Murdered: Soul Suspect Is a Classic Noir Yarn with a Ghastly Flavor - Preview
by Jake Weston , posted on 15 June 2013 / 3,108 Views
In this day and age, E3 is a show dominated by sequels and shooters. There’s no getting around that. So when a high profile game that is neither gets a huge presentation spot on the show floor, it immediately grabs my attention. Murdered: Soul Suspect, developed by Airtight Studios and published by Square Enix, is such a game, and it appears to be a slow-paced, atmospheric noir story that gives you the ultimate task: solving your own murder.
See, Murdered casts you as the ghost of detective Ronan O’ Connor, murdered under mysterious circumstances prior to the game’s start. As a ghost, Ronan finds himself trapped in “the Dusk”, a limbo between dimensions where he can roam the real world, but he cannot physically interact with anything, and no one can see or hear him.
Given that Ronan is a detective, this proves to be a problem. However, there are various subtle ways that he can influence himself in the real world. Part L.A. Noire, part Heavy Rain, part Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Ronan must use his various spectral powers to investigate areas in the game to get the clues he needs to find the identity of his killer.
The first of many investigation scenes in the game is the crime scene of Ronan’s murder. Ronan looks down upon his body as police survey the scene, but Ronan thinks he can do better. Unfortunately, he can’t physically examine his body. But he has a few other tricks up his ghastly sleeve. As a ghost, Ronan can possess the living, but isn’t powerful enough to control them directly. Instead, Ronan can inhabit their bodies to look through their eyes and listen to their conversations. First off, Ronan possesses one of the on-site officers, listening to his conversation whilst also looking through his notes. Then, he possesses one of the witnesses giving her report. Ronan probes her memory, finding out that Ronan’s body was thrown out from the window of a nearby building.
Murdered: Soul Suspect takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, perhaps most famous for the infamous Salem Witch Trials. And according to lead writer Doug Van Horne, Murdered: Soul Suspect’s story is heavily rooted in the supernatural origins of the town.
This plays directly into Murdered: Soul Suspect’s gameplay and level design. Like any ghost should, Ronan is able to walk through walls, going from room to room without having to find doors to walk through. However, given Salem’s unique history, almost all of the town’s buildings have been christened, preventing ghosts and other supernatural beings from entering. Throughout the game, Ronan will have to find creative ways to bypass these barriers.
Once within Salem’s buildings, Ronan can pass through walls uninhibited, and can begin his investigation. As he makes his way up to the top floor, he discovers the first of the game’s enemies: demons, former ghosts who transformed into evil red specters over time. According to Van Horne, demons believe that killing ghosts will be able to restore them back into ghost form, so they present a problem for Ronan.
Going up against demons head on will result in a quick end for Ronan, so he must sneak around them in order to proceed. Thankfully, being able to walk through walls gives him quite the upper hand. In our demo, combat was optional, with Ronan being able to choose to simply bypass them, or dispatch them by getting behind them and destroying them with ghosty energy. It remains to be seen if this choice will have any affect on the game’s story or other gameplay options, but the ability to choose is nice nonetheless.
Once on the top floor, Ronan began to survey the scene. Investigation in Murdered is unique, in that in investigating each clue, a series of nouns and adjectives will appear on the screen - “thrown”, “fearful”, “watching”, etc., words depending on the context of the scene. Players must use their clues and intuition to select the right words to send Ronan on the right track. I wasn’t quite sure how this mechanic would play out if players selected the wrong clues - Van Horne told me that players would figure it out by a process of elimination and that the story would not go on any branching paths - but I’m confident that the game will provide unique and engaging ways to explore this mechanic.
After discovering all the clues, Ronan was able to uncover a “memory residue”, a spectral remnant of the murder that transpired, and discovered that there was a teenage girl who witnessed Ronan’s murder, unbeknownst to his killer. With a new lead to track down, Ronan exited the building, and our demo ended.
Even with the next generation of game consoles quickly approaching, Murdered: Soul Suspect shows that developers are still using the current generation to explore new and innovative new IPs. That alone is enough to make me excited over Murdered: Soul Suspect, but the E3 demo simply made me want to see how this story ends. Murdered: Soul Suspect will be releasing for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC in early 2014, so for those looking for a slow-paced, calculated, noir-infused adventure better hold on to their current-gen consoles for a little bit longer.
