Murdered: Soul Suspect developer Airtight Games created its fair share of news yesterday when it was revealed to be selling its office equipment and reportedly shutting down. The closure follows the released of Murdered: Soul Suspect, which opened to average reviews and below average sales.

Now the developer has taken to Twitter and confirmed its closure. While the studio laid off 14 employees several months ago, a former employee revealed that lay-offs actually began around January.

Airight was fairly normal in its tweets though. “Thanks to all of the fans, family, friends and colleagues who supported us and made the last 10 years possible.

“Thanks to all of the amazing people that worked on Dark Void, Quantum Conundrum, Murdered, Soul Fjord, Pixld and DerpBike.”

Airtight’s remnants still remain intact though – Kim Swift, who worked on Quantum Conundrum and Soul Fjord, is now at Amazon Game Studios for instance. What are your thoughts on Airtight’s closure? Let us know below.

Airtight Games, which recently developed and released Murdered: Soul Suspect for current and next gen consoles, has reportedly closed down according to Geekwire. The latter visited the Redmon office of the studio and discovered that only was office equipment being sold off at discounts but that a sign outside indicated that it was shutting down.

GameSpot and Geekwire both tried to reach the studio by email for a statement but received a “mail delivery failed” message on doing so. As of now, Airtight Games has not released an official statement on the same, though it did release 14 employees in the past few months as part of restructuring.

The studio has also worked on Soul Fjord with Kim Swift (before she departed to work Amazon Game Studios). Other well known games from the studio include Dark Void and Quantum Conundrum. Are you bummed about Airtight Games closing down? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Not so fast. See, Ronan can’t move on and be with Julia, his deceased wife, until he comes to grips with his unfinished business: in this case, his murder. This isn’t a spoiler. You get all of this information in the first five minutes of the game, and this quest comprises pretty much the entirety of the game’s ten hour run time. So the question, really, is this: how do you feel about detective work?

How you answer that question will largely determine how you feel about Murdered: Soul Suspect. Despite his checkered past and ridiculous hat, Ronan is actually a pretty boring fellow whose defining trait is his ability to smoke his last cigarette as a ghost, forever. It’s not that he’s a bad character per se; he’s just kind of dull, or at the very least, the way the story presents him is. Thankfully, Airtight Games has built a pretty interesting game around him.

"Because Ronan’s dead, he can’t interact with the world in the traditional sense, but that also means he can go pretty much wherever he likes. Walls are little more than barriers that you can’t see through, gaps can be teleported over, and televisions and copy machines can be possessed at will."

Because Ronan’s dead, he can’t interact with the world in the traditional sense, but that also means he can go pretty much wherever he likes. Walls are little more than barriers that you can’t see through, gaps can be teleported over, and televisions and copy machines can be possessed at will, and all of this means you can interact with both the living and spirit worlds in a number of unique and interesting ways.

Most of the time this means exploring the various areas of Salem, examining clues related to the case, and learning a little more about Ronan, the other characters, and the town itself. Often, Ronan will find himself at a scene and have to reconstruct what happened by collecting clues scattered around the environment. It’s usually not much of a challenge. All you have to do is find and click the appropriate icon, but the game does switch it up by allowing you to possess people so you can see what they’re looking at, read their minds, and even influence their memories so you can gain access to more clues.

For the most part, this is pretty easy: you just pick the clue or clues that will stimulate the correct response or advance the case, and Ronan takes it from there. Sometimes, the game will present something challenging or unclear, but by and large, it’s a fairly straightforward exercise, and like most games that find their roots in the adventure games of old, there’s no penalty for failure. This type of investigation is the meat and potatoes of Soul Suspect’s gameplay, but that’s not all the game has to offer.

"There’s a lot to collect here, from information on the town and its unique history, memories of Ronan’s life, notes left by other characters, and news articles, small journals and forgotten items that, when collected, piece together a ghost story from the town’s past."

When you’re not solving cases, you’ll spend your time exploring the town, interacting with its inhabitants, both dead and alive, and finding collectibles. There’s a lot to collect here, from information on the town and its unique history, memories of Ronan’s life, notes left by other characters, and news articles, small journals and forgotten items that, when collected, piece together a ghost story from the town’s past. Most of this is optional, but a good portion of the game’s backstory can only be understood if you spend some time collecting these things.

