Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
I’ll admit it: my wife and I got a little too comfy.
After some of the best experiences in the one-shot, mystery gaming arena with the KOSMOS series Masters of Crime, I expected my fourth run to be another blowout. Masters of Crime: Vendetta, Masters of Crime: Rapture and Masters of Crime: Shadows are the height of the category; one of those titles was on my top 10 games of 2025, but all of them could have been, if I had just sprinkled the titles across the entire list.
What those games got right is why I recommend them to everyone I know. The scenarios are fantastic, you’re always placed in the shoes of the villains, not the cops, the puzzles are tough but fair, and the endings always made logistical sense after working through all the bread crumbs dropped during the investigation.
Masters of Crime: Incognito was the next game on my list. I created a draft for this review and had a 5.0/5.0 placeholder ready to go before I played the game. I was sure Incognito would be another banger; why wouldn’t I? My wife and I set up a date night for a Friday evening play. I made the cocktails; she grabbed our note-taking components, laid out the game, and read the story introduction card to get us into the gameplay.
Masters of Crime: Incognito was ultimately fine. For players looking to enter the series for the first time, Incognito is actually the best place to start…because everything goes up from here. Let’s talk about why in this spoiler-free review.
Prison Undercover
Masters of Crime: Incognito is a single-play narrative experience for 1-6 players. Like the other games in the Masters of Crime series, the game will take 2-4 hours, although we found that this title was a little faster than the other games we’ve played so far.
There were other subtle changes from the other games, too. This is the first game I’ve played in the series where you actually play as a cop. Of course, even that is a twist, as players are positioned as an experienced FBI agent going by the pseudonym Cole Jackson, a dangerous criminal tasked with infiltrating the fictional gang Brooklyn Seventeen, or B-17. Your investigation is centered on the murder of Liam O’Reilly, a B-17 member who was about to turn rat and become an FBI informant before ending up dead one afternoon on the prison cafeteria floor.
As usual for the games in this series, players must investigate a mix of locations, suspects, and a dozen or so envelopes that have a variety of puzzles and clues that need a’solving. In addition, there are websites to review and online research to conduct in order to solve some of the game’s minor puzzles.
Masters of Crime: Incognito had a couple of simpler puzzles to work through, as well as some of the standard multi-digit codes that help move the story along. These were a bit simpler than the puzzles in the other games, which was a minor disappointment.
After working through about 70 clue cards (again, standard for the series), a star score system is used to determine how well players have done in completing the case. And like the other games we’ve tried, there’s a fun set of epilogue questions that are used to determine the fates of all the major characters involved in the game.
Here’s the Thing
Masters of Crime: Incognito is a bit more by the numbers than any of the other titles in the series. Save for an ending that really stretched the imagination, Incognito is a bit more “on rails” than its siblings.
The story setup—guy goes undercover to solve a prison murder—didn’t get me all hot and bothered. The characters here felt a bit more rote than even other games in this series that felt like they were “drawn by numbers” in terms of their backstory. We’ve got a shady prison warden, cigarettes traded for favors, action scenes on a prison basketball court, and, of course, a sewer system that has been accessed by nefarious means.
I’m not necessarily the kind of person who needs something spicy in terms of the setup. I was just surprised that this series bothered to venture into such well-trodden territory with its story.
Masters of Crime: Incognito veers off the established path of the other games in the series, though. We wrapped up our investigation in about two hours, at least an hour shorter than our experience with other Masters of Crime titles. There were fewer chances to interact with Google Maps locations as well as dummy websites. There are also fewer suspects in Incognito than in any other game in the series.
All of this means that I will push Masters of Crime: Incognito towards more casual players of these escape room-style mystery games. Again, I had problems with the ending, but otherwise Incognito does a decent job of telling an engaging story and creates doubt about each suspect right until the final frame. If you are OK with lighter puzzles, Incognito might be the best starting point in the series. It’s also a bit lighter on reading, with one negative tied to richer storytelling elements, such as stronger dialogue or more variety in the locations explored here. (Prison library? Check. A cellmate with a past? Check. Fights that break out all over the prison? Naturally.)
At no point did Masters of Crime: Incognito really fire up the base. The twists and turns featured in the other games were just more interesting, and the ending of this game didn’t stick the landing. That means it lands at the bottom of the list of the Masters of Crime series in terms of quality storytelling.
Masters of Crime: Incognito details
- Designer: Lukas Setzke, Martin Student, Verena Wiechens
- Artists: N/A
- Publishers: KOSMOS, Noctis Verlag, Thames & Kosmos
- Release Date: 2022
- Player count : 1 - 6
- Age range : 14+
- Time range : 150 - 210 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Connections, Cooperative Game, Deduction, Scenario / Mission / Campaign Game, Storytelling
- BGG Geek Rating: 6.694 - converted to Meeple Mountain scale: 3.5.
- More articles about Masters of Crime: Incognito.
