There are some crazy cliché’s in the announcement trailer for Square Enix’s adventure game, Murdered: Soul Suspect. Not only will players have to solve their own murder from the spiritual comforts of the world of Dusk (or Dante’s Purgatorio), but they will have to do it in the once witchcraft capital of the world: Salem, Massachusetts. But this isn’t about the Salem witch trials; this is about Ronan O’Connor, a detective whose life was taken away by a mysterious assailant on a night out in town.
The trailer begins with O’Connor, donning a fedora, suit vest and tie, foreshadowing how he had never lost a fight prior to an altercation he had on the streets of Salem that would send him to the limbo world of Dusk. O’Connor approaches a man who is crouched over another man’s dead body – that body being O’Connor’s. When the detective approaches the hooded man and attempts to draw his gun, he finds that it is miraculously in the hands of the hooded man who then fires seven rounds into the right side of O’Connor’s torso. These seven bullet holes are permanently etched in the protagonist’s body.
Never forgive, never forget.
You play as the O’Connor of the afterlife, as he investigates perhaps his last great case: his own death. I guess if you have nothing better to do in purgatory, you might as well creep on earthlings. But O’Connor here has some supernatural abilities, which makes one wonder whether everyone else in limbo has the same. O’Connor will have the ability to read the minds of the living and influence their thoughts and actions. He will also be able to freely explore Salem.
As part of the investigation, O’Connor will have to interrogate the ghosts of Salem’s past citizens, while also fighting the demonic spirits to save his soul and, ultimately, to bring his killer to justice.
Marketing for the game is in full swing. Murdered.com has a retro newspaper, The Salem Statesman, with an origination date of 1626. One headline reads, “Salem Ranked #1 Most Haunted Place,” as it describes Salem’s “sordid past, from Gallows Hill hangings to habitually haunted houses.”
The developer of the game is still not known.
The game will make an appearance at this year’s E3, and is set to release in early 2014.
