Return of the Obra Dinn | PC Review
Archeologist. Pilot. Paranormal investigator. Hacker. Insurance agent. One of these things is different from the rest. People would rather be (or play) Indiana Jones than Ned Ryerson. But when the agent gets to investigate a ghost ship, and has access to a device that allows him to see the final moments of someone’s life, that becomes a whole different case. Enter the Obra Dinn, a merchant ship that set out from London to the Orient in 1802, and was declared lost when it didn’t reach its rendezvous point at Cape of Good Hope.
The player is an insurance adjuster for the East India Company’s London office and is sent out to board the ship when it suddenly drifts into port on the morning of October 14th 1807, without a crew, and its sails damaged. Your job: recover the Crew Muster Roll book for assessment, and find out what happened to each of the crew and passengers that were on board the doomed ship.
An Insurance Adventure With Minimal Colour
Return of the Obra Dinn is not your typical adventure game. At first glance, it looks like it was made in 1988. The graphics resemble a CGA monitor, hence the subtitle ‘An Insurance Adventure With Minimal Colour’. The game is developed by Lucas Pope and published by his company 3909. You might know Pope from his first full game Papers, Please from 2013. With Obra Dinn he delivers another unique game.
You might think that the CGA old-school style would turn you off, but you would be sorely mistaken. The amount of detail that Pope manages to put into the graphics is amazing, and after starting the game you really only need a few minutes to get used to it before you don’t want it any other way. The game even gives you the possibility to change it to classic Commodore 64, LCD or Macintosh display if you like that more than the IBM view.
Dead Men Tell Tales
The gameplay focuses around the gadget that allows you to see and enter the final moments of someone’s life. The goal is to identify the fates of all people on the Obra Dinn. This is not an easy task, because you need to get their name, fate and killer correctly. You have to find a body or know where a body has been, in order to be able to use the device. The first body is easily found, and it kicks off an incredible voyage of discovery on the ghost ship.
The game is structured like a book with chapters, and you start on the last page, working your way to the first page. Every scene takes you deeper into the mystery. You walk around in the scene, scouring it for clues. With every new corpse more of the ship (and the story) opens up. You find a new body, then that leads to a new scene, and hopefully a name, a fate, and a killer. And it will definitely lead to a new horror.
A Case Of Identity
The Return of the Obra Dinn is a splendid investigatory game. It makes you feel like you’re Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot; exploring all the corners of the ship, and uncovering nightmarish scenes of carnage or sad fortunes. It’s easy to miss something, but you can always go back to a specific scene if you return to the dead crew member or passenger that triggered it. You have to pay attention to everything, from languages spoken to weapons carried; everything can give you the hint you need to solve a fate. If you deduct three fates correctly, they then get set in stone. The feeling you get when that happens is incredibly satisfying. With Return Of The Obra Dinn, Lucas Pope has delivered a remarkable, one-of-a-kind, challenging, and astoundingly immersive game you will have a hard time letting go of.
Return of the Obra Dinn
$19.99
Pros
- Unique game play
- Immersive mystery
- Detailed and unique pixel art
- Great atmosphere
- A true detective story
Cons
- The one-colour style is not for everyone
- Very hard
