Murdered: Soul Suspect Wiki – Everything you need to know about the game

Murdered: Soul Suspect is an upcoming single player action adventure, puzzle video game from the hugely successful publisher Square Enix (commonly abbreviated to Sqenix among fan communities) that previously published the smash hit games like Deus Ex Human Revolution and the Final Fantasy franchise.

The game is currently in development under the 2004 founded development studio Airtight Games and will run on Unreal Engine. Murdered: Soul Suspect is set to launch on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 with no mention of a next generation console port. There is no definitive launch date at the moment, with the game only being slated for a vague Q2 2014 launch. It will be available at retail and via digital download.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

Publisher Square Enix and Developers Airtight Games have been very tight lipped regarding the current state of development when it comes to talking about Murdered: Soul Suspect. Concerns were raised since the game was first (and unofficially) announced via Twitter, the lack of a direct announcement was and is considered a failed PR move or a foreboding glance of what is to be expected.

The developer, Airtight Games, has only previously worked on two titles of any particular note, and out of them only one was well received. The third person jet pack shooter Dark Void, which was poorly received across the board despite its innovative combat mechanic and Quantum Conundrum digital download exclusive single player puzzle platformer that received good reviews thanks to its well implemented physics puzzles.

Murdered: Soul Suspect has been confirmed to be running on Unreal Engine 3 and with the coming next generation consoles, this game’s technology is soon to be eclipsed by bigger titles with better marketing campaigns resulting into Square Enix’s fans expressing concerns over this. With the next gen consoles currently predicted to sell large numbers, and not supporting backwards compatibility it’s unlikely that video game enthusiasts are going to return to their current consoles to experience this single player, puzzle action adventure game.

Yosuke Shiokawa, the games creative director had this to say on the matter “I don’t know about the future, but for now we are concentrating on creating a current-gen experience, so basically I want to create a great game and focus our resources on making a great game instead of heavily investing in hard console research, R&D, and building new pipelines. To me that is a massive risk that could prevent us from making a great game.”

The game presumably carries the tagline “What is the hardest case to solve?” because this is the only real sub title that has been released alongside anything promotional.

Some controversy has arisen as what little information regarding the game has come to light. The game’s supernatural premise has been compared to a 2010 adventure game, Ghost Trick. Ghost trick was developed and published by Capcom and was released on iOS and Nintendo DS. Matthew Brunner, the chief creative officer at Airtight Games has said that although Ghost Trick was a hugely successful video game release with no mainstream score beneath an 8/10, he was not aware of its existence, thus making any similarities purely coincidental.

Story

In Murdered: Soul Suspect the player will be taking control of the unethical detective, Ronan O’Connor. Ronan was the victim of a murder and finds himself living on in a non-corporeal state. In this spirit form, he will try and solve the mystery surrounding his murder while fighting against what appear to be demonic entities. The game’s creative director  Yosuke Shiokawa (who has previously worked on Dissidia: Final Fantasy) has remarked that the games concept is based on this premise: What would happen if John McClane died during the ensuing fights in Die Hard, but continued to fight on as a ghost.

Gameplay

Murdered: Soul Suspect will be played from a third person perspective and will see the player guiding the now dead, but spectral detective Ronan O’Connor as he tries to unravel the mysteries surrounding his murder. This is where the game takes on its puzzle elements. The game will also feature combat actions, in these sections Ronan will be doing combat against Demonic beings, how exactly this will be accomplished is currently unknown.

Some gamers were left questioning the size of the game, given the industries current devotion towards short and linear stories. The creative director of the had this to say in response “It’s more a point A to point B kind of game, and it’s also not a huge sandbox game like GTA or Saints Row, so we have a hub and spoke structure like Batman: Arkham Asylum or Deus Ex: Human Revolution or BioShock. Those games are of a similar size and structure to Murdered: Soul Suspect. It’s not huge, but we have some freedom for exploration.”

Characters

The player will be taking control of the murdered detective Ronan O’Connor. The game’s premise and thus its characters persona were inspired by a “What if” scenario based on the Die Hard movies. When questioned about Ronan, the games creative director Yosuke Shiokawa has said “He’s not a good cop. As a detective he did a lot of bad things, so he had a very dirty background, but when he met his wife he tried to become as good a detective as he could be. Eventually he becomes a great detective, but then he gets killed, so he’s actually a really unlucky guy!”

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.