Detective Protagonists In RPGs

There are plenty of great video games out there about detective work, with each game studio taking a different approach to snooping and sleuthing. Some, like The Return of the Obra Din, require the player to think (and sometimes have the actual skills of) a detective. Others take a more cinematic approach and ask players to use their lie-detection skills, such as LA Noir. But just as most detective-enthusiast gamers probably couldn’t bench lift a school bus, craft a suit of armor from a stack of iron ingots, or talk down a Roman-styled legionnaire from a full-scale invasion, they probably don’t have the instinct, skillset, or gumption to solve a complex crime.

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However, they may want to watch their character figure out the mystery or catch perps in the act with stat modifiers, a bourbon-induced skill boost, and a chain of lucky dice rolls, and that’s where role-playing games come in. While there are plenty of pen-and-paper RPGs that cater to PI fans at the gaming table, not as many computer games let noir junkies get their jollies on. However, the games in this cRPG lineup may well be the missing link that hard-boiled role-playing fans are looking for.

5 Gamedec

Troubleshooting Cyberpunks And Cracking Hackjobs

• Gamedec is set in the future where specialists are needed to investigate and resolve criminal activities in virtual worlds
• Gameplay and crime-solving relies on the player intuiting and understanding the details of each case

By the near future of Gamedec, the world has become unlivable, so much so that humanity has cloistered itself in a tapestry of full-body virtual realities. Unfortunately, the dark side of human nature still turns up from time to time, and it’s up to gamedecs (short for “game detective”) to intervene when necessary. As they point and click their way through cyberspace, players choose a specialized profession to complement their main gig. The game also tracks how the player reacts to the world and will mark them with “aspects” for engaging in certain actions associated with a willful, artistically sensitive, or logical nature.

While the player character takes care of certain skill checks, the player is expected to exercise their own reasoning about a case. Players are also free to ignore evidence or neglect to find it entirely before making their judgments. Gamedec unlocks branches of deduction the more a case unravels. Sometimes, the player will be ahead, and other times, the game will try to spell things out. Gamedec’s world (and, by extension, its crimes and perpetrators) is high concept and outlandish to all but the most familiar with live-service gaming and dark internet culture. Players venture through increasingly disturbing fantasy worlds as they go from solvers of small problems to up to their knees in cyber grime.

4 Persona 4

Surviving A Murder Mystery In A Late-Night TV Nightmare

• This supernatural dungeon crawler RPG has a crime-drama twist involving a mysterious “TV dimension”
• The story of Persona 4 unfolds like a weekly crime show, with a different case each week

In the sleepy town of Inaba, Japan, someone (or something) has been committing a string of murders, with their victims’ bodies left hanging from TV antennas and the cause of death unknown. A group of supernaturally gifted high schoolers are the only ones able to clear the picture and find the identity of the supernatural culprit via the Midnight Channel, a portal to the TV World, accessible only at midnight during rainfall. While one of Persona 4’slate-game playable characters is Naoto Shirogane, a “detective prince” who has the backing of the local police, the series is known more for its fantasy-imbued psychological deep-dives and bombastic turn-based battles than true crime procedural content.

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However, players can get their fill of casework, revelations, and closure all the same, as the game does a great job of fleshing out Inaba and its inhabitants, offering plenty of slice-of-life gameplay between dungeon runs and mystery-solving. The main gameplay loop involves preventing more people from becoming victims of TV World by clearing dungeons, each themed around the victim of the week, in TV World’s semi-procedurally generated levels.

3 The Thaumaturge

A Supernatural Manhunt Through 20th Century Poland

• This supernatural 20th-century detective game has the player search for clues and use ghostly forces in a search for a killer
• The player can use other character’s flaws against them to get their way and progress cases

In The Thaumaturge, players explore the streets of 20th-century Warsaw as Wiktor, the titular thaumaturge, on the trail of his father’s killer. As he finds leads and inches closer to the truth, Wiktor must also contend with grizzly spirits called “salutors” who, upon being beaten in the field, grant him new supernatural powers. Wiktor typically only needs to scan for and collect a handful of hidden clues to produce a conclusion, in part thanks to his ability to pick up traces of thoughts left behind in the physical world.

The Thaumaturge uses investigation to drive forward the story and flesh out the historical setting rather than leveraging mystery as a solvable puzzle. However, the other side to detective work, that which requires detectives to understand the workings of the human mind, is present, as Wiktor will need to leverage his interlocutor’s temperments and flaws by using his own thaumaturge abilities and skills as an investigator to gain the upper hand, learn new information, or get his own way.

2 Pentiment

An Early-Modern Murder-Mystery Masterpiece

• This immersive, historical mystery game takes place amid a changing political and spiritual landscape
• Players choose the main character’s background and skills, which may or may not help him investigate a compelling murder case

In Pentiment, players take control of a would-be master painter as he finds himself turned into the renascence-era equivalent of a murder detective amid growing tensions between the members of a Bavarian abbey and its increasingly agitated townsfolk. Players develop the artist’s backstory retroactively as the game plays out, as well as his background specialties (besides that of fine art), which may help or hinder him in the investigation. The story is expertly delivered through immersive dialogue, as pains were clearly taken to craft a believable and realistic cast of characters with period-appropriate language, beliefs, and backgrounds.

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As well as uncovering secrets and experiencing shocking twists and turns, players will find themselves deeply immersed in 14th-century history, and although the period-appropriate art style is charmingly inviting to look at, the game never shies away from delving into profound topics with expert penning, including spirituality, the role of religion in society, property, power relations, loss, and much more. Decisions matter in Pentiment, and players will have to carefully assess the facts and evidence lest they condemn an innocent to death (or worse) during times of critical arbitrations.

1 Disco Elysium

A Smoky Mix of Speculative Noir, Realpolitik, And Mid-Life Crisis On A Cocktail Stick

• Eschewing combat for interviews and interpersonal deep dives, Disco Elysium is built around the concept of police work
• Players choose their stats and attributes according to which kind of detective archetype they would like to embody

This groundbreaking RPG might be the most high-profile detective game on the scene, and for good reason. Disco Elysium drips with a moody, dark-lit 70s atmosphere thanks to its pulsating oil-painterly visuals, original but deeply-grounded worldbuilding, and stellar writing. As well as delivering an intriguing murder mystery, Disco examines murky political ideology, the realpolitik socioeconomic tension between bosses and workers, and the absurdity of having to live as an out-of-control naked ape on a planet filled with other angrier, more out-of-control apes who refuse to share their coconut stash.

Players build their detective with an extensive and flexible character creator. Attributes and skills are geared around detective work, ancillary law enforcement pursuits, and surviving in a post-industrial, post-failed-revolution society. There is no combat system to detract from the casework (or those distractions that the main character generates internally throughout the investigation), but there is a regular smattering of skill checks that are resolved with dice rolls and stat modifiers to root it firmly in the RPG genre and the expert narrative work of bone fide crime writers.

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