Demo offers peek into The Last Case of John Morley

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Haunting cold case murder mystery coming this year to PC and consoles from the creators of Charon's Staircase and Portrait of a Torn

Twenty years is about as cold a case as an unsolved murder gets, but that's the challenge that awaits in Indigo Studios' upcoming detective mystery The Last Case of John Morley, along with a variety of eerie environments that still seem haunted by their secrets.

It's London in the 1940s, and John Morley is a private eye with several high-profile cases under his belt. His last one, unfortunately, saw him suffer a terrible accident while grappling with a killer, putting him in a hospital for several months for both physical and psychological treatment. Morley is now recovered and ready for release, but finds himself broke and without the services of his trusty secretary. His luck seems to turn for the better when he's visited in his office by an enigmatic English countess. Lady Margarette Fordside is convinced that her daughter Elody's murder at Bloomsbury Manor twenty years ago was lazily and wrongly pinned on scapegoats by the police, and after years of attempting to get the case reopened, she's come to Morley as a last resort. Morley agrees but may soon come to regret it, as "what begins as a quiet look into an old case becomes a haunting investigation into forgotten places and long-hidden truths that refuse to stay buried."

While telling a standalone story, The Last Case of John Morley shares much in common with the indie Spanish developer's previous games, Seven Doors, Charon's Staircase and Portrait of a Torn. Accompanied by a light jazz score evoking a classic noir mood, it's a free-roaming first-person adventure that not only has a mystery to solve, but also deeper psychological layers to uncover that border on (or fall squarely into) paranormal territory. Here you'll explore a variety of atmospherically lit environments – during a blue moon, no less – from "eerie mansions to abandoned sanatoriums" in search of clues both natural and supernatural. There will be the usual sorts of evidence to collect and analyze, but also green-tinted environmental elements that allow Morley to visually "recreate the crime scene to uncover what really happened." You'll also encounter puzzles to solve throughout the game's projected three-hour play time, as well as a number of different witnesses to interrogate in a story that promises to be "filled with unexpected twists and a shocking finale that will linger long after the game ends."

The full version of The Last Case of John Morley is on track to arrive later this year for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, but you can get snooping right away through the playable demo available now on Steam.