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Sherlock Holmes Chapter One - a new prequel Sherlock game from Frogwares

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Heh, Sherlock kept getting younger and more handsome in these games so they figured they might as well just make a "young Sherlock" prequel, eh?

http://frogwares.com/sherlock-holmes-chapter-one-announced-pc-consoles/

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One Announced for PC, Xbox One and PS4!
In this story-driven detective thriller, a young Sherlock Holmes struggles to prove himself as he navigates an exotic, dangerous island in the Mediterranean to investigate the mystery of his mother’s death. Out in 2021 for PC, PS4, Xbox One and next gen!

Wishlist now on Steam, Epic Games Store or GOG.
PS4 and Xbox One storefronts coming later!

In Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, you are Sherlock – a 21 year old brilliant, but rebellious young man, itching to prove yourself. When an old wound compels you back to the Mediterranean shore where your mother died, it seems like the perfect opportunity to do just that.

But beneath the vibrant urban veneer of the island, the rhythm of the local life strikes a more ominous beat. Crime and corruption, a twisted sense of justice and morality… These are just a few stumbling-blocks in your quest for truth.

As Sherlock, your legacy is written by the decisions you make in this open world. Deception, violence, and deduction are just a few resources in your arsenal—your mysterious friend and sounding board, Jon, is another.

Whether you choose brute force to solve problems or stay one step ahead of your enemies by using your wits to spot vulnerabilities, you decide what each situation demands as you hone your investigative skills. It’s time to confront your past so you can become the legend you’re destined to be!

KEY PILLARS
The Man Before. As a cavalier young Sherlock on the precipice of adulthood, you’ll earn your reputation in a way no game or story has explored before. We’ve never seen the youthful arrogance and naiveté of the man before the legend—now you’re living it.

Global Investigation. You never know where your next clue will come from. Explore and exploit the entire city in your pursuit of truth, using clues, rumors, disguises, labels, and pinned evidence to build a solid case within your mind palace.

And Stay Down. Spot enemy vulnerabilities with your brilliant observation skills, or exploit the environment to take someone down while keeping your own hands clean. Weapons might help you in a pinch, but there’s something to be said for style—and you have it in spades.

A Different Jon. Before John Watson, there was a different Jon – your best and only friend. But who is he, really?

A Darkening Tide. A vibrant open-world island in the Mediterranean promises anything but paradise. Political corruption and crime run rampant while the islanders cling to tradition and eschew outsiders, making your job even more difficult.

Truth and Lies. There are two sides to every story, and the proud islanders have their own ideas about truth and justice. It’s up to you to decide whether uncovering the truth will do more harm than good. And how that will shape the man you’ll become.

Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One will be a complete game which we are developing and publishing entirely by ourselves. It will release sometime in 2021 and will be available on PC, PS4, Xbox One and next-gen platforms.


https://www.gamespot.com/articles/the-sinking-city-devs-are-tackling-sherlock-holmes/1100-6477645/

The Sinking City Devs Are Tackling Sherlock Holmes Origin Story In A New Game
Exclusive: Developer Frogwares' next game is Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One, an open-world prequel to its adventure series.

For nearly 20 years, Frogwares has been the premier developer of games based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Following the release of 2019's The Sinking City, an open-world adventure game inspired by H.P. Lovecraft, the developer jumped straight to work on its follow-up--this time bringing their most well-known character back to his roots in a large setting to explore. In an exclusive with GameSpot, the developers at Frogwares have revealed that is developing and self-publishing Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One, a prequel that will focus on the early exploits of the gentleman sleuth.

Set for release in 2021 for PC, PS4, Xbox One, and next-gen consoles, Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One takes cues from The Sinking City, bringing players into an explorable open-world city filled with characters to meet, disguises to wear, and mysteries to solve. Set in the early years of the detective's career, the game casts you as a 21-year-old Sherlock Holmes who returns to his Mediterranean island hometown following his mother's death. After reacquainting himself with the island, his family manor, and the enigmatic companion Jonathan--who is definitely not Watson--he'll discover that the town has got some secrets, and he'll use his budding yet still brilliant detective skills to uncover a larger conspiracy at work.

