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Following "The Sinking City," Frogwares are returning to Sherlock Holmes in new game focused on origin story

New game will be called Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One, a prequel that will focus on Holmes early adventures.

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Steam Store Page


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For nearly 20 years, Frogwares has been the premier developer of games based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Following the release of 2019's The Sinking City, an open-world adventure game inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, the developer jumped straight to work on its follow-up--this time bringing their most well-known character back to his roots in a large setting to explore.

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Set for release in 2021 for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and next-gen consoles, Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One takes cues from The Sinking City, bringing players into an explorable open-world city filled with characters to meet, disguises to wear, and mysteries to solve. Set in the early years of the detective's career, the game casts you as a 21-year-old Sherlock Holmes who returns to his Mediterranean island hometown following his mother's death.

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"What we want to do with Chapter One is that we want to explore this other side of the character, and how he became the great detective that we know," said Oganesyan. "Our version of Sherlock is not a traditional character. He has this raw talent [for discovering the truth] that's sort of untamed. He's more arrogant, and much more volatile in this game compared to [other] versions. He has more fun playing with the truth, and he has no problem lying to somebody to get to the bottom of his investigation.

While combat is a crucial part of Chapter One, it won't be as pronounced as it was in The Sinking City, which featured gunfights in the city streets against eldritch monsters and cultists. Chapter One's combat system has been completely revamped and focuses more on hand-to-hand engagements that lean into Sherlock's particular skill set. In a fight, Sherlock will be able to use his deductive skills to pinpoint weak points on enemies to end battles easily.

Trailer

 
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joe_zazen

Member
Hmmm, really liked Crimes & Punishments, it was like a really well funded mystery game. There was very little violence or fighting in the game. It also had the best clue/mystery system I’ve seen.

It must not have sold well because their next game (Devil’s Daughter) was an action oriented, and the one after that (Frog People of Boston) pretty much a shooter.

New one sounds more along the lines of Devil’s. I might pick it up if you don’t have to fight and kill a bunch of people. Still hoping they go back to Crimes style though, really unique game.

edit: looks combat focused. Not wht I want in a Sherlock game. I hope it does well for them though, they work hard.
 
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Hmmm, really liked Crimes & Punishments, it was like a really well funded mystery game. There was very little violence or fighting in the game. It also had the best clue/mystery system I’ve seen.
Gotta agree, Crime and Punishments was really really good. The other two Sherlock games were only ok (still worth playing since its a sparse genre), but I hope they figure out a way to recapture whatever they did for C&P.
 

sublimit

Banned
I guess i'm in the minority but i never liked any of the modern interpretations of Sherlock Holmes be it movie,tv series or games.

For me the archetypal Sherlock Holmes will always be Basil Rathbone
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and

Arthur Wontner
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Wake me up if they ever make a Sherlock Holmes that is based on those versions rather than those pretty douche boys/guys we have seen in recent years.
 

xrnzaaas

Gold Member
It's probably for the better, The Sinking City played like a Sherlock Holmes game with some horror/psychological bits and weak combat. It failed to feel like an entirely separate product.
 

obin_gam

Member
Awesome! Loved Sinking CIty and hope they return to a setting such as that, it felt like the culmination of their masterpiece "Sherlock Holmes :The Awakened".
I adore Frogwares, hopefully Next Gen SSD will make the mysteries and depth of them fantastic.
 
Speaking of the Sinking City, I keep almost pulling the trigger on it, but I don’t for some reason. Wondering if it is decent and worth buying.
 

obin_gam

Member
Speaking of the Sinking City, I keep almost pulling the trigger on it, but I don’t for some reason. Wondering if it is decent and worth buying.
If you can find it at a discount it is really worth it! Great mythos feeling and aura in it. Be weary though, its overall janky as hell, both gunplay and exploring hehe, but the feeling overwelms the faults, the jankyness is not hurting the gameplay, you'll get used to it :)
 

crumbs

Member
I liked the "Testament of Sherlock Holmes", but it still had a decent amount of jank. The Jeremy Brett-inspired Sherlock was appealing compared to the modern interpretations from the BBC or Guy Richie.

"Crimes & Punishments" really polished up the formula and is my favorite of the series. The game still featured the detective gameplay with occasional action segments.

"Devil's Daughter" felt a step in the wrong direction. They continued to de-jankify the game, but they also removed a lot of the detective elements and added more action segments. The developers also modernized the character designs of Sherlock & Watson while leaving the other characters & the environments looking like the older games, so there's this jarring disconnect when they interact with this world. The game also feels a lot shorter.

The trailer for "Chapter One" looks like they're doubling down on the new designs. Not really excited about the direction of this series, but I'll try to keep an open mind.
 

GreenAlien

Member
An unfortunate name. Chapter one implies it's incomplete/only part of a full game and has follow up chapters..
I don't think that is intended.
Should have called it Sherlock Holmes Origins or something like that.
 

zeorhymer

Member
Sinking City isn't that bad. It's a dumbed down version of their Sherlock Holmes game. The mind palace is much weaker since, all you're doing is trial and error to get the answer since there is no "incorrect" answer unlike the previous Holmes game (even then all the answers are valid). The open world is great due to no objective markers. You have to pay attention to where you're supposed to go. Combat seems out of place and the sanity meter didn't matter much even if you had zero sanity.
 
I tried REALLY hard to like Sinking City, but it just wasn't very good. Not terrible per se, and fans of the mythos may stick around to see it through, but the actual gameplay is crappy and repetitive.
 
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