The Tools of the Trade Revealed
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One brings the great detective to the Mediterranean and tasks him with exploring the dangerous island of Cordona, uncovering its dirty secrets, and seeking the truth about his mother’s death. Needless to say, the game will involve a lot of detective work, and developer Frogwares has recently unveiled some of the mechanics behind the title’s investigation system.
First things first: like any detective, you’ll be able to find clues at the scene of a crime. However, unlike some mystery games, Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One won’t hold your hand, meaning that you can overlook crucial clues and the game won’t stop you from progressing with a faulty assumption. It’s up to you and you alone to decide when you’ve found everything related to a case.
Once you have clues, you can move on to presenting evidence through the Evidence Pinning system, which allows you to present clues to people and see if they know anything. If you approach the task with some logic and collect the right evidence, you can coax answers out of people–possibly even your suspects.
Speaking of suspects, how you identify them early on will have an influence on how said suspect will treat you in the future. This may require you to use a disguise, though since the locals aren’t exactly eager to talk to an outsider, you’ll probably have to disguise yourself at some point anyway.
You can acquire various outfits across the island, then use your intuition–and clues–to figure out what disguise to use to start getting answers. However, much like searching for clues, the game won’t tell you what disguise to use.
Once you have all the pieces of a case, you’ll solve the mystery inside Sherlock Holmes’ iconic Mind Palace. All the clues you’ve gathered will be there, and you can string them together to build theories of what happened. But be warned: the game won’t stop you from making the wrong choices, and on Cordona, not everything is equal. What might be considered a crime to some might be perfectly right for others. It’s up to you to make your judgement–and live with the consequences.
Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One will be available on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on November 16, with the PS4 and Xbox One versions coming afterward.
Can you crack the case? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: Press Release