Return of the Obra Dinn is dark, weird and thoroughly fascinating
A spoiler-free review of Return of the Obra Dinn
Play time: 7.8 hours
Played on: Steam Deck
Difficulty: Default
These days, I’ve been in the mood for a nice puzzle/detective game. I never really thought of myself as such, but I seem to really enjoy deduction games. Games like The Case of the Golden Idol, The Roottrees are Dead, Botany Manor, just to name a few that I played and loved recently. Ace Attorney series is my favorite game franchise of all time, even if it doesn’t exactly fit the type of games I listed.
There is something really satisfying about gathering the clues and solving a case.
I had heard that Return of the Obra Dinn is a great example of this genre and had it in my backlog for a long time. I think the only reason I didn’t get to it sooner was because of the art style. Don’t get me wrong, I think it has a fantastic art direction, but I think I got overwhelmed by the screenshots. It looked hard to distinguish stuff, so I think I subconsciously delayed playing it because of that.
Don’t make the same mistake. If you are a fan of deduction games, Obra Dinn will satisfy your craving.
Monochromatic art style
I talked a bit about the art above, so let’s dive deeper into it right away.
Return of the Obra Dinn uses a 1-bit monochromatic style that is reminiscent of games on early Macintosh systems. It also gives you the option to choose a style from a few different systems: Macintosh, IBM 8503, IBM 5151, Commodore 1084, LCD, and Zenith ZVM 1240. These change the graphic colors, and you can choose whichever one you like the most. I personally used IBM 8503, which I found to be the easiest on the eyes and the best one to figure out the smaller clues.
But I will admit that it is not easy to get used to. Character portraits can look like each other, and it makes it harder to distinguish who is who. You will have to do a lot of guesswork from a person’s clothing, where they stand in the group sketch, what items they carry, and who they hang out with.
Despite that, it is still a very unique art style that I believe is worth experiencing. I think they used this monochromatic style very well, and it definitely gave the game a lot of charm.
Non-linear Story
In this game, you assume the role of an insurance investigator for the East India Company, and you are tasked with the mission to find out what happened to the crew and passengers of the Obra Dinn. Someone sends you a package to help you with this arduous task, and inside you find a pocket watch that lets you see the snapshot of the exact moment someone died, and a book that has a manifest of all people aboard, character portraits, and ship sketches. You need to fill out all the blanks and figure out the fate of each person on the ship.
The story itself — by which I mean what happened to Obra Dinn — is pretty linear, but the way you discover it is pretty non-linear. You will uncover stuff from different chapters, and some things won’t be obvious until you go even deeper. How you decide to tackle this is up to you, and many things won’t make sense until you put the pieces together.
Mechanics
The game’s mechanics are simple: walk around the ship, find a dead body and use the watch on them, see a snapshot of their last moment and fill out your book according to the information you have.
I find it necessary to make a content warning here. The watch, called the Memento Mortem, lets you see the exact moment that someone died, along with dialogue and sounds. And accordingly, some of the moments can be… gruesome, to say the least. There is no danger to you, since everything has already happened. But there were times when I used the watch, listened to the dialogue and prepared myself for it, and still said ‘‘holy shit’’ as soon as I saw the scene.
As someone who cannot handle any gore or body horror, I’ll say that it wasn’t actually very bad. The monochromatic graphics definitely make it easier to handle. But if I could handle it, I’m pretty sure you can handle it. I have the weakest stomach for those kinds of things.
As for the puzzle mechanics, some of them were pretty fun to figure out, but I felt like some of them were very difficult and felt like a chore. Especially the ones towards the end, where they get very obscure, and you need to resort to guesswork.
My biggest criticism of the game is this: You need to walk back to the body of the person if you want to see their memories again, which results in a lot of going back and forth. There should have been an easier way to access these memories. I’d been using a fantastic nudge guide (a guide that gently steers you in the right direction without giving away the answer), but towards the end, I ended up looking up some of the answers because I felt frustrated walking around the ship, trying to find a specific body, then going through their memories, trying to find the tiniest detail. Being able to see the memories without having to walk around every time would have been a great addition, and would have made for a less frustrating experience towards the end.
Overall thoughts
I had a great time with this game, playing it in short bursts. Even though it got frustrating at times, it had me invested in the story from the beginning to the end. The story does get bonkers as you discover more of it, but that’s part of the fun! What else could have happened on the ship? How did this person end up like that? How much wilder will it get?
The answer is: much wilder. And I found that very fun, and I hope you will too.
One of my all-time favorite games!
Great post! I love Return of the Obra Dinn.
If you are into mystery games, I recommend to you Sam Barlow's games such as Her Story, Telling Lies, and Immortality. Zero gore or violent scenes, but still very thrilling atmosphere. Totally worth the time.