Some, for instance, will focus on the Salem Witch Trials which, as you can imagine, play a pretty large role in the game’s plot given its supernatural origins. Others might focus on Ronan’s marriage to Julia and well as her struggle with mental illness, while some are news reports based on the recent murders, how Salem at large has reacted to them, and what the town’s relatively small police force is doing to catch the guy behind it all. All of this adds quite a bit to the game, the sense of place, and the story, but with about two hundred collectible items, there’s almost too much stuff. It’s kind of a shame that you have to chase them to get the whole picture, but is nice that Soul Suspect uses its collectibles to such a meaningful extent.

The town of Salem (and the creepy music that goes with it) is well-realized, and goes a long way towards selling the game’s narrative. A lot of this is due to the dual nature of the town itself. Because Ronan is dead, he can interact with both the real world and the spirit world, which is largely made up of remnants of buildings from the witch trials, and other ghosts. The overlapping worlds makes for some really cool environments and adds an interesting twist to exploration as Ronan cannot pass through objects in the spirit world, but it’s the ghosts themselves that steal the show.  Some are just there to stand off in the middle distance, look creepy and disappear just before you get to them, but others are legitimate characters that Ronan can interact with.

"The breadth of characters on display here is impressive. Some are downright creepy, such as the ghost that is stalking the little girl he was sent to kidnap in life, only to thwarted with deadly force by her father, or another who stole personal belongings from women and stalks them, a habit he continues even in death."

The breadth of characters on display here is impressive. Some are downright creepy, such as the ghost that is stalking the little girl he was sent to kidnap in life, only to thwarted with deadly force by her father, or another who stole personal belongings from women and stalks them, a habit he continues even in death. Then, of course, there are the sad stories, the ghosts who don’t even know they’re dead, like the college student left to die because of a stupid prank, or the man who wait for the girl he was with after he fell into the river and, unbeknownst to him, drowned.

These stories will upset you and tug in your heartstrings, but you can’t help them. No, the only ghosts that Ronan can help are the ones like him, the ones who are held here by some unfinished business, and just need a little help to move on. This plays out like any other case, but it’s a nice change of pace, and it is rewarding to see their stories through, even though there are just a few of them scattered throughout the game.

Unfortunately, not everything in Soul Suspect works as well as these scenes do. The game will attempt to change it up from time to time by forcing you to contend with demons, lost souls who never moved on and eventually went mad. Fighting demons is a game of cat and mouse. You’ll try to sneak up behind demons and exorcise them with a well timed button combination before they see you. If the demon’s do see you, you’ll have to retreat to a nearby hiding places and bounce between them as the demons search for you. Other areas will have you possess a cat so you can crawl through vents.

"The real problem is the bugs. At one point, my objective tracker simply refused to update, and I went through the rest of the game trying to “escape the attic.” Another time, a ghost I had already helped randomly reappeared and while I could interact with all of the objects concerning her, I couldn’t talk to her."

These sections aren’t without value. The demon bits, for instance, can be legitimately scary, but they break up the pacing and feel generally at odds with the rest of the game tonally. The same can be said for the cat sections. While fun, they feel a little out of place and can be frustrating as you’re not always sure where you need to go. That said, these aren’t the real problems plaguing Soul Suspect.

The real problem is the bugs. At one point, my objective tracker simply refused to update, and I went through the rest of the game trying to “escape the attic.” Another time, a ghost I had already helped randomly reappeared and while I could interact with all of the objects concerning her, I couldn’t talk to her. That’s to say nothing of the various ways Ronan got stuck in the environments during our journey. None of these things ever broke the game, but it’s still frustrating to see a game with so many little things that actively pull you out of the story.

And really, that’s the issue with Soul Suspect. It’s the little things: the bugs, the occasionally annoying demon or cat section, the tonal shifts, and the little inconsistencies, like how so many people in Salem have the exact same thoughts, or how little you have to do to solve cases, that pull you out of the game. That didn’t ever stop me from enjoying the game’s narrative; that unfolds nicely, especially if you factor in the collectibles, which manage to make even Ronan interesting. The game has some great moments and more than a few surprises up its sleeve, but it’s ultimately just as flawed as its protagonist, and not even the best ghost tricks can save it from that.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Getting straight to the visuals of the game, the game’s multi platform approach is blamed for its not so appealing visuals. But even taking that fact into account, the visuals of the game do not meet the standards of a game coming from a developer of this calibre.

