Murdered: Soul Suspect

Murdered: Soul Suspect is an action adventure game produced by Airtight Games in collaboration with Square Enix. The whole puts an emphasis on the detective elements, and the story is enriched by supernatural elements.

Murdered: Soul Suspect is an original interactive thriller by Airtight Games, the studio responsible for Quantum Conundrum and Dark Void, which has worked with the company Square Enix. The game is a representative of action adventure genre, and the main emphasis was put on detective elements.

The setting takes the player into the town of Salem, Massachusetts, associated primarily with the seventeenth-century story about witches, which were hunted, and then very often - as a result of the court trials - burned at the stake. In the game there is a mystical climate, exposing supernatural powers. We assume the role of Ronan O'Connor, the detective, who at the beginning of the game is murdered, and his character - like in the movie Ghost with Patrick Swayze'em and Demi Moore in the leading roles - turns into a ghost. He has to face his demons to unravel the intriguing mystery of his own murder and discover who is behind this evil deed, this way bringing peace to his soul. Airtight Games devoted much attention to the execution of the narrative layer which holds in suspension.

The hero, taking on a new form, receives supernatural powers, so that not only is he invisible to the eyes of others, but also can read people's minds, penetrate them, using them for his own purposes, and even control them to a limited extent. During the game, in life in-between, he encounters other harassed souls and evil demons, hungering for allegedly salutary souls. Thanks to the latter, the developers introduced some elements of action to this adventure-detective game, as they pose a threat to Ronan which he can either eliminate or run away from.

Murdered gameplay is mainly about discovering another fragments of the investigation - the formula in many ways resembles the detective production of Team Bondi, LA Noire. Draw conclusions on the basis of the available evidence, and if the character manages to collect an adequate number of facts, a simple mini-game starts, in which we literally reconstruct the course of events.

Soul Suspect is also enrchied by minor RPG elements, which boil down to the fact that the subsequent discovery of facts, performing optional side quests occurring in large numbers that are a nice break from guiding thread, we get valuable experience points. Thanks to those, we develop the superhuman abilities of the detective.

Graphics are kept in a dark tone. The action takes place only after dark, and the developers tried to capture the mysterious nature of the city. Visuals, which are generated by a modified Unreal Engine 3, present a setting rich in detail and carefully made character models. Much attention was also devoted to music which renders the depressing atmosphere of Salem, and the voice actors. O'Connor comments his actions live and accurately describes the current events, allowing to identify with the hero of the story to a greater degree.

Last updated on 21 November 2014