First details sniffed out for Finch & Archie

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Upcoming narrative-driven, online co-op 1930s detective mystery allows players to control either a cop or his dog

There have been plenty of fun man-and-dog detective duos in popular culture, from Shaggy and Scooby to Turner & Hooch to Detective Guy and Cleo from the ongoing Murder Is Game Over series. And soon it looks like we'll be able to add another odd couple to the list in Octarine Arts' upcoming co-op debut, Finch & Archie.

The Great Depression has brought hard times for everyone. The "romance and glamour of the Roaring '20s is over; poverty and crime run rampant in the grimy streets of 1930s America." Still hurting from the loss of his last canine partner, Jack Finch, a "reclusive but hard-nosed detective," has vowed never again to work with another. So when Finch "finds himself teamed up with the newly graduated police dog Archie, he wants nothing to do with the spunky canine." But with a growing case load and a homicidal maniac wreaking havoc throughout the city, the pair will have to "learn to work together, communicate efficiently and interact with each other to catch that serial killer and restore peace."

Finch & Archie is a free-roaming, first-person (or first-animal) 3D adventure steeped in film-noir with a muted brown colour palette and a hand-sketched art style depicting its "gritty" urban setting. In this "narrative-driven" two-player online co-op game, one person controls the detective and the other his "good boy" Archie, although the indie Australian developers stess that "fighting over who gets to play as the dog is strictly forbidden!" Each character has his own unique skills for uncovering evidence, including Archie's "excellent sense of smell" and Finch's magnifying glass, along with the detective's various interrogation techniques to "question alibis, expose contradictions and catch criminals red-handed." There's a pretty significant catch, however, as "Finch isn’t fluent in barking and Archie doesn’t speak English," so players will need to "find innovative ways to share information and solve puzzles together." 

While no firm target release date has yet been announced, Finch & Archie is due to be unleashed on Steam sometime before the end of this year for Windows PC.