TR-49 to be cracked open by inkle in January

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Part narrative deduction game, part audio drama coming to PC and iOS with Switch to follow

Every time we think we know what to expect from inkle, they go and spring something new on us, whether through narrative RPGs like 80 Days, deciphering the language of a lost civilization in Heaven's Vault, strategizing fantasy battles in Pendragon, making wildly different choices in EXPELLED!, or musically side-scrolling through Scotland in A Highland Song. So naturally, the next game from the acclaimed indie British studio is like none of those. 

What exactly it IS like remains something of a mystery, however, even with the initial veil removed. Its name is a cryptic as its subject matter: TR-49. For now, inkle is being mum on further details, in keeping with the game's mysterious premise. It stems from the company's narrative director Jon Ingold discovering a cache of "odd electronics and a pile of dusty books" while clearing out the attic of his great-uncle, who "worked at the Bletchley Park code-breaking facility during World War II." His mission there had remained a secret all these years, so perhaps this treasure trove of old information would finally shine light on his long-hidden work for the first time. Answers wouldn't come easy, however, as Ingold had "never heard of the authors [and] there was no trace of them online." And so he and the inkle team "analyzed the fifty mysterious books in an attempt to discover their secrets, tearing the text apart and recompiling it in code," and this game represents "the result of that experiment."

With just a single screenshot – that of a darkened room with a "strange machine" in the middle  – and some concept art released so far, not much is known about TR-49 for now. What we do know is that its gameplay promises to be "part narrative deduction game" inspired by the likes of The Return of the Obra Dinn and The Roottrees Are Dead, and "part audio drama." The remainder of the game's announcement has become mysteriously garbled but appears to promise intriguing old technology to analyze and family secrets to unearth. What wasn't lost to corruption were the names behind the voices playing a role in the game, including Rebekah McLoughlin (The SCP Archives, Eternal Threads), Paul Warren (A Highland Song, The Seancé of Blake Manor) and Phillipe Bosher (Baldur's Gate 3, Doctor Who).

These little snippets of info are all we have to go on right now, but we won't have too long to wait for all its secrets to be revealed, as TR-49 will be launching on Steam and the App Store sometime in January, with a Switch version to follow.