Blendo Games, the studio behind Thirty Flights of Loving and Quadrilateral Cowboy, has just released its latest immersive sim, Skin Deep, and it's taking the gaming world by storm. This action-cartoon fever dream of a game is unlike anything you've ever played before, with its unique blend of slapstick humor, toilet humor, and pure video game magic.

In Skin Deep, you play as Nina Passedena, a secret operative for an intergalactic insurance company, tasked with saving cube-headed cats from a group of marauding space pirates called the Numb Bunch. The game takes place in taut, smartly designed spaceships, each filled with a plethora of objects to play with, from banana skins that make guards fall flat on their faces to black pepper that makes them sneeze. You'll sneak through vents, skulk in the shadows, and dispose of enemy heads (thanks to a bizarre disembodying technology dubbed "Skull Saver") by ejecting them into space.

The game's lead, Brendon Chung, has spent over 15 years honing a singular style that draws on classic Quake as much as art-house cinema. The result is a game that's silly, eccentric, and brimming with knowing gags. From the introduction, which features a virtuoso synthesis of jump cuts between first-person action sequences, to the game's focus on physical and systemic coherence, Skin Deep is a masterclass in game design.

One of the standout features of Skin Deep is its use of the Id Tech 4 engine, famously used for Doom 3, which is now over 20 years old. Despite its age, the engine allows for a level of physicality and systemic coherence that's unparalleled in modern immersive sims. The game's focus on testing the pliability of its design, and the extent to which it can account for harebrained schemes and foolhardy mistakes, is a major part of its charm.

The game's levels, while visually distinct and delightfully named (like the "Narwhal" spaceship), do start to blur together after a while. Enemies, too, are a little uniform visually and not especially smart, following simple patrol paths that can be easily skirted around. However, the game's speedrunning potential and the results board that arrives at the end of each excursion suggest that Skin Deep has been designed with replayability in mind.

Despite its Id Tech 4 aesthetics and evocation of foundational immersive sims like Thief, Skin Deep feels supremely modern, like a manic hyper-pop reimagining of the classics. With its breakneck pace, verve, and personality, this stealth action game is a must-play for fans of the genre. Skin Deep launches on April 30th on PC, so get ready to experience the messy and manic world of immersive sims like never before.