Sherlock Holmes Chapter One
Learning the elementary
FORMAT PS5, PS4 / ETA 2021 / PUB FROGWARES DEV FROGWARES / PLAYERS 1
You’re off to the Mediterranean island of Cortona with your dishy and mysterious mate Jon. This is no lads’ holiday – you, young Sherlock Holmes, are here to mourn your recently deceased mother at your childhood home. But that doesn’t stop you getting into a mess of trouble.
You’ve barely checked into the hotel when the game’s afoot.
You end up looking into a seance gone wrong and hunting a missing diamond before you can even neck a beer in the sunshine. This opening case which we go hands-on with, Ghosts Of The Past, is classic Holmes stuff, and a great way to settle us back into the deerstalker hat of Frogwares’ famous detective (though here hats are optional, serving as devious disguises).
ONE-PIPE PROBLEM
In keeping with Frogwares’ previous Holmes games you question suspects, find clues, and bash ideas together in your Mind Palace to make deductions. There’s some nuance, as often
evidence can point to incorrect conclusions – you are a youthful and inexperienced detective, after all – so you need to meet it halfway if you want to actually solve the case properly.
Newer enhancements, like pinning evidence in order to quiz loiterers in an area, add an extra layer of pipe-pondering. One, a Watch-Dogs-style detective vision that quickly reveals facts about passersby, like their occupation or demeanour, plays into cases when you’re looking for suspects of a certain description, and adds flavour to this new Holmesian open world.
Unlike in the developer’s cosmic horror adventure The Sinking City, the open world is gorgeous instead of flooded, and feels lived in. Combat will be an option in some cases, but from what we’ve seen there’s a real focus on thoughtful deduction, bringing this much more in line with the likes of fan-favourite Crimes & Punishments than The Devil’s Daughter, with a pinch of lovely side content. This could be a wonderful return to form for the great detective.