My enjoyment of the Frogware Sherlock Holmes games is no secret. I enjoy a good mystery story, and they deliver each time. I think others are also starting to discover the series as each entry is a little more ambitious and mainstream than the last. Crimes & Punishment seems to be the big watershed moment. After a foray into the Call of Cthulhu world, Frogware released Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One as a reboot to the series.
Frogware has been experimenting with Sherlock in the last few games. When they first started this series, Jeremy Brett’s Holmes was by far the defining Holmes and his design in the games reflected that. Frogware very much cribbed a lot from the Granada series, even their Watson is similar to David Burkes’ appearance. I admit a fondness for that stuffy version of Holmes. It gave those old games a comfort food feeling. But now, there’s a lot more modern Holmes media to pull from, from BBC’s Sherlock to the Guy Ritchie films. WIth the Devil’s Daughter, Frogware gave us a very hipstery Holmes and Watson. I didn’t care much for their character designs.
With this reboot we get a younger Sherlock. Having played as this Sherlock in both Chapter One & the Awakened remake, I admit, it’s starting to grow on me. The new actor does a good job at nailing the feeling of Holmes while adding his own flair. There’s still that sharp edge to Holmes where he’s a bit robotic, smug, and doesn’t sugar coat things, but there’s also a focus on adding some human to Holmes character. As a young Holmes, he’s still got some growing to do. I can get behind this version of Holmes. Watson doesn’t appear in this game until the post credits scene. Instead, we have “Jon”. He is the most hipstery of all the character designs. The game lays its cards out early in explaining Jon is Holmes’ imaginary friend from childhood. That was the best move, as trying to save it for a big twist later on would’ve fallen flat. He serves a similar role as Watson, both are there to be the human element to contrast Sherlock and ground him. But whereas Watson does that by being a man of his time, Jon is the childish angel and devil on Sherlock’s shoulder.
Chapter One takes a lot of gameplay cues from Frogware’s previous game, The Sinking City. You explore an open world, there’s a main questline with side quests scattered through the world, and a combat system. While Sinking City had a bigger focus on combat, Frogware must have liked it enough to include some in Chapter One. Combat encounters appear seldomly and are relegated to special combat areas. You don’t have to worry about being thrown into combat walking around the open world. Sherlock is a master sharpshooter who uses a pistol to daze enemies then smack them down to be arrested. It feels like it was included to make the gameplay more varied and because they had the experience from Sinking City, might as well. I am fine with the combat being removed for the Awakened remake. Robert Downey Jr shenanigans are not what I come to a Sherlock game for.
The main gameplay centers around investigating cases, questioning suspects, and using Holmes’ great mind to solve crimes. This is the gameplay style Frogware has been perfecting since the Case of the Silver Earring. The early Sherlock games were more puzzle themed. Sherlock would stop to put together a torn-up letter or help a random citizen open a locked puzzle box. A lot of those puzzle mini-games have faded out being replaced with gameplay that I’d best describe as LA Noire-like. After investigating scenes and questioning witnesses, you piece the clues together on your mind board until you solve the case. Every case is engaging, I was trying to piece together whodunnit as I discovered more clues. The first case takes place in a grand hotel, and I think it was my favorite setting for a case. I was a bit bummed I couldn’t return to it after the case concluded. A mystery game set in an old grand hotel is something I would play. Every case also involves a murder, which isn’t uncommon for Sherlock, but I do enjoy the odd theft or missing person case. Sherlock isn’t strictly a homicide detective.
Another thing this game relies heavily on is disguises. Sherlock is known for his use of disguises. Some clues require asking a local, but if you ask a homeless guy for help while dressed as a fancy lad, they will tell you to get bent. Come back with a shabby coat and they'll help you out. There's more in-depth disguises where Sherlock has to dress as a particular person based off their description. As a fan of social stealth, I had fun coming up with costumes to disguise myself as a sailor, policeman, and criminal.
Most of the cases are easy to follow and by the end you should have a clear idea whodunnit. The only one I felt stumbled a bit was the second major case. You investigate the death of a wealthy businessman trampled by his own pet elephant. Spoilers for the case, skip to the next paragraph to avoid’em, but it comes down to two possible suspects, an archeologist whose dig site was about to be destroyed to build an elephant habitat or the lover of the man’s sheltered daughter. As a fellow historian, there was some personal bias on my part that sympathized with the archaeologist. I know the feeling of seeing historical sites at the mercy of land developers. The evidence also never gives you a clear suspect. The archaeologist has a book on elephant husbandry, while the lover has a letter from the businessman forbidding them from his daughter and a history of smuggling for unsavory types. Both have poison darts for rat killing and Sherlock mentions there’s enough poison to kill a human, but not an elephant. A dart is found in the elephant, but how the case is laid out, it’s easy to believe the dart was meant for the businessman, not the elephant, but the game doesn’t let you follow that line of inquiry. Both have a motive, but it seems like the daughter’s lover has just that little extra bit of evidence to make them the killer. It’s the archaeologist but guessing that seems more like a coin flip than an educated guess.
