Sherlock Holmes The Awakened Review

With The Sinking City, Ukrainian developer Frogwares attempted and succeeded, for the most part, in bringing the investigation-focused gameplay they had refined over the years with the Sherlock Holmes series to an open-world setting. This approach was then further refined with Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One, giving players more to pursue as they uncovered the mystery behind the death of Sherlock Holmes’ beloved mother in his hometown of Cordona.

While the open-world setting and the introduction of combat undoubtedly moved the series past the linearity featured in previous entries in the franchise, these new features did not sit well with some of the fans, who yearned for a more traditional and tighter Sherlock Holmes experience. With Sherlock Holmes The Awakened, a remake of the third entry in the series, these fans got their wish granted, as the game is closer in spirit and gameplay to the older entries in the series than Chapter One, despite it being a direct sequel.

The premise of Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is exactly the same as that of the original game released back in 2008. Sometime in 1882, a series of mysterious disappearances in London catches Sherlock Holmes’ eye. While his constant companion John Watson doesn’t believe there is any relation between them, the up-and-coming private investigator is unconvinced. By further looking into these crimes with no evident culprit, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson embark on an adventure that will bring them to mainland Europe and the United States, challenging Holmes’ convictions like anything ever did before.

Since I didn’t play the original release, I cannot say how much the story was changed for the remake, but I definitely enjoyed my first experience with this Sherlock Homes-meets-Lovecraft setting. Unlike The Sinking City, the Lovecraft-inspired elements aren’t particularly prominent in The Awakened. Still, the influence of The Great Old Ones, and the madmen who worship them, is felt throughout the experience, sometimes more subtly than others, making for some entertaining storytelling. That’s especially true when Sherlock Holmes must set aside his rationality to find an explanation for ritualistic murders and other otherwise unexplainable phenomena. This manages to make the whole experience quite entertaining, despite some of its predictability.

Being a direct sequel to Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, The Awakened builds up and develops the relationship between Holmes and Watson. Following the dismissal of his imaginary friend Jon, the physician and war veteran became a constant presence in the life of the legendary investigator, helping him in his work and reining him in, or more often failing at, when his curiosity is about to get the best of him. How the relationship between them is built up in The Awakened is definitely engaging, giving Watson some welcome development and a slightly more central role than before, both in the story and in the gameplay.

It isn’t just the story that makes Sherlock Holmes The Awakened an engaging experience, as the gameplay is just as entertaining, although it is not as daring as that seen in Chapter One. No one should be surprised to see the whole experience return to the days of The Devil’s Daughter, however, given how The Awakened was developed in around one year and under some terrible circumstances, as the Ukrainian studio worked on the game while a war was, and still is, destroying their country.

Even though this definitely wasn’t what Frogwares had envisioned for the next entry in their series, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened’s more linear approach will likely be well received by those that didn’t like the more dispersive approach of Chapter One. Gone is the open-world setting with optional quests, replaced by smaller and more linear locations, and gone is combat, replaced with other mechanics that serve as a break from the investigative gameplay, such as a new lock-picking mini-game,  and a tense exploration sequence on a boat in a swamp in Louisiana.

The investigative gameplay hasn’t been changed over the days of Chapter One and The Devil’s Daughter, so fans of the series will find themselves right at home. To uncover the truth behind this string of mysterious disappearances, Sherlock Holmes will have to reach his conclusions via the iconic Mind Palace, which allows players to link evidence together discovered during investigations and crime reconstruction sequences. This is mostly achieved by interacting with the environment, speaking with the right person with the proper evidence pinned, and using Sherlock’s Concentration to discover things that are not immediately understandable.

While, like in much of the series, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened features a no-handholding approach, leaving players to figure out things by themselves, the game does come with features that make it difficult to get stuck for too long. All discovered evidence, for example, comes with some icons that tell players how important the evidence is and what they should be doing with it, such as talking with NPCs about it or continuing searching the environment for clues.  Evidence in the Mind Palace is also divided into different colors, which serves as a guide to reaching the proper deduction. The analyze environment mechanics also make it easier to highlight everything that can be interacted with within a certain radius.

Despite having done away with most of the new mechanics seen in Chapter One, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened retains some of them, such as the ability to make both Holmes and Watson don disguises. Sadly, these mechanics are underutilized compared to Chapter One, so they end up being just a way to change the characters’ costumes with little gameplay impact. Players did appreciate the new mechanics in the previous entry in the series, so it kinda made sense to bring them back, although they are superfluous in a game with a much more limited scope.

Where Sherlock Holmes The Awakened feels like a definite step back are visuals. Locations and character models are very simple and unimpressive, but the former makes up for their lack of flair with a decent enough atmosphere. The latter, unfortunately, aren’t salvaged by anything, as the animations are terribly stiff. At the very least, Holmes and Watson look acceptable. The undemanding visuals are thankfully not accompanied by performance issues on PC, as the system used for the test (i7-10700 CPU, RTX 3070 GPU, and 16 GB RAM) ran the game flawlessly at 4K resolution and an average of 97 FPS.

Had it been developed under different circumstances, Sherlock Holmes The Awakened would have been a disappointing release with its limited scope, way too familiar gameplay, and average visuals. As the game was developed in less than a year during a war, however, it is almost a miracle that Frogwares managed to do so as competently as they did. At the end of the day, the remake of the classic entry in the franchise isn’t going to win any awards, but it’s still an enjoyable experience that feels as Sherlock Holmes as it can get, even more than the more innovative Chapter One.

PC version (Steam) tested. Review code provided by the publisher.

Sherlock Holmes The Awakened

Sherlock Holmes The Awakened

Sherlock Holmes The Awakened is a competent remake featuring all the best features the series is known for, such as an engaging mystery and solid investigative gameplay. While the game is lacking in terms of innovation, doing away with the open-world setting seen in Chapter One, Frogwares developed Sherlock Holmes The Awakened it in less than a year and in the middle of a war, so no one should be disappointed that the game doesn’t feel much different from past entries in the franchise.