Sherlock Holmes The Awakened Preview

Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is a remake of the 2007 action-adventure, puzzle game of the same name. Developed and published by Frogwares (who have created games based on the H.P. Lovecraft and Arthur Conan Doyle IPs), you play as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson as they investigate deaths in Europe and America that might be linked to an insidious cult. During the Steam Next Fest, I was able to play the demo, and this is what I got to experience.

Upon jumping in, I was met with a beautiful landscape that slowly panned around to reveal Watson riding by horse drawn carriage; he was on his way to a secluded psychiatric hospital. Once inside the reception area, I took control of Watson and was able to walk around the area, looking at the improved graphics and character animations. The camera movements were also improved, now appearing to be much smoother than before and easily letting me scan the room for highlighted objects.

I interacted with a newspaper which read “A Visitor from Space! Meteor Lands In Arkham!” before speaking with the receptionist and asking to see Professor Gygax. A cutscene began with Watson waiting while a patient in a wheelchair was rolled out to her parents. Professor Gygax soon appeared behind Watson, and they spoke about the doctor’s visit. Suddenly, Northwood’s detective, Mr. Colby, bursts into the foyer and loudly asks for the person in charge.

This opens Sherlock Holmes The Awakened’s dialogue choice mechanic — the same wheel with short sentences on each end — where I lied, saying that Colby was famous in London. Professor Gygax then ushered Watson to the guest room while orderlies escorted Mr. Colby to an operating room where, shortly afterwards, Gygax sedates him. Colby then awoke in a cell where I resumed the story by playing as him. To escape the cell, I had to pick the lock on the door. The lock-picking mini-game has a mechanic I haven’t seen before. To line-up the pins, I had to fashion the correct height of the teeth using a piece of aluminium wire.

Past the door, I explored the map and entered the operating room Colby was previously in, to collect the sedative. I was forced to backtrack and enter into Block A due to the neighbouring doors in the room being guarded, which was beneficial as I found some syringes and a patient who believed he was Napoleon Bonaparte.

To proceed through the adjoining hallway into Block B, in hopes of finding Watson, I had to uncover a way to sneak past a doctor looking over crates. To do this, I investigated rooms and found evidence of Prof. Gygax’s takeover of the institute. Once I found all the usable evidence in Block A, I was able to use the deduction page to solve the predicament I was in. Each “case” has its own brain cell where you connect the dots — which are coloured to indicate the type of evidence needed. Once solved, Colby deduced that he could fashion a blowgun — using a syringe, a small pipe, and some sedative — to take out the unaware doctor.

Once shot, Colby took the unconscious doctor’s clothes and, suddenly, I realised that Colby was in fact Sherlock Holmes in disguise the whole time. When entering Block B, Sherlock met Gerda, an inmate looking for her friend, Heidi, who was taken away. Sure enough, Holmes finds her in the laundry room inside a metal locker and discovers Heidi is Gerda’s doll.

Once I returned the doll, Gerda pointed me towards the next investigation area, which introduces Sherlock Holmes The Awakened’s new mechanic, “Imagination”. When you’re near hidden details (indicated by an illuminated green circle), Holmes goes into a focus mode, mixed with interactive segments, to structure a play-by-play of the crime scene. After heading down a hallway, into a storage room, and then solving a re-enactment puzzle, Holmes discovers people from around the world are being shipped in coffins to the hospital for experimentation, and the professor is behind it.

Sherlock also finds scratching marks on the floor near a fake wall which led into another part of the institute; he doesn’t have a key to, so he relies on Gerda’s help again.

The final segments of the Sherlock Holmes The Awakened demo has Sherlock assisting Gerda in repairing her doll (as she says Heidi is screaming in pain without help) with nails, buttons, and thread that could be found in the previous rooms I had investigated.

Once repaired, Heidi begins to speak for Gerda, where Sherlock interrogates Gerda through the doll with appropriately chosen evidence proving Gerda’s knowledge of Gygax and Gerda’s mental state. To do this, you have to choose the correct piece of proof in each segment of three in the right order. If you don’t, you get threatened by the demented doll.

Completing the interrogation gives you the information of the whereabouts of the wall key and a final message “You will never leave”; finishing the demo enticed me to want to know more about the game and what happens next.

The sound design is a bit of a double-edged sword; the non-diegetic music and sound effects are great, and most of the voice acting is performed to a good standard, well except Sherlock’s, whose delivery often sounds a bit robotic.

Whether or not Sherlock Holmes The Awakened development team are making changes to the game after announcing a delayed release for April, from playing the demo, the game’s logic puzzles are a head scratcher to solve and that’s what you’d expect from something with Sherlock Holmes’ name on the cover.