Crossfire Review – Shouting at Friends and Drawing Finger Guns

No one talks about the social deduction cold war, but I was there. Game designers raced to make the simplest, most streamlined version of social deduction. Between One Night Ultimate Werewolf and Secret Hitler, these games paired the genre back to its basest fundamentals. Crossfire was a late entrant, but no less intriguing.

Like other games in this category, Crossfire begins with everyone receiving a role. Here, you can either be an agent, an assassin, or a VIP. The agents are trying to take out the assassins before they can take out the VIP.

But before being given your role for the game, you’ll get another role card. This card you can look at, smell, taste, or whatever you want to do. Once you’re done hand it to another player who shuffles it in with two other cards before handing back your permanent role for the game. Because you saw that other card, this gives you a piece of information you can take into the rest of the game.

From this point on, the countdown begins.

You now have three minutes to determine who’s who, and try to convince others of the role you are. Use deduction, intuition anything else that helps. Because after time’s up, you draw your finger guns aiming them at who you want to shoot.

The agents are first to act, revealing their role and eliminating anyone they point at. Next, the assassins take their shots, also eliminating anyone in their line of fire.

After the dust settles, if the VIP is still alive then the agents take the victory. Otherwise, the assassins win. Then you shuffle up the roles and play again.

Take your shot

I struggle with social deduction games. I’m too empathetic and have a hard time not sympathising with people. So your nightmare situation is me with a gun, and you and your evil twin pointing and yelling at each other, ‘They’re the evil one!’ Because no lie, I’ll just shoot the both of you and be done with it.

This is what often happens in traditional social deduction games like The Resistance or Werewolf. Where there’s not enough information to form a solid deduction, so it comes down to a 50/50 call between two people. Then the game drags on, as these two people try to emotionally manipulate you into voting to remove the other.

With the timer being so short in Crossfire, this becomes a non-issue. There’s no time to plead or beg your case. Additionally, by viewing a couple of roles at the start, you get enough information to form a solid basis for any deductions you need to make.

This also resolves one issue found in One Night Ultimate Werewolf. Whereby some roles get to have all the fun, while villagers just get to sit in the dark for an extended amount of time. In Crossfire, everyone gets an equal amount of information. Because of this, there’s no need for an app or you to feel extremely awkward as your group sits in the work lunch room with their eyes closed for an extended amount of time. True story.

Don’t get caught out

The addition of finger guns creates a moment of fun at the end of what can honestly be a tense three minutes. There’s a delightful novelty to it, especially when you play with the Enforcer, a role that can wield two finger guns.

There are other roles too, like the bomber who wins if they make it to the end of the round without being shot, or the decoy who only wins if they get shot. Adding in these roles gives Crossfire the same depth and variability as other social deduction games. While also bringing in the other benefits of the short time frame and no boring roles.

If that weren’t enough, there’s also a second mode where there are still two teams. But this time, instead of the agents being armed, only one person – the sniper – is. They get to take as many shots as there are assassins, and their goal is to take them out before they can kill the VIP.

This puts a lot of pressure on one person and makes for another chaotic, but fun, way to play Crossfire.

Now, while social deduction games aren’t my preferred genre, Crossfire is a lot of fun. Beyond the mechanics, the art is excellent, and I love the world of Spectre Ops. Meanwhile, the box is small enough to carry everywhere, and with its easy-to-learn ruleset, you’ll want to. As such, Crossfire is now my go-to when I want to accuse someone of being a no-good, filthy assassin.