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Phantom Doctrine’s 1980s setting helps cultivate its strong old-school spy vibe, even if its story only dances around the historical conflict. You control a team of secret agents working for “The Cabal,” a poorly explained spy group trying to thwart the efforts of a rival, equally vague covert agency. Your choice of whether to play as an ex-CIA or ex-KGB agent (or the third option that opens after completing the campaign) determines your starting location and which cutscenes you’ll see, but either way you’re up against the same villain. The distinction boils down to choosing the filter through which you view the story’s events.
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Though littered with twists and turns like any good spy story should be, Phantom Doctrine’s plot never really grabbed me. It’s incredibly opaque, to the point where it can become difficult to follow. Without well-defined characters or a sense of place beyond points on a map, every character and objective is simply an arbitrary codeword. It’s hard to get a feel for who your agents are or why they’re here. By the time you’ve rounded the first major plot twist you may have forgotten what makes you “good” and what makes them “bad.” It is merely an excuse to carry on the chase.
Luckily, Phantom Doctrine is all about the chase. At its core is a spy network simulator in which you rotate through three essential parts: macro-level strategy and “activity tracking,” intelligence gathering, and tactical operations or missions. The three pieces all work in tandem to give you the sense that you are constantly scrambling to find out what your enemies are doing so you can beat them to the punch, while keeping them from getting the jump on you.
Spy Games
It starts in your base, where you dispatch agents to check out suspicious activity wherever it may arise on a gigantic, but somehow understated global map. They may find an informer who will give you information that could range from unlocking the ability to purchase new types of equipment to actionable intelligence, such as the location of an enemy agent or base. Though things are manageable at first, before too long your team is jumping all over the globe. Watching agents jetset around globe gets exciting, especially when you know something big is about to happen.
At first, it’s generally in your best interest to send agents on a mission to kill any enemies you find, but over time you gain access to increasingly complex counterintelligence techniques, and that’s when more interesting options present themselves: If you catch an operation early, it may actually be a better move to let an enemy agent succeed so you can tail them to their base and surveil it to find a tactical advantage. That’s just one possible opportunity, and planning and pulling off strategies that plant long-term benefits are not only essential, but made me feel like a genuine spymaster. It was incredibly satisfying to activate a sleeper agent I’d kidnapped and turned, especially when doing so turns a tough mission into an easy one in one bold stroke.
At the same time, the enemy is always trying to find you. While the losing condition changes as events progress, there is often a meter slowly filling as the enemy gets closer to accomplishing its objective, or you run out of time to accomplish yours. A decent portion of Phantom Doctrine can involve simply waiting — usually for informers need to give you intel or agents to finish preparing for a mission. It’s a double-edged sword: On the one hand, it can be frustrating to feel like you’re “losing” because the meter will go up and there’s nothing you can actively do to stop it; on the other, there’s a fun bit of tension in watching the meter rise. It’s a race to game over, and even if you know your next operation will finish in time so can stop it you still have to sit there and feel the stakes rising.
Walking that tightrope — weighing the risks and rewards of your actions — is at heart of every part of Phantom Doctrine.
There’s also a second “danger” meter that fills up as enemy agents run operations that help them find your base. You can always move your base to prevent them from finding you, but it’s an expensive proposition that can slow you down considerably. Walking that tightrope — weighing the risks and rewards of your actions — is at heart of every part of Phantom Doctrine, and that’s what makes the strategic layer exciting.
What’s somewhat less exciting is the process of investigating valuable intelligence provided by your network of informants. In theory, this is how you should unravel the mysteries of Phantom Doctrine; in practice, it’s a bit too simplistic to warrant the amount of time and attention it commands. Your goal with every dossier is to create a chain of evidence that connects a codename, which you have from the outset, to the people, places, or organization’s true identity by scouring documents for matching codewords and literally connecting the dots on a cork board. Rather than looking for actual in-universe connections between documents, though, you simply scan them for codenames and highlight them by pressing a button. Once you know the codewords in a document they pop up next to it on the corkboard, making it trivial busywork for you to connect them.
