The town of Salem is haunted by The Bell Killer, a serial killer who has left behind many bodies and very little leads. Ronan O'Connor, a detective working on the case, tracks the killer down to an apartment building in town, but ends up overpowered by the killer and becomes a victim himself. Bound to this world by his inability to close the case in life, he sets out to search Salem for clues as a spirit and try to find closure.
Like its protagonist, Murdered: Soul Suspect was done dirty. The game was developed by a small-ish studio called Airtight Games, pitched by Square-Enix as part of the publisher's initiative to capture more of a Western audience, a push that, in 2022, we know didn't end well. Square never really understood what Western audiences wanted and racked up many failures while blaming the studios for it. Murdered was one such failure. Upon release, Murdered was priced at $60 and was marketed unrealistically, resulting in a mixed reception, lukewarm sales, and the closure of Airtight Games just weeks after the game hit store shelves..
Which is sad, because it's such a fascinating game. It can't be said that it is a masterpiece, nor that it justifies its original price tag, but at the prices the game is usually sold -- I bought it for a paltry $4 -- it offers a great bang-for-your-buck, so long as you approach it as the mystery thriller, almost story-driven game that it is.
It centers around investigative gameplay: the map is semi-open for exploration, but generally, Ronan will be led from location to location as he discovers new facts about the case. Whenever he spots a place of interest, like say, a place the killer has visited, the game enters an investigative mode in which Ronan poses questions and the player searches the scene for clues that can answer it.
Of course, there's the twist highlighted by the game's title: Ronan, the main character, is dead, which brings a series of mechanics to the investigation that make the game stand out as unique. As a spirit, he can go through walls, which lets him visit places living people cannot. He can also possess people, and while that doesn't allow direct control over them, he can listen in to their thoughts and even subtly nudge them towards performing certain actions.
Each area is also filled with collectibles that yield some information about the game's world. It could be a character, or the town, or historic events. It might not even relate to the plot at all. While some may cringe at the thought of having so many collectibles in a game, it felt, to me, like Murdered was enhanced by their presence, as they allow it an opportunity to enhance its setting and characters. Plus, if you pay attention to the tidbits you collect about the Bell Killer, you might figure out some of the twists in the story before they happen, a testament to how solid the overall plot is as a detective story.
The game is mechanically solid, with the most direct comparison I can make being either Frogwares's Sherlock Holmes games, or Ace Attorney but in 3D. Walk around inspecting everything you think is relevant, talk to those present, and present the correct clues to advance in the case. Sometimes, there's also puzzles to be solved. It's simple and straightforward as far as investigative games go, which makes me think that the expectation for AAA mechanics and storytelling where the only thing that made reviewers look at the game so negatively.
Okay, that's not necessarily true. There's one aspect of the game that's disfunctional in a way that feels jarring when held against the overall experience, and that is the combat. Not a single soul ever praised this, and for good reason: there is one (1) enemy type in the game, a demon, which Ronan is defenseless against unless it's approached from behind, from where he can perform a stealth takedown.
There's about ten instances of such combat sections popping up in the game, and each of them feels like it was set up so that you can get dispatch every enemy quickly and then go back to the actual fun part of the game. It reeks of meddling from upper management, as the way in which it feels disconnected to the rest of the game is like it was made with the explicit purpose of ticking a box that higher-ups thought the game needed to be successful.
Ultimately, more than anything else, Murdered: Soul Suspect feels like a wasted opportunity. Had its scope been kept a bit more under control, had the game been marketed correctly, and had it been given a more approachable price tag, much in the vein of Frogwares's work with Sherlock Holmes, there might have been room for a franchise here. As it is, if you're a mystery fan, get it on a sale -- the developer is gone anyway -- and kick back for an enjoyable whodunnit story.
Like its protagonist, Murdered: Soul Suspect was done dirty. The game was developed by a small-ish studio called Airtight Games, pitched by Square-Enix as part of the publisher's initiative to capture more of a Western audience, a push that, in 2022, we know didn't end well. Square never really understood what Western audiences wanted and racked up many failures while blaming the studios for it. Murdered was one such failure. Upon release, Murdered was priced at $60 and was marketed unrealistically, resulting in a mixed reception, lukewarm sales, and the closure of Airtight Games just weeks after the game hit store shelves..
Which is sad, because it's such a fascinating game. It can't be said that it is a masterpiece, nor that it justifies its original price tag, but at the prices the game is usually sold -- I bought it for a paltry $4 -- it offers a great bang-for-your-buck, so long as you approach it as the mystery thriller, almost story-driven game that it is.
It centers around investigative gameplay: the map is semi-open for exploration, but generally, Ronan will be led from location to location as he discovers new facts about the case. Whenever he spots a place of interest, like say, a place the killer has visited, the game enters an investigative mode in which Ronan poses questions and the player searches the scene for clues that can answer it.
Of course, there's the twist highlighted by the game's title: Ronan, the main character, is dead, which brings a series of mechanics to the investigation that make the game stand out as unique. As a spirit, he can go through walls, which lets him visit places living people cannot. He can also possess people, and while that doesn't allow direct control over them, he can listen in to their thoughts and even subtly nudge them towards performing certain actions.
Each area is also filled with collectibles that yield some information about the game's world. It could be a character, or the town, or historic events. It might not even relate to the plot at all. While some may cringe at the thought of having so many collectibles in a game, it felt, to me, like Murdered was enhanced by their presence, as they allow it an opportunity to enhance its setting and characters. Plus, if you pay attention to the tidbits you collect about the Bell Killer, you might figure out some of the twists in the story before they happen, a testament to how solid the overall plot is as a detective story.
The game is mechanically solid, with the most direct comparison I can make being either Frogwares's Sherlock Holmes games, or Ace Attorney but in 3D. Walk around inspecting everything you think is relevant, talk to those present, and present the correct clues to advance in the case. Sometimes, there's also puzzles to be solved. It's simple and straightforward as far as investigative games go, which makes me think that the expectation for AAA mechanics and storytelling where the only thing that made reviewers look at the game so negatively.
Okay, that's not necessarily true. There's one aspect of the game that's disfunctional in a way that feels jarring when held against the overall experience, and that is the combat. Not a single soul ever praised this, and for good reason: there is one (1) enemy type in the game, a demon, which Ronan is defenseless against unless it's approached from behind, from where he can perform a stealth takedown.
There's about ten instances of such combat sections popping up in the game, and each of them feels like it was set up so that you can get dispatch every enemy quickly and then go back to the actual fun part of the game. It reeks of meddling from upper management, as the way in which it feels disconnected to the rest of the game is like it was made with the explicit purpose of ticking a box that higher-ups thought the game needed to be successful.
Ultimately, more than anything else, Murdered: Soul Suspect feels like a wasted opportunity. Had its scope been kept a bit more under control, had the game been marketed correctly, and had it been given a more approachable price tag, much in the vein of Frogwares's work with Sherlock Holmes, there might have been room for a franchise here. As it is, if you're a mystery fan, get it on a sale -- the developer is gone anyway -- and kick back for an enjoyable whodunnit story.