Murdered: Soul Suspect was a game I was always interested in playing since it gave off that supernatural kind of vibe while also being a traditional murder mystery. Considering the game industry hasn’t released one of these in a while, I was really excited to jump in and give it a chance. Does it hold up as a supernatural murder mystery? Yes. Does it hold up as a game about a supernatural murder mystery? That’s up for debate.
Murdered: Soul Suspect is a game that stats off in Salem, Massachusetts, the town famous for the colonial witch trials. In the beginning cut scene through various news stories, it explains that a serial killer has been rampaging through the normally small town, killing people left and right and you are his latest victim.
You play as Ronan O’ Connor, a detective for the Salem Police Department that confronts the killer at the beginning of the game and is killed by them. You are given Ronan’s backstory through his life flashing before his eyes before his untimely death. I thought it was a really clever way to flesh out his character and let people get to know him without wasting dialogue. Right after Ronan dies he is greeted by his wife, Julia, who died years before. She informs Ronan that in order to move on and be with her in the great beyond, he needs to conclude the business that he’s left unfinished on Earth and that means figuring out the identity of and catching the serial killer.
The game is based around investigations where you are tasked with discovering clues in order to reach conclusions and finding answers to things you need in order to further the case. There are also ghost cases, which are you trying to figure out the specifics behind another ghosts death in order for them to move on. Most of the investigations are simple and only require a few clues in order to figure out what you are looking for.
Unfortunately, the game doesn’t leave much for the player to find out and there were several times where I felt it was babying me as the answers, the puzzles and clues were simply too easy. For example, there are times where you have to figure out what the person was doing in certain imprinted flashbacks. The game gives you several adjectives to figure out how the person felt and what they were doing. However, only one of the options they give you is obviously correct. It will give you words like, happy, joyful, and scared. Clearly if a girl is being chased by a serial killer, she isn’t happy or joyful: she is scared.
There lies the biggest fault of the game: it waters down the experience of solving or figuring out things, which is the biggest draw to mystery experiences. All of the answers are obvious and don’t let you figure out anything else for yourself, or they are placed in places that you most likely won’t notice them as clues. There is no obvious indicator of what clues are and what aren’t besides having an indicator to press X above certain objects when you get within an inch of them. This creates problems as some clues aren’t apparent and are meant to be only filler clues but if you want to find every one in every investigation, it makes it unnecessarily harder.
Since you’re a ghost, you have the ability to pass through walls and objects and can even possess said objects in order to distract people. The buildings in Salem however aren’t free to be passed through at will because almost all of them seem to be sacred, which is your reason as to why you can’t make your way through them to reach your goals. The physical puzzles are actually pretty well put together and require you to do things like influence objects and even possess a cat to get past them in order to find more answers.
The last change to gameplay that is introduced is fighting demons. Demons are introduced as the only enemy types in the game and can only be taken down with an execute move from behind. If you are seen by the them then you have to use one of the indicated hiding spots to avoid them until they give up, otherwise they will kill you. The demons themselves are interesting enough but the simple, hide and seek mechanics to the interactions with them gets really boring and old very quick. Despite this fault with the gameplay, the story itself is one of the most interesting I have played in a game for some time now. I won’t go into many details or specifics as it ruins the stories multiple twists and plot points but I will say that it kept me going until the end. The game really takes advantage of setting and history behind Salem and tells a chilling story that I am sure won’t be topped for some time to come.
Murdered: Soul Suspect has a fantastic story that is dragged down by its choices in gameplay. Its story is interesting and keeps you going to see how it ends like a traditional murder mystery will do but its choices in gameplay only seem to drag the title down as a whole and keep it from being something great. If it had better choices for solving the mysteries and didn’t hold the players hand so much, Murdered: Soul Suspect might have a brilliant game. However, while you will find a great story here it can only surprise you once and because of that loses re-playability. As a murder mystery, this title is really good but in terms of a game, Murdered: Soul Suspect struggles to give the player a real challenge that isn’t repetitive.