Summary
Crime has been a key subject in gaming ever since Hiroshi Suzuki’sManbiki Shounenused shoplifting as a basis for stealth gameplay. Though while committing crimes has worked wonderfully forGrand Theft Auto, Saints Row, Hitman,and more, there are also a wide range of games dedicated to stopping crimes.
Usually, this came via fisticuffs, like inStreets of Rage, while others included detective-style investigationsandfisticuffs,likeBatman: Arkham Asylum.That said, real detectives don’t have breath-detecting cowls like the Dark Knight nor spirit mediums like Phoenix Wright - not usually anyway. These games use morerealistic ways of solving crimes, with investigation, clues, testimony, and a lot of deduction.
Updated on Jun 08, 2025 by David Heath:Murder mysteries have been inspiring people for centuries, be it through classic Agatha Christie novels, or on TV through shows like Castle and Murder, She Wrote. It’s even convinced some people to take up amateur sleuthing themselves, or become actual detectives, criminologists, and investigators. Even so, they tend to take some artistic licenses with crime solving.
Video games do the same thing, offering fanciful settings, powers, and other mechanics. But whether it’s on Earth, in space, a fantasy world, or otherwise, there are plenty of games that have tried to be more authentic, making players search for clues, talk at length to different NPCs, and use their own logic to figure out who did what. This list has been updated with four additional games that take a realistic look at detective work: Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One; Hotel Dusk: Room 215; Song of Farca; and Judgment.
By its premise alone,Return of the Obra Dinndoesn’t sound very realistic. The titular Obra Dinn is a ship that went missing around the Cape of Good Hope in 1803, taking all 60 souls with it. When it suddenly reappears off the coast of England 5 years later, it’s up to the player to figure out what happened to everyone aboard. The circumstances are spooky, and it’s as supernatural as the player’s ‘Memento Mortem,’ a pocket watch that lets them recreate suspected deaths.
Yet getting ahead in the game involves investigating the scenes closely for all its clues, noting them down, and deducing what happened. Players must be accurate, too, as they’ve got to validate the fates in pairs or triples rather than making one educated guess. Some deaths are similar enough that players can get away with making the same conclusions, but others require more careful and exact deductions. Otherwise, the player will be left on the ship witha lot of bad memories.
Paradise Killer’s premise is anything but realistic, as it sees the Syndicate, an organization of immortal aliens, abduct humans from Earth in an attempt to create the perfect society on Paradise Island. When it inevitably fails, they sacrifice its citizens to create the next attempt. On the 24th incarnation of the island, the Syndicate Council are found murdered, putting its 25th recreation on hold. To solve the mystery, the Syndicate sends detective Lady Love Dies to find the true culprit, then personally execute them if they’re sentenced to death.
However, its gameplay is more grounded by comparison, as Lady Love Dies has to examine crime scenes, talk to witnesses and suspects, and piece the clues together to figure out the facts. It takes place in an open world, where the player can go anywhere they like and talk to whoever they want in any order and at any time. They could even solve other mysteries, and put people on trial. Though if they don’t have all the evidence they need to expose the island’s secrets, it’s going to be a short session in court.
15Disco Elysium
Using Dialogue, Detection, And Luck To Uncover What’s Happening In Elysium
Disco Elysiumtakes place in a fantasy world called Elysium, where its ‘isolas’ are separated by a misty tissue called ‘The Pale’ that induces insanity and death with prolonged exposure. Beyond that, it resembles life in a Communist country and takes inspiration from grittier detective media likeThe Wireand novels by Dashiel Hammett and China Miéville. This is certainly evident in its surreal storytelling, where the player must investigate the death of a hanged man in Martinaise.
The plot gradually unfolds a wider conspiracy and delves into the player’s character, Lieutenant Harry DuBois. But to get there, players must improve their detection by finding the right clues and making the right dialogue choices. Without them, they wouldn’t be able to develop the right skills and thoughts needed to aid the investigation. They can also help tip things in their favor during skill checks, as players can have all they need, but they’ll still needluck on their sideto succeed.
The Case of the Golden Idoluses point and click elements, as its Exploring Mode requires clicking on characters, objects, etc., to pick up keywords and phrases relevant to the story. Namely, how the titular Golden Idol is involved with the Cloudsley family and the mysterious secret society known as the Brotherhood. Things get strange quite quickly, though the way to figure out what’s happening is more straightforward.
When they enter Thinking Mode, players can piece the evidence together to come to different conclusions that reveal more of the plot. It can reveal the names of more Brotherhood members, the rooms they stayed in, what they had access to, etc. It’s quite a merciful game, as it’ll clue players in a little by letting them know whether their segments are correctly placed or not, allowing them to rearrange things when necessary. To get all the right segments, players can’t leave any stone unturned in Exploring Mode.
Judgmenteschews supernatural fantasy elements, though it’s hard to say it’s fully realistic. It sees Takayuki Yagami, a former lawyer-turned-P.I., investigating a strange series of murders where the victims' eyes have been gouged out. At first, it was to get a yakuza captain off the hook, but he soon learns they’re connected to a wider conspiracy involving the captain, the culprit, and an older murder case that forced him out of the courtroom.
