Why Sherlock Holmes is better in video games than books

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Failure is at the heart of Sherlock Holmes Chapter One.

The very nature of Sherlock Holmes’ methodology of solving crimes — what Arthur Conan Doyle refers to as deductive reasoning but is much closer to abductive reasoning — lends itself to the potential for abject failure empowered by great leaps of logic. While the looming chasms of fallacies that surround Holmes’ abduction aren’t deeply explored in Doyle’s work, they make up the bedrock of Frogware’s detective games.

“Being wrong as Sherlock Holmes is both blasphemous and exciting at the same time,” said Yaroslav Martyniuk, feature designers team lead at developer Frogwares. “It’s actually one of the assumptions that we made when designing the game early on. Our story talks about a young Holmes, a young man that only starts to discover who they are, and what their path in life might be. He’s also a bit of a cocky individual, where his confidence might be a bit overblown compared to his abilities. It’s Sherlock growing into the shoes of the world’s greatest detective. So having him be wrong feels right.”

There are myriad shades of failure in Sherlock Holmes Chapter One. You can simply miss out on some of the clues during the course of your investigation, or you can come to the wrong conclusion after piecing those clued together. You can even leap to incorrect judgments about a person’s behavior.

But failure doesn’t typically end the game, it just changes it.

To read the rest of this story, which first ran on Nov. 10, 2021, visit the Epic Games Store.