Before the reveal, I spoke with Frogwares producer and community manager Sergey Oganesyan and lead feature designer Yaroslav Martyniuk about what's to come in the next Sherlock Holmes game. As a prequel, Chapter One is set many years before the detective's other cases in games like Crime and Punishment and The Devil's Daughter. Similar to Batman: Year One, Chapter One reframes the early years of the detective and his world, doubling as a prequel to the narrative arc from Frogwares' previous Sherlock games, and a gateway for newcomers to jump into the series.

"What we want to do with Chapter One is that we want to explore this other side of the character, and how he became the great detective that we know," said Oganesyan. "Our version of Sherlock is not a traditional character. He has this raw talent [for discovering the truth] that's sort of untamed. He's more arrogant, and much more volatile in this game compared to [other] versions. He has more fun playing with the truth, and he has no problem lying to somebody to get to the bottom of his investigation. But at the same time, he is still young. He will experience some of the things that a young man, 21 years of age, may not be ready to process in this game. This will have certain consequences on his character. Our goal is to show the events that will shape Sherlock as a great detective."



Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One is one of the rare games in the series that takes place outside of London, which gave Frogwares more flexibility for the story. In the debut trailer, we see Sherlock return to his family manor with his companion Jonathan, but things aren't as they seem when he enters, leading to one of many mysteries in the game that ties directly to Sherlock. The trailer does set the tone for the game, which looks to be something of an emotional, yet surreal journey for the budding detective as he explores the island town where everyone seems to have something to hide.

Frogwares' previous effort with The Sinking City was a departure for the studio, moving away from the fiction of Sherlock Holmes and into a more elaborate adventure game where you explored a city filled with monsters and shady individuals with ties to a dark cult. It was a fascinating experiment in how it brought the developer's established detective gameplay from the Sherlock Holmes games into a horror-filled open world. But in retrospect, the developers stated they learned some explicit lessons on how to approach that style of gameplay going forward, specifically in exploring an open city and making the activities therein more engaging and less of a hassle. Chapter One's setting is smaller in scope by comparison, yet it is much denser, with more buildings to enter and more people to interact with. The devs described Chapter One's setting as an open city; the island town encompasses different districts. Using disguises, you'll blend in and make your way to different areas of the city that you may not be able to enter.

Our goal is to show the events that will shape Sherlock as a great detective.

Building upon the detective work from The Sinking City and Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter, Chapter One has an open-ended approach to solving mysteries that allows you to uncover clues and suspects in your way. Described as "Global Investigation," the developers explained that the city would feature different avenues to discover many secrets and events, all of which can lead back to your current investigation, sometimes in unexpected ways. Using these clues, along with some advice from Jonathan, Sherlock will be able to use his mind palace--an internal nexus of all the clues and research--to piece together the evidence to close the case.

"The main principles that we try to instill and develop in our games is the investigation principle, where all the details, minor or otherwise, are presented to the player," said Martyniuk. "So there are a lot of places in this city which contain different information on different matters. This can be used in the investigation to define and formulate which evidence you want to search for to build your evidence. This free investigation [format] is for you to decide where to go on your own. Our intent is that players who understand [the world] will feel connected to the game's investigation--[getting players] to feel smart and active within the investigation is very critical in getting into the game's story."



In addition to taking on different investigations throughout the city, Sherlock will also run afoul of some of the city's more unsavory individuals. While combat is a crucial part of Chapter One, it won't be as pronounced as it was in The Sinking City, which featured gunfights in the city streets against eldritch monsters and cultists. Chapter One's combat system has been completely revamped and focuses more on hand-to-hand engagements that lean into Sherlock's particular skill set. In a fight, Sherlock will be able to use his deductive skills to pinpoint weak points on enemies to end battles easily. According to the devs, battles take place where they make sense, and certain areas of town will have individuals looking for a scrap.

Following the Nintendo Switch release of The Sinking City, Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One will be Frogwares' next attempt at self-publishing. Producer Oganesyan stated that pushing for self-publishing allows the developers to have more control of the project thanks to the rise of the digital marketplace.

"To be honest, it's all about how we manage the project," Oganesyan said. "Games publishing ten years ago was very different, but as the digital market has caught up to the retail market, things have changed. Nowadays, we can do many of the responsibilities that publishers have ourselves, and we don't see any reason not to do it honestly because now we are in total control of our business, which will help our studio even more. Yeah, basically there is no reason not to do it."

Oganesyan added that the COVID-19 pandemic did create some challenges in the development of Chapter One. With over a year in development at this time, the game is shaping up to be the biggest Sherlock Holmes game to date, however, the producer made it clear that Frogwares has adjusted to the shift in development well, and that the game was still on track for a 2021 release on consoles and PC.
 

