Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened Review: A Crossover That Makes Sense

The name Sherlock Holmes has become a staple in the literary and entertainment industry as a renowned symbol of detective expertise and mysterious allure. Developer Frogwares, known for their video games involving said detective, continues to capitalize on the Holmes namepiece with their newest Lovecraft-inspired adventure Sherlock Holmes The Awakened. For those unfamiliar, The Awakened is actually an old game created by the same developers all the way back in 2007 for Windows PC and is now being remade completely from the ground up for modern-day consoles. The 2023 reimagining of The Awakened makes great re-use of the graphics engine from Sherlock Holmes Chapter One while the excellent voice talent Sherlock returns for an all-around solid Cthulhu-filled adventure. Unfortunately, Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened  also suffers from the same frustrations that plagued the previous game too.

Before I begin this review, I have to express my utmost respect and gratitude for the developers that had to endure the harsh living situations in Ukraine for the past year. The fact that they were able to start and finish the development of this title within one year’s worth of time is just phenomenal. In fact, the team wasn’t even initially planning on remaking one of their older titles and were fully committed to begin work on an entirely brand-new game. I can’t even imagine all the stress, anxiety, and worry for safety that the team had to endure. Even though this isn’t a perfect game, please understand the circumstances of the development cycle. If you’re a fan of Frogwares or just Sherlock Holmes in general, consider showing your support for them in these trying times. With that said, let’s see what The Awakened is all about!  

Holmes & Watson Vs. Cthulhu 

Our favorite detective is paired with Dr. John H. Watson this time as they investigate several kidnappings and disappearances linked to a dark cult and an ancient eldritch god. You’ll be making your way across the alleyways of Victorian London, a mental asylum in the Swiss Alps, and the bustling streets of New Orleans, among other ominous areas. This is not even including the otherworldly nightmarish locations that you will be transported to as you slowly lose your mind to madness! The overall plot of the original game remains the same in this remake, with the exception of playing as a young Sherlock, like in Chapter One. We also get to see how the friendship and bond between Holmes and Watson blossoms into the famous crime-solving duo we know today. You do not need to have played any previous games to enjoy this title, but there are a few references to Chapter One for those who played.

The game is marketed as a crossover between Lovecraft and Sherlock, so it makes sense that this experience takes a much darker and more sinister tone than previous titles. I’m a huge fan of Lovecraft myself, so I thoroughly enjoyed the expertly crafted atmosphere and environments that The Awakened has created. From the mood-setting soundtrack to the terrific voice acting, everything just works here. Some of the set pieces, such as the endlessly spiraling tunnel, are truly breathtakingly eerie as Sherlock loses his sanity the further down the rabbit hole he goes. These newly added insanity sequences do an excellent job of immersing you into the Cthulhu experience, and kept me wanting more.  

Good Old Detective Gameplay

If you played Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, you will find yourself mostly at home with the gameplay mechanics in this title. The major difference is that while Chapter One is an open-world game, The Awakened is much more contained with semi-open-world explorable areas per chapter. You’ll still be doing plenty of object investigating, puzzle solving, and people observing to come up with deductions and piecing together different clues to form a cohesive judgment. Check the pinned evidence section if you ever get stuck! Scene reconstructions make a welcome return, where you must form sequences in order to play out what happened.

Changing outfits to fit the occasion is also just as important in this game, and you can dress Sherlock and Dr. Watson to a style of your liking. I didn’t really vibe with putting sideburns on young Sherlock, but hey, you do you. Heck, you even get to play as Dr. Watson himself in some portions to see how the story plays out from his perspective. I really appreciated the goofy outfits that lightened up what otherwise was a gloomy and serious experience. The game also includes many bonus unlockables, including additional outfits, collectibles, and concept art that may require multiple playthroughs if you want to 100% it. There are a total of eight chapters in the game, which will take you around 12-15 hours to complete, depending on how fast you solve the cases.

I was glad to see The Awakened perform much better than Chapter One did on PlayStation 5. Load times are extremely fast, and I didn’t experience any bugs, frame drops, or stuttering. The options menu is quite limited in what can be tweaked, though, and there are no accessibility options. There are two difficulty levels to choose from: young detective, which allows lockpicking skips and interactivity icons, and master of deduction, which turns off all highlights and progression notifications. You can also customize the difficulty to adjust to an experience of your liking as well, which is a nice touch. Since this game uses the same graphics engine that Chapter One does, the visuals look on par with the previous title. It’s nothing to write home about, but the character models are quite detailed, and the environments do look nice.  

Same Old Frogwares Jank

The Awakened continues to suffer from obtuse puzzles and unhelpful tutorials, which are what kept Chapter One from being truly amazing. Look, I get it. It’s a video game about a world-famous detective, and extreme hand-holding would simply defeat the purpose of the experience. In fact, the game even markets itself as a “no hand-holding experience.” However, I strongly believe there should be a balance of sorts, especially in terms of accessibility in today’s day and age, that allows for solving cases to be challenging without being frustrating. Don’t expect any hints or in-game guides that nudge you in the right direction. However, given how complex and difficult some of these cases are, there is an immense feeling of gratification after solving each one.

Sherlock uses his deduction skills after gathering clues from his surroundings to make a conclusion. Looking for insights to gather plays out in a point-and-click point of view, where you must move the cursor across an area to look for items of interest. This doesn’t sound like anything overly difficult, but the visual box that is highlighted when you’ve found a clue is extremely minuscule, and oftentimes you are circling the entire area just to look for it. Sometimes the box might not even be highlighted, leaving you puzzled as to what clue you are missing.

The way this game introduces you to its more complex mechanics, such as the mind palace, is a complete mess. The UI is just unintuitive and had me looking at the screen carefully to see what elements referred to what. After you manage to gather all the clues, you must use the mind palace to solve the investigation, piecing together different findings to make a conclusion. While some of these were easily pieced together through logic and critical thinking, others just seemed like a game of guess and check, where nothing seemed to add up. That being said, the developers did add some quality-of-life mechanics, such as an ability that reveals all interactable objects and another one that reveals hidden details in the environment.  

Conclusion

If you think about what Frogwares had to go through this past year in Ukraine, it’s an amazing feat that Sherlock Holmes The Awakened came to fruition. Sure, the game doesn’t break any new ground, but the team did it, and it just works! This crossover between Lovecraft and Sherlock is a dream come true for a detective and horror fan like myself. Even though The Awakened re-uses many of the same assets and engine and suffers from some of the same frustrations as Chapter One, it still remains a compelling detective experience from start to finish. There’s plenty of madness to lose your sanity to and lots of cases waiting to be solved!

Final Verdict: 3.5/5

Available on: PC,  PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (reviewed), Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, Nintendo Switch; Publisher: Frogwares; Developer: Frogwares; Players: 1; Released: April 11, 2023; ESRB: T; MSRP: USD 39.99

Full disclosure: This review is based on a copy of Sherlock Holmes The Awakened provided by the publisher.