Sherlock Holmes The Awakened Review (PS5)

Frogwares made a name of itself for its detective-centric games. After launching Sherlock Holmes Chapter One back in 2021, the studio is back with yet another Sherlock Holmes adventure, this time a more serious one that involves the legendary Cthulhu Mythos, The Awakened.

Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is the remake of the game with the same name that was released back in 2007. While the main plot has remained the same, almost everything else has been changed. Some new features and story bits have been added to this remake to connect it with the previous Sherlock Holmes Chapter One game. There are many references to Chapter One in the first few hours of The Awakened, but mostly it’s just flavor.

The famous duo, Sherlock and Watson, are now investigating an Eldritch god-worshiping cult, an investigation that will take them through three different countries. Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is split into chapters that can be explored without a time limit. However, once the main case requires you to move to a new location, you won’t be able to return.

The investigation formula didn’t change too much from Chapter One. Some things have been removed completely like combat, while others have been refined and simplified Mind Palace and Imagination mechanics.

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The first case of the game sets the stage for what’s to come and makes as a pretty in-depth tutorial for newcomers to the series. You’ll get to learn how to use Sherlock’s more or less mundane abilities, and how to run an investigation. Once you collect all the evidence and interview witnesses and suspects, you’ll have to make logical deductions on the Mind map and link everything together to solve the case.

This all sounds more complicated than it really is, as Frogwares streamlined the Mind Palace mechanic allowing players to link any piece of evidence until they get it right. If the evidence doesn’t match, the wrong pieces will be completely removed from the board, so you won’t have to add them again when trying to decipher a mystery.

I’m not sure that removing any challenge from the Mind Palace was a good idea, but removing the evidence irrelevant evidence makes it much easier to keep track of what’s happening with your cases. Because you’ll be solving more than one case in each chapter, the Mind Palace can easily become cluttered. Even though evidence for each case is shown in a different color, there’s quite a lot to keep track of if you’re investigating three or four cases at the same time.

Unlike other detective games, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened doesn’t offer any kind of hints, no matter how long you’ve spent in a single location. On the other hand, it’s not a hard game and even if you can’t figure out what evidence you need to progress, you always can tell when you’re missing a piece of evidence, so it’s just a matter of finding it.

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Despite the fact that you’ll be visiting a lot of locations, maps are rather small and semi-open world. Basically, each chapter is a self-contained explorable area that you’ll be able to leave and move to the next once you find all the evidence related to the main case. However, no one’s going to stop you from spending more time to solve all the other cases that you’ll find while investigating the Cthulhu worshipping cult.

Usually, when you’re searching for evidence at a crime scene, you can simply press L1 and the main points of interest will show up like yellow dots. Although some of the clues feel like they don’t make sense, it’s almost impossible to get stuck in the game.

The locations in the game are varied enough to offer not just a change of scenery, but also a change of pace. Some of the cases are darker and grittier, while others are somewhat in the gray area, so it’s up to you to decide how things end for each character involved. I liked this part of that game, including those where you play other characters that are more or less iconic for the series.

Technically, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is far from being a masterpiece, but I don’t think this is what it set out to achieve. However, since this is a remaster of an older game, it’s worth adding that everything has been improved including music, visuals, as well as quest and level design.

The graphics aren’t as modern as I would have expected, and the lip syncing is completely off sometime. It’s also noticeable that some assets have been reused in different locations, something that often breaks immersion.

Without spoiling anything, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened does a good job at telling a Lovecraftian story. Even though the horror elements are only present visually (no jump scares in this one), the atmosphere perfectly fits the scenario.

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