LESS T_T

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Self-publishing, eh?

Following the Nintendo Switch release of The Sinking City, Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One will be Frogwares' next attempt at self-publishing. Producer Oganesyan stated that pushing for self-publishing allows the developers to have more control of the project thanks to the rise of the digital marketplace.

"To be honest, it's all about how we manage the project," Oganesyan said. "Games publishing ten years ago was very different, but as the digital market has caught up to the retail market, things have changed. Nowadays, we can do many of the responsibilities that publishers have ourselves, and we don't see any reason not to do it honestly because now we are in total control of our business, which will help our studio even more. Yeah, basically there is no reason not to do it."

I wonder this is why store page of The Sinking City on Steam is removed. Probably they're going to self-publish the Steam version of it, and Nacon did not transfer the store page (with all that sweet wishlists and followers) to them?
 

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I'm not real excited about the emotional journey of a young man investigating the tear-jerking death of a family member, and I'm not thrilled to read that combat will be a major theme of the game. But going around beating up thugs on the regular will be an improvement over the 20000 minigames of Devil's Daughter. I liked combat in Sinking City to keep the pace of the game going; maybe it could be okay here too.

My opinion on Bigben Interactive is no secret and I'm very excited to see Frogwares go to self-publishing. Hopefully they can handle all the ... whatever publishers do ... as well as having some good, creative ideas.

Will certainly follow with interest.
 

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I mean, I like the idea of a youngblood, fresh out of the oven Sherlock, but uuuuuuuuuuurgh I'm trying very hard to not have any sense of prejudice towards this design. Do they secretly despise Crimes & Punishments or what?
 

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Judging by the scenery, I guess the unnamed Mediterranean island is based on Malta.
 

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I'm trying very hard to not have any sense of prejudice towards this design.
What about it?
You know what, actually a few minutes later this design kinda grew on me. I was turned off hard by The Devil's Daughter's which still looks more like a fuckboy trying to be hipster, mainly because I played too much of Testament and C&P (mainly Testament) so his Mark Strong-esque face is ingrained in my brain whenever Frogware's Holmes is mentioned. This young version kinda looks like... Dale Cooper maybe? The suave, intellectual look, I dunno, my vocabulary is as limited as a deer's arsehole anyway, but on a second look this is way better than TDD :P
 

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Not sure what to make of this.

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In my opinion C&P was their best game because it nailed both the characters and the Victorian era perfectly and the episodic nature was very fitting to the Strand Magazine short stories. I really enjoyed that one and don't understand why they left this road so quickly. Hell I would even buy DLC-cases for C&P if they decided to make some! This trailer doesn't give me any S.H. vibes though, the story premise sounds too far-fetched and the character design doesn't seem to fit neither the era nor Doyle's depiction. And I have to admit I don't like this postmodern obsession with "origin" stories and psychologization of every literary or historical figure. There is a certain fascination about a character with a mysterious past.
 

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You know what, actually a few minutes later this design kinda grew on me. I was turned off hard by The Devil's Daughter's which still looks more like a fuckboy trying to be hipster, mainly because I played too much of Testament and C&P (mainly Testament) so his Mark Strong-esque face is ingrained in my brain whenever Frogware's Holmes is mentioned. This young version kinda looks like... Dale Cooper maybe? The suave, intellectual look, I dunno, my vocabulary is as limited as a deer's arsehole anyway, but on a second look this is way better than TDD :P
what's wrong with Devil's Daughter Holmes? He wasn't a fuckboy, i thought he looked kinda like John Hamm.
 

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We've got a new look at Sherlock Chapter One! Here’s the producer and community manager from Frogwares to tell us more about the game’s setting and how they plan to create a truly open world detective game.
 

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tl;dw:
  • Open world "global investigation" gameplay with lessons from Sinking City
  • Random people are no longer only background art. You can do stuff like ask for directions or even confront people who fit your suspect profile
  • Clothes are a thing - this time they can influence gameplay e.g. police uniform might inspire trust
  • Mind palace still there and reaching wrong conclusions is still supported
 

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Take a behind the scenes look at the next game in the Sherlock Holmes series from Frogwares. Sherlock Holmes Chapter 1 is a prequel that explores the origins of Sherlock Holmes, covering his first case as a detective.
 

