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Although Sherlock Holmes Chapter One was released in November, development studio Frogwares has been crafting the action-adventure video game for years. The team wanted to update how they handled open worlds from their previous game releases — like The Sunken City — and tweaked their detective mechanics from previous games in their Sherlock Holmes series. Frogwares spent a lot of creative energy thinking about what new stories they wanted to tell within the well-known world of Sherlock Holmes. These years of extensive planning paid off, resulting in the well-received Sherlock Holmes Chapter One that built off Frogware’s previous work and storytelling for a fun new adventure for the famous genius detective.
The Frogwares team took the time to speak with CBR, answering questions about the new Sherlock Holmes Chapter One video game and the gaming studio itself. The team discussed how their approach to detective, mystery, and combat mechanics changed in their recent release and let players in on the philosophy and work style of the overall company.
Where does the name “Frogwares” come from?
Frogwares: No one even remembers that anymore, to be honest. The popular belief is that our CEO is French and the French are froggies. We don’t take ourselves too seriously.
What drew the studio to mystery/detective games as a genre?
At the very beginning, it was just a matter of opportunity because, at that time, no one was developing or playing Sherlock Holmes and we thought that it would be interesting. We were just exploring our niche, and eventually, we found it.
As we made more and more titles, we formed our philosophy: detective games are the best way to experience a mystery. Putting the player in the shoes of an investigator means exposing them to the story in the most engaging way, by piecing it together one puzzle piece at a time. Gameplay storytelling certainly has its share of limitations, but the pros are fantastic — the player is an integral cog in the mystery machine and can make their own deductions and moral choices to shape the story the way they see fit.
What made you want to tell a story about young Sherlock Holmes? What opportunities does focusing on the detective at the beginning of his career allow?
After The Sinking City, we got back to Sherlock for various reasons. One of them is that Sherlock Holmes is a very popular IP, and we haven’t yet said everything that we wanted with this franchise. After internal meetings, pitches, ideas-throwing, an interesting idea came about: what if we told the story of Sherlock before he became the world’s greatest detective? When we started talking about this idea, we felt electricity in the air. Excitement.
So that’s how it began. We set ourselves the goal of showing our vision of what young Sherlock Holmes could be like and to portray why he became who he became in adulthood, what “made” him that way. We decided to show the contrast between Sherlock from Chapter One and the one from Crimes & Punishments. According to our story, Sherlock had a turbulent youth, especially after the death of his mother. His rebellious behavior has not disappeared, and at the same time, he is more brazen than his adult version. We thought that this vision would help to reveal this part of his personality.
It’s been five years since the release of The Devil’s Daughter — what shifts have you made in your development process or design principles since the last Sherlock Holmes game?
The Devil’s Daughter was a semi-open world game, so it was already a step in the direction we are going today. Our games got bigger, and one of the things we needed to do was to be able to make decisions quickly and bring awareness to each department of the studio. We moved from waterfall to agile project management which helped us optimize our resources immensely. We became more nimble as a team.
Another major change was introduced when we moved to a self-publishing model. We went through an internal reorganization and created a publishing team that curates marketing, business, and release processes. That allowed us to direct all the operations at our own pace, which is quite nice.
What are the detection mechanics in Chapter One like — any big changes from the established deduction methods from previous games?
We have quite a few of those, going beyond Sherlock’s skills. For example, now we have Jon. Since Chapter One is an open-world game, the player may not notice certain activities and Jon will draw attention to them from time to time. He can say that there is a side quest that is worth paying attention to or commenting on what is happening in the city. In addition, Jon draws sketches of the Crime Scene. He has a note page in his diary describing how Sherlock solves crimes.
As for the Mind Palace, in Chapter One, we returned to the approach from Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, where the players had several suspects at once. On the basis of the collected evidence, as well as the interpretation of this information, they had to decide who the criminal was. In Chapter One, for example, you can gather a certain amount of evidence at once and conclude that the first suspect found is a true criminal and immediately accuse him and do not even think what will happen next. But in this situation, more diligent detectives will be able to find other clues, identify new suspects and choose the culprit from them. That is, here you will need to interpret certain evidence and events in the game. Some side quests will have a slightly different approach. You will need to determine the motive for the crime, the instrument of the crime, and more. All this will be based on nonlinearity and will depend on how attentive the player is.
Players have also got the Concentration mode under their belts, but it does not automatically highlight all available items on the location. When we understand that Sherlock needs to analyze some information — for example, there was evidence on this spot but it disappeared and its traces remain — then we can turn on this mode and try to determine what the evidence was.
There is also a lot to do with the Pinned Evidence mechanics, where the player selects the required evidence, attaches it to the screen, and thus explores and analyzes what is happening around.
What are the challenges of telling mysteries in the video game format?
The main challenge is always the balance between hand-holding and letting the player figure something out for themselves. In a detective game, the players are expected to make their own choices and have the ability to fail. Our goal is to make sure they still have this ability without it becoming frustrating and off-putting. So it is a balancing act, a bit.
How do you view the role of combat in detective games, and how have your combat systems shifted over time and in different games?
In a detective game, it’s hard not to run into something dangerous. In fact, fights and skirmishes make sense from the point of view that all the places Sherlock gets into (doesn’t matter if it’s Victorian England or an island in the Mediterranean) can be pretty dangerous. It is likely that Sherlock may get into trouble.
However, we still feel that when it comes to combat, Sherlock isn’t some Rambo-like character that will mow dozens of enemies with a machine gun. When he fights, he uses his mind too, using his environment to his advantage and spotting weak points in his enemies. Although he can kill, his companion Jon is strongly against it and encourages non-lethal takedowns.
2019 saw the release of The Sinking City — how did work on this game differ from the Sherlock Holmes games that Frogwares is known for, and what other non-Sherlock games could fans expect in the future?
We have, of course, taken into account The Sinking City feedback and drawn some conclusions. For example, in The Sinking City people said they spent more time on the way from point A to point B than at points A and B. In Sherlock Holmes Chapter One, we fixed this, making each quest feel more unique, less “patterny” than The Sinking City. The open-world in Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is smaller than in The Sinking City, but it is more condensed and more packed with quests and secrets.
Compared to The Sinking City, the Mind Palace has changed too. In TSC, there was one suspect, and the players needed to investigate whether this suspect was a criminal or a victim of circumstances. In Chapter One, we returned to the approach from Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, where the players had several suspects at once. On the basis of the collected evidence, as well as the interpretation of this information, they had to figure out who the criminal was.
What benefits or difficulties have you found in shifting from a Windows focus to more console-friendly games?
Hardware is the crux of the matter. We have some difficulties optimizing the game for current-gen consoles and it is much easier to work with next-gen. We are working on the PS4 and Xbox One versions and we still have a high-quality experience in mind for those platforms. But we’ve been doing consoles for some time now and we love working with console manufacturers. Seeing our games on people’s TV screens is a thrill!
Can you tease anything about what fans can expect from Sherlock Holmes Chapter One?
The game was released on November 16, so the cat is out of the bag!
We just wanted to say that Chapter One is shaping up to be our best-reviewed and fastest-selling game to date. For that, we are grateful to our fans who have helped us improve with every new game we have made and we hope that Sherlock fans like our version of the origins story of the greatest detective of all time. We would love to hear what are people’s thoughts on the game and the character itself.
Sherlock Holmes Chapter One was released on November 16 and is available on Windows, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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