Murdered: Soul Suspect is a murder mystery and Airtight Games have tried to incorporate that into a video game. Story-based games have the potential to emotionally influence players, but Murdered: Soul Suspect fails to connect with you from both a gameplay and narrative perspective. The main character doesn’t generate any sense of empathy. His tough guy attitude makes him very hard to relate to and the game never makes you care about him.
Ronan is joined by Joy, a medium who can communicate with spirits and helps find the passage to the other side. During most of the game, you will be looking for clues. If you think you have found enough of them, you can attempt to solve the mystery. You can influence NPCs, peek into their computer and figure out what happened in the past by touching objects. Salem is filled with small stories for you to uncover and track back to the truth, in an attempt to give peace to the lost souls all around you. Your ability to talk to ghosts along with how each set of collectibles have a story behind them brings you into this world and adds to the emersion.
When you see demons wandering around, Murdered: Soul Suspect suddenly becomes a stealth game. It requires you to approach demons from behind and finish them off. If seen, you need to evade them; which brings about a drastic gameplay shift — from a no-fail to an instant failure state.
Since Murdered: Soul Suspect isn’t a visual novel; its linearity and simplicity prevent it from being engaging. On top of that, the story is nothing impressive and it suffers from weak characters. Yet the murder mystery keeps you hooked and by the end you are solely committed to finding The Bell Killer.
Strengths:
- Compelling
- Murder mystery
- A genuinely creepy atmosphere
Weaknesses:
- Characters aren’t even slightly relatable
- Detective mechanics are too simplistic and linear
- Several underdeveloped and under-utilised ideas
- Combat can be infuriating and doesn’t fit with the rest of the game
