If you haven’t yet caught wind of the upcoming Murdered: Soul Suspect in the wake of Gamescom, Square Enix has recently released the first of its episodic trailer series to give story insights and clues for the upcoming game.
In Murdered, you play as Ronan O’ Conner, an Irish, chain-smoking, tattooed detective who apparently managed to carry his incomparable swag with him into the afterlife after being killed in the line of duty. Along with his Fedora. Because, if you’re going to be solving your own murder, you might as well look fabulous while doing it! So, of course, it’s safe to say that O’Conner is probably the trendiest man to ever be gunned down on the mean streets of Salem, Massachusetts.
And you’re not going to sit by idly while some hooded asshat has the privilege of knowing that you’re dead in the street, so you play as a bullet-ridden ghost determined to find out anything you can about your murderer.
Like all good noir detectives, you have to narrate your own adventures, so go ahead and expect some really killer voice acting as you track down your dastardly killer. And according to the hints dropped in the announcement trailer, it’s pretty hard to fight off an attacker who is potentially cheating with supernatural powers of their own. But now that you’re dead, you’ve got an arsenal of your own.
Using both your well honed wits as a detective and your new supernatural abilities, you must solve puzzles, gather clues, read minds, and eavesdrop on witnesses in order to further your investigation.
Additional abilities include ‘possession’ which does not mean you’ll be able to jump into bodies and have them dance naked in the street, but are limited to only being able to see and hear through a character’s eyes. Not to mention an old ward cast in the way back when’s render you unable to freely enter buildings, unless through an open door or window. Once you hustle your way inside you’re free to moon walk through walls and snoop for clues.
The ghostly plain, known as Dusk, will allow O’Conner to find and interact with ethereal objects, as well as other ghosts. In addition to investigating your murder, you’ll also have to be on the look out for soul devouring demons. You will not be able to attack demons head on, but have to possess them from the inside in order to make them explode, which I’m sure is as awesome as it sounds.
The new trailer, Witness hints that there was someone was in the apartment when O’Conner’s was fighting for his life with the masked murderer. It seems that this mysterious girl was in fact the real target. This only raises more questions: who is the girl? Who is the identity of the killer? And of equal importance – how does O’ Conner mange to make bullet wounds look so fashionable?of
Murdered: Soul Suspect is sure to be one to watch this year, as you leverage O’Conner’s supernatural abilities with good old wits and cunning to solve puzzles in a world fraught with its own seedy ambience and mood. The premise itself is a fresh take on the detective genre, along the lines of LA Noire and Ghost Trick (which you should go buy RIGHT NOW).
Murdered: Soul Suspect is slated for release next year for Windows, Xbox 360, and PS3.