Although the technical act of connecting evidence left me wanting more, the system definitely adds to Phantom Doctrine’s mystique. Slowly gathering evidence adds a creeping progression that kept me on the edge of my seat and pushed me to keep searching for more. Few games about espionage (and it’s not like there are a lot of those to begin with) weave the information-gathering aspect of espionage into their mechanics so gracefully.
And yet, intelligence gathering is by far the weakest component of Phantom Doctrine. Every aspect of each dossier appears to be randomly generated — the codeword you start with, the identity you’re looking for, and all the steps in between. Which would be fine, except that there are not enough names and codenames in the pool to go around, so there’s a good chance you will wind up identifying the same codename more than once in a single playthrough. Similarly, you will find yourself reading the same 10 to 20 classified files over and over with different codenames slotted in.
The same codenames will often show up in many documents across multiple dossiers, making it hard to keep track.
Moreover, since the codenames are randomized, the same ones will often show up in many documents across multiple dossiers, making it hard to keep track of which keywords you’re supposed to look for in each file. More than once, I found myself wasting time looking to connect a new document with a codeword because I was sure I had seen it, only to realize I remembered it from another file. It’s a very frustrating process that, when it happens too many times, turns a fascinating gameplay idea into something I wish you could skip.
These aren’t deal-breaking issues by any means — you might not even notice them if you play it over a month instead of a single week — but they are frustrating, especially because they underline a larger flaw. Namely, that this game naturally builds in mountains of text, but does not use it to provide any meaningful storytelling or world-building. It is a missed opportunity, plain and simple.
Completing a dossier, especially when it’s connected to the plot, will often direct you to an operation (or “op,” if you want to get jargony with it). Like a mission in the XCOM games, operations play out as turn-based tactics RPG-style battles on an isometric grid. Depending on the type of mission and how many agents you have available in the area, you can send in a team of two to six spies to pursue various objectives, such as clearing out enemy cells, planting or disarming bombs, and rescuing captured informants.
Where Phantom Doctrine distinguishes itself from its more combat-heavy inspiration is that you’re controlling a team of spies, not soldiers, and therefore most operations are best executed with little to no combat – a style that’s more like Klei’s excellent Invisible, Inc than XCOM. Instead of gunfight after gunfight, missions play out like elaborately choreographed dances: Your agents must time their actions to the routines of guards and civilians to move discreetly through a map, accomplish their goals, and get away quietly. The arc makes every op feel like a mission, rather than a level. It all plays into the spy fantasy — covering all the angles and getting away clean — and it evokes that nervous excitement when you feel from getting something over on someone, even when it’s just the computer.
Most operations are best executed with little to no combat.
And while Invisible, Inc also blends tactics and stealth in a similar way, its levels are tight and compact and feels like a puzzle box that has to be solved just right. Phantom Doctrine’s design, by contrast, feels more like a simulation. Since most missions involve an approach, infiltration, and then an escape, there’s a sense of travel and space that make your solution to every problem feel personal, rather than simply figuring out the “correct” string of moves and actions.
Despite this, every action you take has the potential to get you caught – but it’s thankfully not a random. If you can see an NPC, you can where they plan to move next turn, giving you an idea of how to move past them (or take them out) undetected. Loiter around a seemingly stationary civilian too long and you might forget to check to see if their movement pattern will change next turn. Dispatch too many guards to clear the path to your objective and an enemy agent might notice start scouring the map for your team. Figuring out how to achieve your goal, whether you choose to systematically dismantle a level’s obstacles or finding a way to snake through them, feels like an accomplishment.
Since detection can rapidly escalate into failure and death for your agents, planning becomes incredibly important. Prior to most missions, you have the ability to send operatives on a “tactical recon” mission, which allows some of your agents to start deep into a level and wear disguises. That allows them to avoid detection, so long as they aren’t caught stealing or killing. And, if you have extra people in range, you can place “support” agents who don’t appear on the map but provide special actions, such as looking in rooms you can’t see with a telescope or sniping enemies from silently from afar. Again, doing the prep work and putting support agents in the right spots builds up that satisfying sense that you’ve thought of everything. Of course, even when you do all the prep you can, you can’t know exactly how a mission will play out, but that makes the careful forethought (or happy coincidence) of setting yourself up for success feel like a small victory unto itself.
