or kill your opposition. There's no mid mission save which just seems like a mistake. Most stealth games know its frustrating to have to keep repeating a boring section of a game to get to the part that is actually difficult. I wanted to like this so bad but it's just…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Skin Deep is still my favorite game I've played this year. And yes, it is VERY funny. It's also a fantastic distillation of immersive sim mechanics into bite-sized levels that are so replayable. Also it's very funny.
positive · AI labelView post →NEW DEV DIVE! In this interview with @blendogames.bsky.social and @lmichet.bsky.social we discuss the collaborative process and allowing comedy informing design- two things that made their new game Skin Deep as unique and excellent as it is. www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8g-... #Indiegames #gamedev
neutral · AI labelView post →SKIN DEEP is finally nearly out! I've played it it's gonna be great! Finally a game with levels by the excellent @binarypartitioned.space! And the other folks are all rad too! This is most exciting www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SvX...
positive · AI labelView post →A lot of people wrote for Skin Deep! You will see stuff in the game from @guattari2600.bsky.social @writnelson.bsky.social @brunodias.bsky.social @bravemule.bsky.social @thecharleswebb.bsky.social @kennybaclawski.bsky.social (and several other friends who do not have accounts on this website)
neutral · AI labelView post →I like immersive sims, but you need tactical freedom to enjoy one. Here, we have a sequence of small and short levels with a restricted progression which either reduces your options to the only available one or the only sensible one. I carried on for some time, hoping for more interesting levels later, but none came. I liked the style, though.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a stealth game made entirely out of quirky Kojima-esque mechanics that'd give youtube video esseists a throbbing hard-on. Way too many cool ideas put into flesh, and way too polished, for a tiny dev team. A genuine effort to push stealth genre forward past stale AAA tropes. Every mission is bite-sized, highly replayable, has unique gimmicks and overall well put together. The only real downside is the game kinda ends right after it gets challenging. 2 more end game missions would make…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Finished Skin Deep. Touching end to a wonderful game. Also a sequence that hit a little closer to home thanks to my experience in the game industry. You should play it, easily in my canon of best imsims. store.steampowered.com/app/301280/S...
positive · AI labelView post →Two games out this week have firmly lodged themselves into my brain as the year's best. Maybe even all-timers. One of them is SKIN DEEP. If you have not played a Blendo game before, I feel sorry for you. Nine years since Quadrilateral Cowboy. This is a gift. store.steampowered.com/app/301280/S...
positive · AI labelView post →You should all download the demo for Skin Deep
positive · AI labelView post →Hey indies, share an out of context clip or screenshot of your game in the comments or quote repost! We'll go first with Skin Deep.
neutral · AI labelView post →It's... ok? It doesn't live up to the hype. It's very easy. levels are very short (featuring 1 or two gimmicks) and feel like an extended tutorial.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Have you ever thought "Boy, I wish Die Hard was set in space and had you rescue cats instead and that the terrorists were pirates?" Well if you have that very specific fantasy or if you just enjoy stealth/immersive sim games, you'll like this one.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Starts off as a fun if bit janky experience of sneaking about and freeing cats. I'd say by about 60%, the game started feeling a bit samey, gameplay wise. That said, Blendo has as always managed to make a quirky world which is fun to explore. The settings may be limited to mostly just space ships this time around, but each ship has its own function and personality, and in most there are entertaining notes left behind hinting at fun goings-on in these spaces. If you enjoy stealth. Have…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I did a teeny-tiny bit of guest writing for Blendo Games' SKIN DEEP, but please believe me that this game is an incredible piece that I've been anticipating for years.
positive · AI labelView post →In case you're wondering how far in advance I've planned some parts of Skin Deep, here's a drawing of Kevin from 2009. I play the long game, for better or for worse.
neutral · AI labelView post →I played through the Skin Deep demo and it's fantastic, really looking forward to the full game! store.steampowered.com/app/301280/S...
positive · AI labelView post →Here’s my blog post about making the trailer for Skin Deep by @blendogames.bsky.social !
neutral · AI labelView post →Edge Mag PC Game of the year!!! Spooky Express! Runner Up: Skin Deep!!!
neutral · AI labelView post →Skin Deep is a great experience. If you enjoy the open ended gameplay of games like Prey (2017), Dishonored, or any of the other descendants of the "Looking Glass" ideology of games, you should check this one out. While the tone is very humorous and lighthearted compared to most games in that vein, the gameplay is pure immersive sim. The story is no slouch either. It's not super high stakes or anything but it's done well and I found myself invested in the story of Nina Pasadena. My only small…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game Devs of Color is this week!!! My talk making the trailer for Skin Deep by @blendogames.bsky.social is Wednesday at 1:45p Eastern time. This one is an extremely tight 30 min which starts with me getting the job and ends with final capture (and lots of unused takes 😅)
neutral · AI labelView post →See also Skin Deep using a modified Doom 3 engine. That was one of my favorite games last year, and I never once thought about the tech. It did exactly what it needed to do for the game they made. (Also, PLAY SKIN DEEP, IT'S SO GOOD, Y'ALL) store.steampowered.com/app/301280/S...
positive · AI labelView post →This 26.7 second any% speedrun of the Periwinkle level in the Skin Deep demo is currently the fastest time on the game: www.youtube.com/watch?v=utG2... www.speedrun.com/Skin_Deep/ru... (the demo in question: store.steampowered.com/app/3483180/... )
neutral · AI labelView post →Skin Deep from @blendogames.bsky.social is nominated for Excellence in Game Design for the 2026 Independent Games Festival Awards. And, in our eyes, the undisputed winner of “Most Effective Use of Pepper in a Video Game.”
neutral · AI labelView post →hey I forgot to mention it, but I beat Skin Deep and I really enjoyed it. it was the first immersive sim I've played since Arkane Austin shut down, and getting into weird scrapes brought about by it's interlocking systems was good for my brain and also my heart. very fun game. go play it.
positive · AI labelView post →There's more than meets the eye for a game trailer! Game trailer director @derek-lieu.com walked us through the concept & creation for Skin Deep by Blendo Games. He explored researching & playing the game, finding the creative direction, gathering tools for easier capture, & executing. #gdocexpo
neutral · AI labelView post →
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