D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die

A screenshot of David and Amanda

The main character is David Young, a private investigator whose wife has been murdered.[3] The traumatic events surrounding her death left Young unable to recollect those memories, but has allowed him to travel through time.[3] Young travels through time to undo the murder.[3] The player cannot time travel arbitrarily, as the powers are activated upon finding certain objects that bring the player to specific points in time.[3]

D4 is an Xbox One title that uses Kinect controls with "simple gestures and voice" to uncover the mystery.[3] The game uses cel-shaded graphics similar to that of a graphic novel.[3] For the PC version, however, Kinect has been disabled in favor of mouse controls. Some improvements have also been implemented in the PC version, such as upgrading the frame rate to 60 fps, shortening load times, and fixing bugs that were present in the original version.[6]

After the death of his wife, former Boston police narcotics officer turned private detective, David Young gains the supernatural ability to travel into the past by touching left-behind items referred to as "mementos". Two years earlier David's wife was murdered and David received a blow to the head which caused him to lose his memory of the event except for his wife's final words "Look for D." David with his newly gained ability uses it to uncover the unknown assailant by investigating everyone whose name starts with "D". With help from his former partner Young gets a lead about a man, whose boss's name starts with D, who went missing on a plane after it was struck by lightning, and David uses a memento to travel back into the past to investigate.

Reception
Review scores Publication Score PC Xbox One Destructoid N/A 9/10[7] Edge N/A 7/10[8] Famitsu N/A 33/40[9] Game Informer N/A 7.5/10[10] GameRevolution [11] [12] GameSpot N/A 7/10[13] Giant Bomb N/A [14] IGN N/A 7/10[15] Joystiq N/A [16] OXM (UK) N/A 8/10[17] PC Gamer (UK) 78%[18] N/A Polygon N/A 7/10[19] Digital Spy N/A [20] Metro 7/10[21] 7/10[22] Aggregate score Metacritic 67/100[23] 76/100[24]

The Xbox One version received "generally favourable reviews", while the PC version received "average" reviews, according to the review aggregation website Metacritic.[23][24] In Japan, Famitsu gave the Xbox One version a score of two eights, one nine, and one eight for a total of 33 out of 40.[9]

Digital Spy gave the Xbox One version four stars out of five and said that it "may just be the beginning, but it is easily one of the most delightfully bizarre trips of the year. It won't always make sense, but there is a consistent earnestness to its oddity that somehow makes it all work in harmony of '80s saxophone riffs and overly-affected Boston accents."[20] The Escapist similarly gave it four stars out of five and said, "D4 is ridiculous. It's weird, and silly, and makes very little sense. It's also hilarious, and packed with some of the most engaging motion-controlled sequences I've ever played. Coming from someone who generally doesn't like the Kinect, that's a damn big achievement!"[25] 411Mania gave it a score of 7.5 out of 10 and said, "If you want a game that will leave your jaw on the floor more than once, have at it. If you want something a bit more substantial, this may not be the game for you."[26] Metro gave both console versions each a score of seven out of ten and called the game itself "A worthy follow-up to Deadly Premonition, although whether it earns the same classic status will depend largely on the subsequent episodes" or "...on whether the story is ever finished."[22][21] However, Anime News Network gave the PC version a C+, saying, "The wheels of game production turn ever on. As the pressure of expanding budgets makes games like this the exception in a world populated by Final Fantasy, Assassin's Creed and, paradoxically, the Telltale Adventure Game model itself, the Season One moniker slapped on this PC port begins to feel like the twist of a knife: the mildly laughable suggestion that there would ever be a Season Two. Despite D4's ham-fisted grabs at Twin Peaks touchstones and its persistent supposition that "eccentric" is an express shortcut to "intriguing," somehow it's still disappointing we might never see any more of it."[27]

D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die was nominated for "Destructoid's Best of E3 2014" as "Best Xbox Exclusive" at E3 in 2014.[28] It was also nominated for "TGS Awards 2014" in the category Xbox at TGS, and for "4Gamer Awards" as "Rookie Exclusive" on 1 October 2014.[29] At the 2014 National Academy of Video Game Trade Reviewers (NAVGTR) awards the game won Camera Direction in a Game Engine.[30]

• Official website
• D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die at MobyGames