When you have to fire a gun or otherwise make yourself known during a mission, thing start to feel like they’re spiraling out of control – and not in a good way. Even though it is presented as a viable tactical option, open combat feels like a punishment, especially when you’re forced into it. As it points out in its tutorial, Phantom Doctrine deviates from XCOM in combat in that it does not rely on dice rolls to determine whether or not gunshots hit or miss their targets.
Instead, each character has a resource, called Awareness, that drains whenever they attack, use an ability, or perform any task that requires concentration. But it’s also their defense, because when someone is shot at their awareness determines whether or not they take a hit, dodge partially and take grazing damage, or dodge the bullet entirely. So every time you take an action against an enemy you make yourself more vulnerable – a tradeoff that forces you to weigh every decision.
The system very effectively limits your ability to kill enemies quickly, unless you get the jump on them, and forces you to avoid long shootouts. What it does not do is give you much recourse for recovering from a mistake. If you’re spotted unexpectedly, chances are you will fail your mission and agents will die. Playing out a blown mission already sucks. Playing it out using a system that feels like its made to put you at a disadvantage feels like pouring salt on the wound.
That said, I appreciate that Phantom Doctrine stacks the deck heavily in favor of sneaking and stealth. If you want to win, you have to be on point and ready for anything. After all, if you could brute-force your way through a hard level, why would you bother taking the time to sneak around?
Paranoid... But in a Good Way
While Phantom Doctrine plays out across these discrete “phases,” each one’s components all impact the others. Sometimes agents who are out scouting will stumble onto enemy operations which you can choose to stop, triggering a mission. Completing dossiers will give you leads on new locations to scout. And, of course, every mission level has documents and equipment scattered around, tempting you to brave highly trafficked rooms and overextend your search.
You also have the ability to assign your agents to in-base tasks between missions, such as crafting new equipment, interrogating and brainwashing kidnapped enemy (or friendly) agents, and training to earn proficiencies with new weapons and other perks that make them more useful on missions.
All combined, they create a paranoid, desperate experience which feels pitch-perfect for a spy game. Every mission is tense, even when the stakes are low and the mission seems easy, because you are always one miscalculation away from disaster, one piece of evidence short of knowing exactly what to do, or one agent short of performing the tactical maneuver you’d like.
Technically, Phantom Doctrine also offers the ability to square off against other players in squad-versus-squad multiplayer battles. Well... “Offers” is a strong word.
Sadly (but unsurprisingly), multiplayer feels like an afterthought. Players can select from a handful of levels from the campaign, stripped of the guards, civilians, and objectives that make them interesting, and send teams of pre-fab agents into a deathmatch. Though the combat system mandates a somewhat tactical approach, none of the levels are large enough to allow for too much maneuverability: It is hard not to fling your characters at your opponent’s, fire everything you’ve got, and hope for the best. Phantom Doctrine’s combat is not enthralling as part of a larger game, as the primary focus of multiplayer it is even less compelling.
Moreover, the multiplayer infrastructure lacks basic features, such as matchmaking, the ability to challenge a friend directly, or create a private match. You can host a match or you join one. That’s it. In 2018, it’s hard to imagine many players would tolerate such a no-frills approach, even for a can’t-miss experience. None of this takes away from the fun I found in single-player, but it’s disappointing to find such a blatant feature for feature’s sake in a generally interesting game.
THE VERDICT
Whether you’re reading classified documents, wracking your brain over whether or not pursue a lead that could lead to an ambush, or plotting every step a spy takes on their way to assassinating their target, every move you make in Phantom Doctrine carries an urgent tension. That’s a hallmark of every great spy novel, movie and TV show you’ve ever seen. The campaign itself can feel drawn out at times thanks to a less-than-stellar story and some obviously recycled content, but there’s a real thrill in executing covert missions and putting all the pieces together like a master spy.
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