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RPS preview.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One will make Holmes detectier than ever

90


Sherlock Holmes. DC/PC. The Cocaine Think Boy. The Big Hat. Whatever you call him, Arthur Conan-Doyle’s detective’s detective is iconic to this day, inspiring loads of adaptations and remakes and modern updates. Games, as well, are just as susceptible to Holmes’ allure. Since the 2000s, developers Frogwares have been putting out an enduringly popular series of Sherlock sleuth’em ups that are getting pretty bloody close to perfecting the gamification of detection.

They recently announced their next step in that endeavour: Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, a new game in the series due in 2021, and serving as a prequel to the rest. Set when Sherlock is 21-ish and exploring a Mediterranean island from his childhood, Chapter One will see tweaks to combat, detecting, and the addition of a more open world format. As a fan of the series and detectives in general, I was intrigued. And like any good gumshoe, I had questions. Frogwares? They had answers. Which Sergey Oganesyan, Producer and Comms Manager, gave me. He was actually very accommodating and shared loads of details, so it wasn’t too intense an interrogation.

Chapter One explores what we might loosely call the Holmes origin story, including bits about the Holmes family, and telling us how Sherlock got to be, well, Sherlock, which might already be a death blow to the enthusiasm of hardcore Holmes fans. He even has a different sidekick, who is called Jonathan rather than John. Although he won’t just be an also-ran version of Watson, and if all goes to plan, he’ll have the potential to begin intensely disliking your version of Sherlock, depending on the actions you take.

“The strongest allure to a younger Sherlock is creative freedom,” says Oganesyan, via email. “There’s this big old blank ‘chapter’ in his life that we’re now able to go into and create our own story around. And that’s such a refreshing thing to be able to do with a character we’ve already explored so many times, without resorting to taking the character into scenarios or worlds we don’t really want to.”

Holmes’ family isn’t touched upon much at all in the books. Even Sherlock himself basically springs to life as a 27-year-old man who keeps his tobacco in one of his slippers. For Frogwares’ purposes, it means that pretty much any events they imagine up to a certain date in his life cannot technically be said to be uncanonical, though Oganesyan assures me that they won’t be “turning Sherlock into a space pirate detective any time soon.”

Mostly, this new approach to the story will allow them to create something “meaty, intricate and complicated”, but still plausible based on the man we know Sherlock will become. Chapter One won’t be just a case of “and that, kids, is why Sherlock likes solving crimes. Goodnight!” – it will explore things that are specific hallmarks of his later life and personality, like his fascination with the violin, or even his drug addiction.


While Conan-Doyle remains the main inspiration and source for the game, Oganesyan cites many other works and media that the team is drawing from, including Oliver Twist and Peter Pan, as well as philosophical doctrines such as Kant’s ethical theory and utilitarianism. The clash between these big ideas, and the process of Sherlock Holmes becoming Sherlock Holmes will, the hope is, be interesting for players to experience.

At the same time, Holmes is transported from the pea-soupers and cobbled streets of London to a new, original setting in the time period. Oganesyan describes it as “a fictional, Mediterranean-style island where class divide, corruption and power politics pretty much built [the] society.” It’s not specifically under rule by any great power of the time, but has been influenced by settlers from Italy, Britain, France, North Africa – all over the place, in fact. Holmes grew up there for at least some of his childhood, and is back to “uncover the hazy truth behind the murder of his mother”. But despite growing up there, he’s treated like an outsider.

Unlike previous games in the series, Chapter One’s world will be an open one, compared to the compartmentalised locations from the standalone investigations we’ve seen before. “We want a big part of the investigation to be about discovering clues and leads in a more natural way, through free roam exploration of multiple locations and areas,” explained Oganesyan. “These will range from our multicultural capital city with its contrasting districts and areas, right through to more secret or secluded areas on the island, as well as beaches, outposts, caves, mines, forests, etc..”

Much of this design is based upon lessons learned from The Sinking City, Frogwares’ last game and a detective-y take on Lovecraft fish weirdness. I found it had some good ideas that got lost in a few proverbial weeds. “We now know it’s better to keep our open worlds more condensed and focused on the core mechanics of the game,” said Oganesyan, describing a world where the playing isn’t spending all their time running from one location to another, but instead interacting with the world itself, the characters and the investigations in it. “We are not pushing,” he said, “to create a sandbox with lots of different activities like, say, racing, fishing or gambling.”



