Bodycam Review (2025): The Graphics Are Real, But Is The Fun?

Review
Written By NLM Team

If you have been on TikTok or YouTube in the last 2 years, you have seen Bodycam. It is the game that looks so realistic people thought it was fake footage.

A first-person view from Bodycam showing a player aiming a rifle with a red dot sight at a teammate crouching behind a large tree in a dark, root-covered forest.

When it launched, it promised to revolutionize the FPS genre with a "true body-camera perspective" and photorealistic Unreal Engine 5 visuals. It was gritty, loud, and intense.

Fast forward to late 2025. The game is still in Early Access, the price is still a hefty €33.32, and the community is... well, complicated.

I jumped in after the recent "Major Update" to see if Bodycam has evolved into a proper game or if it is just a tech demo with a gun. The answer is a frustrating mix of both.

The Good: It Still Looks Incredible

Let's give credit where it's due. Bodycam is still the most realistic looking shooter on the market, period.

The lighting, the textures, and the way your vision distorts when you turn a corner are unmatched. When you are creeping through a dark hallway and your flashlight catches a dust particle, you forget you are playing a video game. The gunplay feels heavy and consequential. There are no crosshairs, no ammo counters, and no hand-holding. You aim down the barrel, or you miss.

It nails the "stress simulator" vibe. The audio design, when it works, is terrifying. Hearing footsteps crunch on gravel above you while you hold an angle is genuinely tense.

The Bad: The Update "Downgrade"

However, the recent November update has been a disaster for many players.

Instead of adding a wealth of new content, the update actually removed two fan-favorite maps (The Woods and Oil Rig). The developers replaced them with new maps that, according to Steam reviews, are buggy messes where assets often fail to load.

Worse, many players are reporting a graphical downgrade. To optimize performance (which is still hit-or-miss even on high-end rigs), the developers seem to have aggressively tweaked the LODs and lighting. The result is a game that runs slightly better but looks worse than the trailers that sold you on it.

A terrifying, flashlight-lit screenshot from Bodycam showing a group of pale, bald, zombie-like figures covered in blood, with the central creature staring intensely at the player.

The Ugly: Microtransactions In Early Access

Here is the part that makes my blood boil.

Bodycam is an Early Access title. It is unfinished. It is buggy. And yet, there is a fully functioning in-game shop selling weapon skins for real money.

You want a camo for your AK? That will be five bucks.

It feels incredibly disrespectful to the players who already paid €30+ to test your broken game. Prioritizing monetization over basic features like mouse sensitivity saving (yes, that is still a bug for some people) is a massive red flag.

The Player Count Crisis

The biggest issue facing Bodycam right now isn't the bugs; it is the population.

The player base has shrunk significantly. We are talking about peaks of a few hundred players. For a multiplayer-only game, that is a death sentence. Finding a match can take forever, and when you do, you often run into high-ping lobbies or trolls who team-kill you for using a microphone.

The "Zombies" mode is a fun distraction, but it isn't deep enough to carry the game solo. Without a healthy player base, the "ultra-realistic combat" just becomes a waiting simulator.

A tactical screenshot from Bodycam showing the player holding an explosive detonator. Two enemy figures in tactical gear are highlighted by green targeting boxes in a dark, abandoned indoor environment.

The Verdict

Bodycam is a Ferrari with a flat tire. It looks beautiful, the engine purrs when it works, but you aren't going anywhere fast.

The potential is undeniable. The developers (Reissad Studio) are clearly talented artists. But as game designers? They are struggling. The content drip is too slow, the technical issues are too frequent, and the monetization is too greedy.

Unless you have a group of friends ready to buy it with you, or you just really want to look at pretty textures for two hours, I would wait.

4.7/10 A visual masterpiece trapped inside a hollow, buggy, and increasingly empty multiplayer game.

We at NLM received a key for this game for free, this however didn't impact our review in any way.

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NLM Team
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