" The game as such lacks a good depth of field, even on the new generation of consoles but in a way gels in with the sombre theme of the game. But it still looks like an attempt towards saving resources and work time. The game has good shadow rendering with decent anti-aliasing on both the consoles and screen tearing issues are minimal."

Starting with the new generation of consoles, the game fares decent on both the Sony and Microsoft platform. The game runs at on 1080p on both the consoles effortlessly, with the PS4 at 60 and Xbox One at 30fps. But some differences are quite evident. The overall look of Murdered: Soul Suspect is a little languished on the Xbox One in the face of the PS4; not with regard to performance, but with reference to gamma correction and colour contrast.

The PS4 seems to deliver crisper images with seemingly higher resolution textures that lend the game a more ‘defined’ and solid look. The difference is not appalling, but it’s there nevertheless. The game as such lacks a good depth of field, even on the new generation of consoles but in a way gels in with the sombre theme of the game. But it still looks like an attempt towards saving resources and work time.

The game has good shadow rendering with decent anti-aliasing on both the consoles and screen tearing issues are minimal. The PS4 promises a slightly better ambient occlusion that the Xbox One. If you draw your eyes to door edges and contours and stair corners, the feel of depth is better on the PS4 with the obfuscated parts in the environment being amply dark where they need to be. This is not to say that ambient occlusion is bad on the Xbox One.

" The older generation of the consoles are more even in the competition. The Xbox 360 and the PS3 run the game nicely on 30fps although there have been certain cases of screen tearing on both the consoles which can be rather frustrating. "

The game carries out the ghostly aspect of the world nicely with faded out colours that give the game a gelid ambience. This greatly adds to the experience of playing the game. The older generation of the consoles are more even in the competition. The Xbox 360 and the PS3 run the game nicely on 30fps although there have been certain cases of screen tearing on both the consoles which can be rather frustrating.

The game seems to have a predilection for not utilising anti-aliasing. Jagged edges are conspicuous throughout the game and the shadows are droll at times. Ambient occlusion is wholly missing from the game on both the older consoles but the textures remain identical on both the consoles and so do all other visual aspects of the game.

Murdered: Soul Suspect isn’t anything special to look forward to on the PC either. It’s launch was plagued with crashes and bugs including key bindings, corrupt files, sound issues et al. Thankfully, a lot of workarounds and patches have been issued but it doesn’t bode well to have a game’s launch be hindered so harshly by lack of optimisation.

" The textures are definitely better on the PC than on the new generation of consoles; the game with the option of Vsync to look the frame rate at 30fps is a bit of a let down because it doesn’t call out levels to be running the game at such low a frame rate even on powerful PCs."

The PS4 almost matches the graphic quality if the PC version of the game but we’ll soon have the modding community to thank for making the game look much better than it does now; hopefully very soon. The textures are definitely better on the PC than on the new generation of consoles; the game with the option of Vsync to look the frame rate at 30fps is a bit of a let down because it doesn’t call out levels to be running the game at such low a frame rate even on powerful PCs.

The game does have modest system requirements though; a dual core processor running at 2.5+Ghz clock speed would suffice in addition to a low end card like the GTS 250 or a Radeon 4830 with 4 Gigabytes of system RAM.

Needless to say the game would run on the lowest settings with not quite satisfactory frame rates, but run all the same for those of you wanting to play the game somehow and anyhow. The overall look and feel of the game could have been much better. The game’s textures are manageable by the game industry’s new standards.

Whilst there are times when you would appreciate the clever use of lighting and the clearly limned out bricks and planks of woods on buildings, more often you’d find yourself giving a sigh of disappointment when you come across flat panels on buildings that have lines drawn on the flat surfaces to mimic bricks.

Character clothing doesn’t respond to the elements in the game. It’s not only detective Ronan whose mysterious tie always sticks to his shirt, no matter all the stooping or jogging or running or bumping into stuff.

" The explanation for not being able to run through some walls is given as the town having wards placed in the days of the yore to protect them against witchcraft. Apparently some wagons have survived quite a long time after the protective spells were placed on them. "

The explanation for not being able to run through some walls is given as the town having wards placed in the days of the yore to protect them against witchcraft. Apparently some wagons have survived quite a long time after the protective spells were placed on them. There are a few glitches in the game too, with several objects in the game randomly vibrating. Nothing of the outside is visible from inside the buildings even though you may have NPCs looking out of the windows and commenting on the situation.

