Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is a fresh new start for the nearly 20-year-old game series, and to some extent manages to reinvent the wheel.

Despite these issues, it's difficult not to get sucked into Chapter One's web of intrigue. The central mystery is uneventful until its final moments, but the cases surrounding it are consistently excellent, and the role you play in solving them is incredibly gratifying. The open world is more of a backdrop than anything else, but it expands the game with dozens of side cases that are just as alluring as those found in the main story. Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One may stumble at times, but it scratches that investigative itch like few games even attempt to.

Despite a few missteps in terms of the combat, if you’re a fan of detective games then Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is a pretty easy one to recommend. Getting to do things like interviewing witnesses or performing chemical analysis on suspicious evidence is an absolute blast. The island of Cordona is chock full of cases for you to investigate and while there are a few technical issues with the open world setting it’s easy enough to forgive when sleuthing around is this much fun.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One refines the formula of The Sinking City, offering a more investigative and varied game, which will probably appeal to hardcore fans of Frogwares' works. However, the main plot is a bit weak and rushed, although the total content is supported by various pleasant side events.

If you can get through the relatively humdrum, lifeless and unneeded open world of Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One you'll uncover a whip smart detective adventure that is up there with the series best. It's just a shame that a smattering of technical issues and poorly executed combat sections detract from what should have been the Pride of Baker Street's triumphant return to PlayStation.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is a flawed but nevertheless fascinating look at the angsty years of the great detective.

A fresh and emotional take on the Sherlock Holmes property creates the best narrative in the series yet, but it’s let down by some ambitious design choices.

I've struggled to properly rate Sherlock Holmes Chapter One. On the one hand, it does some great things in terms of the cases and the provided tools to solve those cases. I enjoyed that it never gave me an answer, and I had to arrive at my own conclusions given the evidence I'd found. On the other hand, the game is in a rough technical state with frequent frame rate issues on the PS5, basic animations that feel robotic, an empty open world, and voice acting that can pull you out of the experience at times. Fans of Sherlock Holmes or adventure games can check out Chapter One, simply for everything that it does right.

Awkwardly plotted core cases and an underserved open world detract from interesting characters and a handful of side-cases that show promise. [Issue#9, p.80]

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One is a decent adventure game that lets you play as the great detective. The trouble is, it wants to be more than that. It wants to be an action-adventure game with an open world. It wants Sherlock to be a fun and interesting player character, but the game makes him drag around a buddy who’s even less helpful than Watson. That said, I am curious to see where Frogwares goes from here. Mysteries, not action, make for a good Sherlock Holmes game (as should be obvious), and I want to see if Frogwares sheds the latter or chooses to double-down instead.

Technical issues and an excessively padded out plot makes Frogwares' open-world rendition of its Sherlock Holmes games a disappointing experience.

A lot of the issues with Sherlock Holmes Chapter One can be resolved with updates. The performances issues can be ironed out, John's obnoxious behavior can be toned down, and an improved hint system could remove the frustration of being lost during a case. With a few tweaks, Sherlock Holmes Chapter One could be an interesting open-world twist on the detective genre. As it stands, the game at launch still needs work before Sherlock Holmes can fully embrace his role as the greatest detective of all time.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One should, on paper, be the best game out of Frogwares yet. It brings back all those satisfying detective features of the past and couples them with new mechanics and interactions. However, many of them are either surplus or frustrating enough to where they sometimes detract from the overall experience. And with a lifeless open world that doesn't run particularly well at even the best of times, it's not an easy recommendation. What fans loved from past Sherlock Holmes instalments is still there, but you'll need to do a bit of overtime to find it.

Sherlock Holmes Chapter One may try to dress itself as something more or different, but when you get right down to it, not much has changed.