The previous couple of years have delivered a gentle stream of oddball detective video games, from the eldritch eeriness of Return of the Obra Dinn to the wacky world of Paradise Killer to occult botany store sim Strange Horticulture. But when the lately dropped trailer is something to go by, I believe Albert Wilde: Quantum P.I. may need them knocked right into a cocked trilby.
Offered in scratchy greyscale, the trailer sees Albert, who’s a cat in case you one way or the other missed the headline, narrating over footage of the sport’s 3D environments, which look like explored in first-person. The sport’s clearly capturing for a spoof noir tone, as demonstrated by Albert’s tongue-in-cheek monologuing. “There’s nothing like the frenzy of being on a case,” he mutters. “All six of my nipples are tingling.”
It is a goofy and intriguing trailer, though it does not present a lot perception into how the sport will play. Luckily, the Steam web page is extra informative, describing Albert Wilde as a “weird narrative sport” that includes a dynamic dialog system that’ll see you questioning witnesses and interrogating suspects, all of whom are anthropomorphised animals equivalent to crows, pigs and many others. It additional states you’ll be able to “Transfer round 1930 in a fictional NY metropolis together with your automobile”, which, making an attempt to parse the garbled syntax, may imply there is a driving mechanic.
The Steam page additionally gives a quick overview of the sport’s plot: “When a pole dancing flamingo stumbles upon a useless physique in an deserted warehouse, Albert decides that fixing the case may even remedy all his different issues” it reads. What precisely a pole-dancing flamingo is doing in an deserted warehouse is not defined, though that is arguably the lesser logical flaw in that sentence.
There is not any agency launch date for Albert Wilde, however developer beyondthosehills expects to launch in “Q3 2022”. The Steam web page does point out that the sport shall be “round 4-5 hours” lengthy when it does launch, which is a helpful bit of information, and one thing I want extra builders clarified when promoting their video games.