It makes one think that wherefore did the developers not put in more time in making the game better. The game established a good concept for the game but could not capitalise on it properly.

But even with its drawbacks, the game puts forward a decent narrative based gameplay with a certain enigma to it. If you’re one of those who likes to read and figure out events in games and do a lot of guesswork you may very well like the game.

Of course the game doesn’t even come close to the brilliance of L.A. Noire, but it’s still something. But don’t expect the game to astound you with its gameplay, artwork, aesthetics or visual performance.

If you have any questions, let us know in the comments section below.

All 7 Water Boiler Locations:

This achievement/trophy guide shows the locations of all 7 water boiler collectibles. This will uncover “The Watery Grave” ghost story.

The Bell Tower Banshee Collectible Locations And Ghost Story:

Below is the complete guide for The Bell Tower Banshee Collectible locations and the guide for Ghost story.

Artifacts Locations Guide:

There are 242 collectibles to find in Murdered: Soul Suspect. We have the video guide for you below. Please note this is not the complete list and we will update this as soon as a new video is released.

Police Department

There are 37 artifacts here.

Apartment

There are 14 artifacts to be found here.

Trophy/Achievement Guide:

Almost every trophy and achievement in Murdered Soul Suspect can be unlocked while playing through the single player campaign. For Collector’s trophy and achievement, please refer our Artifacts locations guide above.

Collector 1 

Collected an artifact [refer the Artifact guide above}

Collector 10 

Collected 10 artifacts [refer the Artifact guide above}

Collector 25 

Collected 25 artifacts [refer the Artifact guide above}

Collector 50 

Collected 50 artifacts [refer the Artifact guide above}

Collector 75 

Collected 75 artifacts [refer the Artifact guide above}

Collector 100 

Collected 100 artifacts [refer the Artifact guide above}

Collector 150 

Collected 150 artifacts [refer the Artifact guide above}

Collector All 

Collected all of the artifacts [refer the Artifact guide above}

Ronan’s Story 

Learned about Ronan’s Life

Baxter’s Story 

Learned about Baxter’s Life

Rex’s Story 

Learned about Rex’s Life

Cassandra’s Story 

Learned about Cassandra’s Life

Julia’s Story 

Learned about Julia’s Life

The Bell Killer’s Story 

Learned about the Bell Killer

Salem’s History 

Discovered Salem’s history

The Witch Trials 

Discovered information about the witch trials

Codex 

Discovered the meaning of the supernatural graffiti

A Watery Grave 

Uncovered the Watery Grave ghost story [refer the guide above]

The Bell Tower Banshee 

Uncovered The Bell Tower Banshee ghost story [refer the guide above]

The Stalwart Specter 

Uncovered The Stalwart Specter ghost story

The Heirloom 

Uncovered The Heirloom ghost story

Man in the Box 

Uncovered the Man in the Box ghost story

Terror on the Tracks

Uncovered The Terror on the Tracks ghost story

Ashes to Ashes 

Uncovered the Ashes to Ashes ghost story

Eternal Flame 

Uncovered the Eternal Flame ghost story

Discover Remove 

Used Remove for the first time

Discover Reveal 

Used Reveal for the first time

Possess the Cat 

Possessed the cat

Mindreader 

Used Mind Read for the first time

Poltergeist 

Used Poltergeist for the first time

Interrogator 

Interrogated a ghost for the first time

Exorcist 

Defeated a demon

Investigator 

Completed the first investigation

Teleporter 

Teleported for the first time

The Missing Body 

Helped Ingrid find peace

Amnesia

Helped Julie find peace

Carnage 

Helped Brad find peace

Scorned 

Helped Katy find peace

Secret Achievements

The Death Wish of a Shady Man 

Became a ghost and met a strange ghost girl

One of Us

Revisited the scene of your murder and discovered there was a witness

Makeshift Sanctuary 

Found the witness and learned what she knew

Half-Truths and Whole Lies

Helped the witness escape the police station and gained an ally

Ashland

Discovered what happened to Sophia

Lost Causes 

Learned the fate of Rose and helped Iris escape the asylum

Wicked Tempers 

Discovered links between the witch trials and the Bell Killer murders

Ghosts Never Die 

Investigated the murder of Iris

Judgement 

Discovered the Bell Killer’s secrets

Tightening the Noose 

Stopped Abigail and saved Rex and Joy

Miscellaneous:

Location of configuration file: You can find the configuration file here: Documents\My Games\Murdered Soul Suspect\FateGame\Config.

