The Case of the Golden Idol was one of 2022’s best surprises. A detective murder mystery like no other, its 12 strange deaths (or more if you count its equally exceptional DLC) all centred around a mythical golden statue whose supposed life-giving properties put it at the heart of a decades-long conspiracy. As we unravelled the tangled history of the double-crossing Cloudsley family, we poked around stuffy country manors, dingy, candlelit inns, blood-stained beaches, and hallowed cult chambers in our search for the truth, gradually picking up clues in the form of names, nouns and verbs to work out whodunnit and why in each deadly tableau.
Rise of the Golden Idol
Developer: Color Gray GamesPublisher: PlaystackPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Releases 2024 on PC (Steam), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Netflix.
In its best moments, its deduction process called to mind the knotty blank-filling of Return of the Obra Dinn. While the words you collected during your mouse-clicking were important, they were nothing without all the dozens of other little visual clues you’d pick up simply by surveying the scene in question, as the aftermath of each murder would be frozen in time for you to pick through the incriminating evidence stashed in pockets, bins and swapped coats.
All this returns in full in its even more elaborate sequel, Rise of the Golden Idol, which moves the action forward a couple of centuries to the even more paranoid era of the 1970s. Developer Color Gray Games has given it a gorgeous glow-up in the process, too, its gurning grotesques taking on fresh, animated life as they choke, gasp and dab insincere handkerchiefs to their eyes as we find them yet again in media bloody res. Yes, there is a twinge of sadness here. Part of the original’s charm did indeed come from its exquisitely detailed pixel art dioramas, but having spent an hour in Rise’s company, I have to say the broader brushstrokes of these more modern 3D gargoyles have just as much charm and character as their historical counterparts.
As before, you’re eased into your murder solving gently, your invisible, omniscient detective tasked with solving the seemingly innocuous murder of a professor found face first in the snow at the bottom of some icy steps. These single scene deaths soon give way to more complex settings, though, and by the end of the first chapter, you’ll be piecing together clues across three separate interconnected rooms as you try and read between the lines of a (definitely not fact-checked) press conference, body-strewn morgue and a cushy executive office.