There’s also a slew of side cases. These aren’t as long as the main cases, but they still have some meat to them, taking you to unique spots around the world. You can be doing something as simple as investigating police misdemeanors to doing spy work for your brother Mycroft. These side cases are more likely to have a combat encounter as the big finale. After release, Frogware released a few DLC cases. Each pack is a series of cases centered around a theme, including Sherlock’s introduction to Moriarty. I would recommend buying the Season Pass, on sale, instead of buying any of the individual packs. They are just more side cases, so it’s hard to justify the price for them.
Chapter One takes place not in the foggy streets of London, but the sunny island of Cordona, a Mediterranean island that’s a hodgepodge of European cultures. It’s a sunbathed island that has been occupied since Ancient Greek times, but most recently was part of the Ottoman Empire before falling into British hands. It’s covered in Greek, Ottoman, and British architecture. I enjoyed exploring the city and seeing how the scenery changes from the upscale British area to the poorer districts to the old Ottoman side of the city. Walking through the Old City felt like being on the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark, except Sherlock’s white suit made him look more like Belloq than Indy. You could forget you’re on a Mediterranean island and not in the streets of Cairo. Holmes in the Middle East would be an interesting idea & we kinda get that here. The open world does give you a ‘day in the life of Holmes’ feeling as you can be pursuing the main case only to get sidetracked by a side quest. The interior spaces are fun too, from small shops to manor houses. Outside of the hotel, the other standout location is the island’s art gallery. It’s filled with classic art pieces and a rather cheeky bit of art hidden behind a plant. There's a good bit of humor in this game, usually of the referential variety. From references to old Sherlock games, Monty Python, and other Sherlock media.
The overall story sees Sherlock returning to his childhood home on Cordona to visit his mother’s grave. While at her grave, an eccentric artist type named Vogel approaches Holmes and plants the seed that perhaps Holmes’ mother didn’t die from TB like Mycroft told him. Holmes visits his run-down boyhood home, Stonewood, to investigate the last days of his mother’s life, when he was a young boy. Holmes unearths clues about his mother by helping islanders solve their crimes. It starts with the elephant case, then Vogel requests your help finding a stolen painting. Given his kooky nature, I half expected the whole case to be a setup as a joke on Sherlock, it is not. Holmes & Vogel have philosophical debates, Holmes defending the truth and facts, Vogel championing chaos and perspective. It was nice to see Holmes challenged philosophically & not just intellectually. After that case, Vogel invites Holmes to an Eyes Wide Shut party that gets raided by the police after a prostitute is murdered. It’s a nice finale before the game finishes up the overarching story of Holmes’ mother.
Exploring Stonewood we learn Mama Holmes suffered from some type of psychosis after the death of Holmes’ father. She was treated by a quack doctor, but never got better. This whole time Jon tries to persuade Sherlock to stop searching, that it will do no good. The big reveal, skip to ‘all in all’ to avoid spoilers, is Mama Holmes attacked young Sherlock in their garden one day after he reminded her that his father was dead. Then Sherlock has to decide who killed his mother to save him. Was it the quack doctor, Sherlock himself, or Jon. I knew from the moment Jon was introduced as an imaginary friend that we’d have to say goodbye to him, to show Sherlock maturing as a person and letting go of his idyllic view of his childhood. I decided it was Jon who killed my mother, and we get a very dramatic scene as Holmes ‘kills’ Jon. I definitely teared up a bit. Again, this Holmes is more human than past Frogware Holmeses.
All in all, this game was another homerun of the Frogware Holmes series. These games are a bit more mainstream and engaging now that they’ve lost the sleepy, cozy comfort food quality of the early entries, but I still love that this series is going strong, because there’s not a lot of other detective mystery games out there anymore. If you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes or Frogware, I can heartily recommend this game. For the next Sherlock game, I would love to see an open-world London to explore, maybe that remake of Holmes vs Jack the Ripper I’m hoping for.