Game crashes and freezes: First check whether your drivers are updated. Then check Steam Cache files integrity. If they are good then turn down Anti-Aliasing to FXAA.

Locking the frame rate to 30fps: Disable V-Sync and force it via AMD’s Catalyst Control Center and NVidia control panel.

Executable File Missing: Verify the integrity of your game cache via Steam.

Game is 8GB but shows 115 MB: 115 MB is the size of the update.

Error: Failed to launch game – Download the latest version of Visual c++ redist.

Murdered.exe stopped working: You need to go here Program files>steamapps>common>Murdered Soul Suspect>Binaries>Win 64 Then you need to right click the exe and select the graphics card.

Note: This guide will updated once we have more information about the game. You can also check out the complete video walk-through of Murdered Soul Suspect here.

Game Overview:

In Murdered Soul Suspect players up take the role of Ronan O’Connor. Ronan is  a detective who is murdered by a killer. The game is set in a dark world and has detective elements as the player needs to find the clues and find the protagonist’s killer.

Murdered Soul Suspect is developed by Airtight Games and published by Square Enix. The game is now available for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC.

Check out the video walkthrough of Murdered Soul Suspect below and let us know if you have any questions in the comments section below.

For video game guides, tips and wikis, check out our gaming portal here.

Square Enix and Airtight Games’ Murdered: Soul Suspect is now available across the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Xbox One and PC. As part of our usual testing process, we have selected the PS4, Xbox One and PC versions and compared the first few seconds of the opening scene of Murdered: Soul Suspect.

We have purposely avoided comparing cut scenes and have kept our focus on a short gameplay clip for this comparison. Our first impressions indicate that the PlayStation 4 version has a crisper image compared to the Xbox One version. We have also thrown in an equivalent PC footage to show how it compares with the console versions.

This is of course our initial impressions and we will have the complete analysis later this week. For more on Murdered Soul Suspect, check out our hub page here and stay tuned for more news and updates. Please note that the high quality GIFs below will take sometime for loading, so please be patient!

Xbox One

PS4

PC

Airtight Games’ Murdered: Soul Suspect is now available for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC, PS3 and PS4 and Square Enix have released a launch trailer for the same. Check it out above.

Murdered: Soul Suspect follows the tale of Ronan O’Connor as he pursues a relentless serial killer. The twist is that O’Connor is murdered before he can identify the killer and re-emerges as a ghostly spirit. Using your supernatural powers, you’ll struggle to find the killer and ultimately extract revenge. You’ll also be avoiding other-worldly, ethereal figures that seek to make you a permanent part of the afterlife before you can fulfil your purpose.

Critical reception to Murdered: Soul Suspect has been below average with criticisms ranging from wasted potential to a somewhat clunky investigative process. Have you played the game and if so, what are your thoughts on it? Let us know in the comments below what you think.

Murdered: Soul Suspect, the paranormal action adventure detective game published by Square Enix, is less than two weeks away from release, and ahead of its launch, they’ve conjured up what they are calling a ‘comprehensive 101’ trailer. This trailer explains the game’s premise- the protagonist has been brutally murdered by a serial killer, and he returns as a ghost to try and figured out what happened- as well as the mechanics- the protagonist can possess other people, walk through walls, possess and influence humans (and cats!), teleport to hard-to-reach locations, and poltergeist objects to spook innocent bystanders. The protagonist also has to deal with Demons who are trying to consume souls after their deaths.

Murdered: Soul Suspect has a hell of a premise- following in the footsteps of, say, Ghost Trick, the game promises a unique next generation action adventure game like no other. It is due out on PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on June 3.

The paranormal action adventure game is being developed by Airtight Games and published by Square Enix- the newest trailer that you see above shows us the famed (within the game’s universe and story) Bell Killer at work, showing us the aftermath of his… adventures. He’s supposed to be mad, with no guiding motivation that moves him, his victims all subjected to seemingly random, brutal, deaths.

Murdered: Soul Suspect will be hitting the P3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and PC on June 3 in North America, and June 6 in Europe. Stay tuned for more coverage.