This gesturing more towards Frogwares’ own take on interaction and detection sounds good to me. I do really love the classic Holmes mysteries, but if we’re all looking each other in the eye I think we can admit that most of the short stories are a bit rubbo when it comes to the thrill of detection. Honestly, there are way more that involve trained animals as murder weapons than could be reasonably expected.

Frogwares, it seems to me, recognise which Holmes stories are the most popular: clue-laden but clever romps like Silver Blaze, the Three Students, and the good ol’ Hound Of The Baskervilles. The net result is that I often enjoy being Frog!Holmes, linking up different ideas in the big mind-map inside his clever head, much more than I enjoy reading about Real!Holmes.

Another thing the devs learned from The Sinking City, however, is that players do appreciate the guiding hand letting go every now and then. There will be no info or UI elements that players might be used to, no GPS points leading you exactly where you need to go. No checklists on quests telling you what to do next. Ultimately, I felt that The Sinking City went a little too far in that direction, but the Holmes games were always circling around perfection with their systems, and I don’t want Frogwares to stop trying to find it. Chapter One is building upon the blocks already laid to create what they’re calling the Global Investigation System.


How Holmes investigates a man’s appearance in Crimes And Punishments

“Ultimately, players need to feel they came to the conclusions themselves based on their thinking, and not because the game told them straight up where to go or what to do,” said Oganesyan. “If the game gives you the solutions step by step and you just have to arrive at the designated location, then it feels like you’re doing a rather heinous shopping list, not solving a mystery.”

Instead, players will be given access to a suite of tools to use and experiment with as they see fit. These might include things like interrogations of witnesses or suspects, popping on disguises, crime scene sketches, a rumours system, or a “pinned evidence” system that allows you to focus on certain clues and see how they apply to the surrounding area. Oganesyan gives a made up example of how a scenario might play out, with the game giving you a natural hint but not pushing your nose in it:

“Say you overhear a conversation about a certain harbour worker. You suspect he has valuable info, but you’ve tried approaching him once and he flat tells you to get lost. But while eavesdropping, you overhear this harbour worker was recently questioned by the police. Now, the game will never tell you “Find a policeman’s uniform and go question the harbour worker.” It’s up to you to come across this info naturally, find a police uniform, and decide to test if talking to the harbour worker while disguised as a policeman actually gives your next clue or just gets him to clam up even more.”



This will be combined with what Oganesyan says will be an “improved version of the ‘Mind Palace’ that [they] built for Sherlock Holmes: Crimes And Punishments“, allowing players to pursue different and sometimes incorrect leads, leading to different or sometimes incorrect conclusions for a case. That does have me excited, as finding a game that can make me actually feel like a detective is a bit of a White Whale for me, and its the Sherlock Holmes games to date that have consistently come closest.

I do have my worries. Chapter One is adding in a bit of the old fisticuffs, or at least some form of combat that they’re not revealing too much about yet. I asked if it would be similar to the Robert Downey Jr. take on Holmes as a bare-knuckle boxing boy, and Oganesyan said I wasn’t actually that far off. Apparently, the fightliness will be more about Sherlock’s personality and agility, with no current plans for a stealth system, and will occur mostly at range, albeit with some cool melee take-downs.

I confess, however, that I am prejudiced against a combat system being in the game at all. Holmes was good in a fight, but that’s not what most people imagine doing when they roleplay as The Great Detective, and the inclusion of a combat system in The Sinking City ended up being one of the most disappointing bits of that game for me. Still, I am prepared to give Frogwares some trust, here. They’ve proven they have a good idea of how to handle Sherlock, after all.


Highlights I don't remember reading before:
* Huge focus on their totally made up version of the Holmes origin story. Not just general personality but specifics about the character will be explained, like where his first violin came from and how he got into cocaine.
decline.png

* NOT pushing for open world activity silliness. No fishing minigame
* At least paying lip service to no quest markers
* "Pinned evidence" system sounds interesting. Focus on a particular thing, then wander around and see if you notice stuff about that thing.
* Mostly ranged and some melee combat
* No stealth system
 
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Wow, I always wanted to know why Holmes became a dopehead and where he got his Stradivari. That is to say: No, I'm not interested at all in this game. Why can't they just continue to build on the great formula they found with Crimes and Punishments?
:negative:
 

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