As I’ve always said, Frogware’s Sherlock Holmes games have been my gaming comfort food. They are chill games with puzzles that are just engaging enough to make the game fun. Frogware has been trying to reinvent their Sherlock line with the last few installations. I found Devil’s Daughter to be a bit too trendy. I’ve not played the new origin story, Sherlock: Chapter One. The newest entry in the series is a total remake of Sherlock: the Awakened, which saw Holmes and Watson take on Lovecraft. I picked it up as part of the Steam Spring Sale.

This is my first experience with the reinvented, younger Sherlock. While they haven’t recaptured that fun stuffiness of Kerry Shale’s Sherlock, I think they’ve struck a good median between the classical Sherlock and a more hip Sherlock. I wouldn’t mind playing the further adventures of this Sherlock. Watson has also been brought more in line with a classic interpretation of the character after the hipster version we got in Devil’s Daughter. They also play up the friendship of Holmes and Watson. Often Holmes is depicted as treating Watson as a lackey. In Awakened, we see a human side of Holmes as he shares moments of honesty and weakness with Watson and Watson often remarks on his time in Afghanistan. It can feel a bit daytime soap melodrama at times, but I like it’s inclusion. There’s also some references to Chapter One, but it isn’t required you play that one first. You have a variety of clothing to choose for both Holmes and Watson. They range from traditional Victorian suits, to more flashy attire, to costume pieces. I was disappointed I never got a chance to create a disguise for Sherlock. The only disguise he uses are set by the game.

The gameplay takes a lot from the later Sherlock games, like Crime & Punishment, and The Sinking City. They removed the combat present in Sinking City, which makes sense. The Awakened is a linear game where you explore a map in each chapter. They’ve gotten rid of many of the mini game type puzzles. There’s a lockpick mini game that is fun, but is abandoned half way through the game. Instead go for a more LA Noire detective style gameplay. You pick up clues and examine evidence then use them to build a theory. These theories are how you track your progress and get through the game. There were only a few times where I lost track of what the game expected from me, mainly due to a map being so large that I’d miss an important clue. In between a few chapters, Sherlock is sent to a weird Lovecraftian puzzle realm. It feels like something lifted straight out of the Sinking City and I honestly found them to be more annoying than anything.

This is the 3rd time Awakened has been made. The 2nd time was a remastering, this game is a total remake using the new Sherlock Holmes gameplay. I played through the 2nd version years ago and at the time I wasn’t a huge fan of Lovecraft. I still think he’s a bit over-hyped, but I can now appreciate his contributions to psychological horror. I remember a few plot points from the first game I played, and this remake followed them loosely. I recalled that the game was kicked off by a missing native manservant. One of my biggest pet peeves is “historic characters with way too modern attitudes”, and the world has changed between 2007 and 2024. Frogware handles this well, with the game starting up with a disclaimer to the effect of “This game includes racial and ethnic depictions common at the time. These are not, and have never been, acceptable, but we shouldn’t pretend they’ve never happened & have been included to be authentic.” Similar to the disclaimer at the beginning of Mafia 3. I think this is my preferred way of handling historic content. It doesn’t bend and break history to modern sensibilities, but also puts it out there that the developers don’t approve of the troubling parts of history.

With that out of the way, the plot. Sherlock takes a case from one of Watson’s patients to find his missing manservant. What seems like a simple case, turns into a globe trotting adventure. A shady group of villains has been kidnapping people from around the world. Sherlock comes across a Cthulhu temple under the port of London where a man has been sacrificed to the deep god. The 2007 version of Awakened stayed grounded in the real world with it’s Lovecraft elements. The 2024 version still stays on the side of realism. No fish people show up, it’s just all cults & rituals, but they do add in the dreamy other world sequences. From London, Holmes & Watson travel to a mental institution in Switzerland. The one thing I remember about that level from 2007 was the Moriarty cameo, which has been cut from this version. Otherwise the level is similar to what I remember.

Then we travel to New Orleans. Sherlock in America is such a unique idea given the culture clash. This area benefited the most from the 2024 upgrade. The quaint, budget PC game charm of 2007 New Orleans was neat, but now we have a fully realized New Orleans that feels more dirty and real. The bayou is much more spookier too. The finale takes you to a lighthouse in Scotland where you confront the cult leader. Here in 2024, there’s a laser light puzzle you have to solve as Watson while Sherlock distracts the cult leader. There’s a whole group of cultists on the walkway of the lighthouse being sacrificed to Cthulhu. I think they’ve amped up that finale from the 2007 version. I recall that one just being one guy you chase up the lighthouse and I think the original manservant who set the adventure off showed up here, but again my memory’s spotty.

The world is proficiently spooky. The graphical upgrade helps add more ambiance to the locations. London is constantly dark and stormy, the asylum in Switzerland is oppressing and gloomy and covered in filth. I’ve already mentioned New Orleans’ glow-up. The game also lets me explore Sherlock’s Baker Street apartment. It’s been a one constant through all of Frogware’s games. The layout is familiar and I recognize some of the Easter eggs hanging on the wall. We get an appearance of Toby the hound at the local bookstore. The only thing I was missing was that lovely Baker Street theme, even if it was an Easter egg on a record player. The rest of the music is good and fits into the spooky atmosphere of the story.

All in all, I had a good time with this game & I’m hopeful of the direction of the Sherlock Holmes franchise. Each entry gets closer to a fully fleshed out game. Sherlock & Watson have a good rapport that kept me engaged in their story. Some of the comfy quality of these games has been lost as they've become more sharp and competent. If you enjoy Sherlock Holmes or Cthulhu Mythos, I can heartily recommend this one. While I don’t want Frogware to just start remaking all of their old Sherlock games, I wouldn’t be mad if they remade Sherlock vs Jack the Ripper, as it’s my favorite of that classic run of games. It looks like a reappearance of Moriarty is being hinted at, so I expect some more original games in the future. Though there was another intro card that detailed how Frogware is a Ukrainian based studio and this game was being developed during the invasion of Russia. Here's hoping they weather the storm.