I'm pretty grateful that games are starting to come out of the standard action-adventure mold. Looking at early screenshots of the Airtight-developed, Square Enix-published Murdered: Soul Suspect, I expected a standard action game with standard combat and standard one-liners, but with a twist! Now, instead of a hardass cop fighting criminals, you're a dead hardass cop fighting demons!
Preconceived notions can be a really dangerous thing. Murdered: Soul Suspect surprised me with its thoughtful, intelligent approach, and a strong focus on connecting the narrative to the gameplay mechanics. Earlier this week, I was able to get some hands-on time with the game (which comes out in June), and got some time to talk with Matt Brunner, one of the founders of Airtight Games.
My hands-on time with the game started from the very beginning, where badass detective Ronan O'Connor has tracked down a killer to a house where he may have been scoping out his next victim. Ronan's never lost a fight, so he's amazed at the killer's inhuman strength--Ronan gets his ass thoroughly kicked, gets thrown out a window, and shot multiple times with his own gun. Now as a spirit, Ronan learns that he must resolve the one big regret tying him to this mortal plane--his own murder--before he can finally rest in peace.
I played through two chapters, starting at Ronan's murder scene. The real focus of the game is on using Ronan's ghostly powers to possess people--it's not full possession, so you can't make them do things, but you can subtly influence them to determine what's important--and then piecing those clues together to move your investigation forward. Possess a cop at the crime scene, then look at his notebook to determine what clues hold the most relevance. Psychically eavesdrop on people's thoughts, finding out who saw specific details that can help you crack the case.
Along the way, there are multiple side quests involving spirits that haven't found peace yet. Listen to their stories, investigate NPCs, and solve these murders by putting the pieces back together in the right order, and maybe the other spirits will find peace thanks to your actions. Spirits who stay in the mortal realm too long become demons, lethal apparitions that will hunt you down and destroy you. In order to deal with these threats, Ronan has to take advantage of their limited range of sight to sneak up on them, then possess and obliterate them when they least expect it. It's not really "combat" so much as it is "hunting your hunters."
Despite having horror elements, it's not a scary game--there are very slight jumps and some disturbing imagery, but the focus is on telling a story, and really making you a part of this world. Airtight's always been big on trying new things, so this is another solid, interesting step forward for them. The early build I played wasn't buggy as much as it was empty--I'm sure that the demo just wanted me to focus on the story chapters, and more ancillary stuff will fill in the spaces between.
After that, I had a chance to sit down with Matt Brunner, one of the founders of Airtight Games, and Chief Creative Officer for the studio!
Hi, Mr. Brunner, it's a pleasure to be talking with you. First off, thanks for the chance to play Murdered: Soul Suspect--it's kind of refreshing to see a game with a focus on investigation and paying attention to your surroundings. So many developers nowadays want to focus on capturing the Call of Duty audience--do you think players are ready to slow down and think outside the box?
Matt Brunner: I can't say definitely, but in my own personal opinion, people are really restless for something different. You see so much repetition--it's the same game, but with a different tagline. I really hope that people approach Murdered with an open mind and give it a chance, and really see what the game is trying to do.
I'm sure you're aware of this--adventure games often have pretty incomprehensible puzzles. Murdered seems to have a more organic puzzle-solving experience. What was the mindset behind this?
MB: Looking at a lot of exploration or adventure games, they don't usually require you to think... you collect instead. You find all these things, and you're supposed to find the one item out of all the ones you've collected that will work to solve a puzzle or get past a situation. We wanted players to really think like a detective--here's a crime scene, and you just have this mess in front of you. You check each piece of evidence, deduce and hypothesize to try and figure out what happened here. While there are a lot of little mysteries in the side quests, each part of the main story is just another small piece of the bigger mystery, the bigger whole.
It's always nice to see a new IP--that's kind of Airtight's thing looking at Dark Void and Quantum Conundrum, with lots of really cool ideas. This is a big, cross-platform release--is Airtight putting its whole weight behind Murdered: Soul Suspect, or are you able to tell us about anything else coming down the line?
MB: Well, I sure hope so! (laughs) We have a lot of plans right now that I can't really talk about, but I can say that there's one game currently in pre-production, and some really interesting projects coming along.
There are plenty of horror-themed games--some more actiony, some more built around exploration. What are your favorites?
MB: Honestly, I'm not a very big horror gamer, but I am a big fan of the supernatural. Talking movies, we can look at filmmaker James Wan--I didn't enjoy Saw, but I really enjoyed The Conjuring. That was actually a pretty scary movie, but it really was about the supernatural and the unknown and the world beyond, and I really enjoyed that.
And finally, what about your favorite investigation- or adventure-type games?
MB: I've always been a big fan of the classic adventure games--the ones with the incomprehensible puzzles, like you said--Monkey Island and the like. They had really clever humor and great writing. With Murdered: Soul Suspect, though, we wanted the appearance and controls of an action-adventure game, but instead of the hunt-and-peck mechanics of other adventure games, make it feel more modern and intuitive.
All right, that's everything--thanks for your time!
Now, before anybody starts talking about Ghost Trick, I'll have you know that "a dead guy solving his own murder" isn't exactly a recent thing, even in video games (but yes, Ghost Trick was awesome). With that said, the brief demo I played was pretty solid... but can it hold up for the entire length of a game? What do you think? Is Murdered: Soul Suspect a smart-enough and original-enough game to stand on its own and get gamers excited, or is it just another overly-ambitious case of "pioneers get slaughtered, but settlers prosper?" Sound off in the comments and let us know what you think!
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