Return of the Obra Dinn

A pocket watch does the heavy lifting. Hold it to a body and you hear the last seconds before death, then walk through the frozen scene. Names are deduced from small clues, and to kill the urge to guess, the game usually confirms correct answers in threes. Other detective games later borrowed the same check.

Lucas Pope, the author of Papers, Please, started with a look rather than a story. He loved the 1-bit graphics of early Macintosh games, wrote a 3D engine for that style and only then came up with the game. At full screen the image made players motion sick, so the rendering had to be reworked.

One reviewer felt the payoff failed to match the thoughtful gameplay, and another noted there is not much replay value. Players leave 96% positive out of 32,896 reviews; critics give it 89 on Metacritic. By our Recommended Score it is #100 of 4,736 games.

Liked it? Try The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, where you also reconstruct how a family died, and What Remains of Edith Finch, a family history told through the death of each member.