The game’s a spin-off of theYakuza/Like a Dragonseries, so it offers more fisticuffs and colorful minigames than the average detective gets into. But, it still involves some proper legwork, like examining areas in first-person for clues, and case files for players to leaf through to come to conclusions. They can come in handy for pressing more info out of key figures during questioning sessions. He also does a lot of tailing missions where he has to follow people, which do capture the film noir detective feeling — but they also wear out their welcome after a while.
Founded by French expatriates in Ukraine and Ireland, Frogwares has become the prime developer of games based on Sherlock Holmes, whether they stick to the books, tell original stories, or pit him against other Victorian foes, both fictional (Sherlock Holmes Vs Arsene Lupin) and non-fictional (Sherlock Holmes vs Jack The Ripper).Sherlock Holmes: Chapter Onetakes things back to the start of Holmes' sleuthing career, as he and Jon Watson head back to his birthplace on the island of Cordona to uncover the mystery behind his mother’s death.
It builds on the open-world formula fromThe Sinking City, as Holmes & Watson must tread the city streets, examine crime scenes for clues, and put them together to form a conclusion via Holmes' ‘Mind Palace.’ The game even gets away with replicating Batman’s crime scene recreations with the Concentrate ability because it’s Holmes using his imagination instead of a magic gadget. It’s a stronger showcase of detecting skills thanJudgment, though it has sloppier combat and some rough moments (e.g. Sherlock likes to imitate bad accents to go with his disguises).
11Sherlock Holmes: Crimes And Punishments
Using Elementary But Honed Skills To Catch Culprits
Obra DinnandDisco Elysiumhave fanciful settings but use realistic detective methods, such as clue logging and pressing witnesses and suspects for information. But how about a game that has a realistic settingandrealistic gameplay? EnterSherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments, Frogwares' earlier, more faithful take on the world’s most famous detective. This title sees Holmes and Watson goaround Victorian Englandand solve cases based on actualHolmesshort stories.
Players search for clues, then piece them together on a ‘deduction board’ to figure out the results. Each case has multiple solutions depending on how well players figure things out, if they find the culprit, and whether they choose to absolve or condemn the criminal in question. Its fanciest detail is ‘Sherlock Vision,’ where Holmes can look more closely at items to derive new information from them, like finding hidden inscriptions or signs that something’s been moved.
Point & Click adventure games were popular fixtures on PCs and microcomputers throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. But by the late 1990s, their gameplay and moon logic puzzles felt like old hat next to 3D platformers and first-person shooters. Still, they went out with a bang, offering some of the strongest games in the genre, with the likes of theBroken Swordseries,Grim Fandango, and Westwood Studios' take on the classic movieBlade Runner. Well, kind of.
It takes place during the flick, and features its characters, some of whom are played by their original actors. But it follows a different runner: Ray McCoy. New to the job, he’s tasked with tracking down a group of replicants who killed some animals. But when he follows their trail too closely, he’s framed for murder and forced to go on the run. By talking to suspects, finding clues, analyzing photos, and using the Voight-Kampf test to find replicants, he can solve the mystery, and get one of 13 endings depending on their choices in-game.
9Song Of Farca
Where The Truth Is Just A Hack Away
Blade Runnermay be one of cinema’s most iconic cyberpunk movies (and one of its more underrated cyberpunk games), but it’s still a sci-fi story that requires some suspense of disbelief. That doesn’t mean its cyborgs or techno-metropolis are bad or take away from its gameplay; it just meansSong of Farcamight feel more authentic, as its hi-tech future feels more relatable. It’s a world where IT corporations practically run the planet due to society’s reliance on the internet and gadgets. But, it can also work against them.
Which is where the player comes in. They take on the role of Isabella ‘Izy’ Song, a detective with a short fuse who uses her hacking skills and gadgets to get around her house arrest. With just her computer and a fleet of drones, she can hack out information from the web and grab surveillance footage to piece together clues via a cloud screen. If they draw the right conclusions, they could nab a criminal and find out how they’re connected to a wider conspiracy. Get it wrong, and Song’s nearest and dearest could end up suffering the consequences.
It was hard to compete against theAce Attorneyseries once its combination of detective and defense attorney work caught on. Yet, players who were turned off by its wacky anime shenanigans found themselves getting into the grittierHotel Dusk: Room 215. While searching for his former partner Brian Bradley, Detective Kyle Hyde checks into the titular hotel and ends up in Room 215, a room said to grant wishes. If it can do that, it does it in a roundabout way, as Hyde discovers he has more ties to the hotel than he thought.
To uncover them, players have to hold the DS like a book and move Kyle around the hotel. One screen shows a third-person view of Hyde, while the other shows his POV of his current location. Investigations take the form of finding clues, interviewing patrons and staff, and solving the odd puzzle here and there. Though they have to be careful — if they’re caught in restricted areas, get caught with contraband, or mess up the end-of-chapter interrogations by asking the wrong questions and acting out of turn, they could get kicked out into a Game Over screen.
