Return of the Obra Dinn

Hands down, one of my favourite games. One large puzzle that never felt overwhelming, due to organic exploration and pacing. Even the time travel feels somehow natural.

+ Atmosphere, time travel mechanics, lots of 'aha!' moments. Evocative soundtrack and (sometimes hammy) voice acting add to the window-to-the-past feel. Art style looks 10x better in game and its obscurity complements the mystery
- Really hard to find another detective game that comes close

Great casual game. Loved Papers Please and this does not disappoint. Definitely need to put more thought in than I initially realized! The graphic options are cool and it was neat to be able to change the graphic options to the good 'ol Mac classic scenario.

Amazing detective game with a unique mechanic that is cleverly tied into the story of the game. Minimal and very well designed.

People keep saying insurance investigation is unfair, and that the Cape of Good Hope screws them over. Turns out there actually might be some merit to it. I hate conspiracy theories a lot, but the East India Company has a patent describing how it attracts the Kraken to increase revenue. A rabbit hole worth exploring?

the captain did it

Amazing fresh gameplay with an incredible story. Only gets better the deeper you get into the game.

Genuinely excellent. It's a challenging game that can at times feel overwhelming, but if you keep picking at the mystery it all starts to unravel. I do wish there was a faster way to jump between memories, but thats a fairly minor gripe and I appreciate that the game encouraged me to make my own deductions and didn't feed me hints.

An absolute masterpiece of game design, originality and conceptual execution. This is a detective-type title where you play the role of an insurance investigator tasked with discovering the fates of 60 personnel aboard the doomed Obra Dinn ship.

Armed with just a journal consisting of a crew and passenger manifest, map of the ship and a sketch of those aboard; your job is to unravel the mystery that occurred on its fatal final voyage and discover who everyone was, and what happened to them using the little information you already have and clues you gather along the way.

You do this by observing memories which appear as a still scene with some audio, and through observation, deduction and clever thinking, you can slowly form a picture of what happened in that instance, who was killed and what was the cause. It's a remarkably intriguing story and discovering correct fates is incredibly satisfying.

The game is also impressively well-structured - your 'magical' compass discovers bodies yet they don't appear in order of how the story unfolds which really adds to the challenge. You may discover someone early on and know how they died, but it may take many hours to actually find out who the culprit was and how it all came about.

Visually the game is striking with its low-res presentation yet the amount of detail is unbelievable and plays a huge part in your discoveries. The audio contains plenty of important dialogue and sounds effects which can all contain subtle clues so listen to everything! The soundtrack is also utterly magnificent and really adds to the atmosphere.

Overall, Return to the Obra Dinn is one of the most rewarding experiences you can have and one of the most technically impressive games ever constructed. A groundbreaking achievement in game development.

Return of the Obra Dinn is a great puzzle game with an unusual setting for a video game - a ship that was lost at sea in 1803. The game's story is thoroughly interesting, without being too short or too long. Highly recommended.

Completing Obra Dinn was a personal achievement of mine. I tried it out for the first time back in 2019, and ended up dropping it as I thought I was too airheaded for this game. Also didn't have patience for it.

Fast forward a few years, now having matured and adjusting my mindset accordingly. I binged the entire game within 2 play sessions, solving all fates and being completely taken aback by the narrative. Return of the Obra Dinn is, in every sense of the word, one of the best deduction/logical puzzle-based games currently available.

If you were like me, let things play out. Experience all available death scenes first and just soak in the scenes. Then, work on easy difficulty fates first and make small mental notes of potential further interesting leads. Obra Dinn is very fair with giving out multiple pieces of information for each crew member, either in the way they dress, how they speak, what parts of the ship they seem to frequent etc.

Lucas Pope has a style, and that style is making you actually perform the challenges in the game instead of modelling them. In Papers, Please you had to actually find discrepancies in documents; likewise, in Obra Dinn, a mystery game that has you uncover the fates of many dead people aboard a tragedy-stricken ship, you don't get any sorts of "Compare Clues" button.

In this game, if you want to compare clues, you have to actually do it.

At the start of Obra Dinn, you are provided with the list of everyone who was aboard, a sketch of their faces, and a clock that lets you see the last memory of a corpse. Now it's up to you to cross-reference an incredible number of events, meticulously writing down everyone's cause of death while—and this is the game's main challenge—assigning identities.

Sure, some of them are relatively straightforward: there were two sets of siblings on the ship, and a couple of names are mentioned directly in the memories, and did you notice who was it that tasked you with unveiling the mystery in the first place? But straightforward identities are rare and far between, and in no time you'll find yourself having to distinguish between four rather identical Chinese seamen.

Most cases of death are, to the contrary, straightforward, but sometimes you'll have to actually think hard and model the whole situation, like when someone goes MIA or is wounded way before they bleed to death.

Does it all sound fun to you? Well, it bloody is. The game is brilliant at giving just enough clues to make you do educated guesses. You'll have to listen to accents, note the types of clothes, or who stands where on the sketches, or in which room a person is typically found. And I can't stress enough how awesome it is that there are no shortcuts, no gamisms, no buttons saying things like "Determine X's Origin." If you want to find a Polynesian of this ship, you'll have to actually turn your brain on and think which of them looks Polynesian, like you would do in real life.

No mystery game I've played has ever made me feel this close to being an actual detective. Even the good ones, like Ace Attorney, are mostly about guessing the creators' logic ("you won't leave this screen until you've clicked all the clues"). Obra Dinn, on the other hand, lets you loose—thus making all your findings feel yours, and yourself, smart.

The music is, as expected, stunning. The visuals are unusual, but not random: this game is, to a large extent, about the recognition of faces and other distinctive features, which the pixellated visuals make both easier and harder.

The only downside I can think of is that in the end, Obra Dinn is a bit too easy to brute force. Whenever you find a dead body and are sure about the nature of their death, you have zero reason not to try and assign an identity to it—any random one—because you might happen to guess right. (Each time you write down three fates correctly, the game confirms them; after that, you can change the names of all other victims, since this also confirms they were wrong, and try the guesswork cycle again...)

Then again, I guess it can't be helped, and it's up to the player not to detract from the fun by cheesing.

P. S. And, unlike oh so many adventures, it takes some effort to make sure all ambiguous causes of death accept more than one answer, like when a person was thrown overboard by a beast, you can choose "fell overboard" or "crushed by a beast". So, no game logic stupidity here either.

Obra Dinn provides an experience that can only be had by playing THIS game and no other. All of its aspects were crafted with love and craftsmanship, and it shows.

If you have an appreciation for unique video games experiences you owe to yourself to play this game. Once you are done, you will be sad that you can't wipe your memory to experience if all over again.

I wish this game had spawned a new genre of game, sadly it didn't. Play Return of the Obra Dinn.

A 3 dimensional puzzle of clues, context, and characters. Jump into a small world of a post-disaster ship and piece together surroundings to find out who and why things met their demise.

It doesn't appear to have any replayability, but it's a fun game to experience for the first time. It can be a bit harsh on the eyes but the artistic direction works well enough. I would love to experience another game like this, or even a sequel. The overall vibe and mystery is a huge plus.

I was really hesitant to buy this as I wasn't sure it was for me. I can only recommend that you buy it right now. an amazing experience with a legendary soundtrack.

Lucas Pope is the man.

Astoundingly presented game in every facet. I've never played a game with a deduction mechanic before. Utterly perfect execution of the investigation genre. The story beats kept me intrigued and the beats in-between allowed for reflection and time to listen to the wonderful music and examine the striking graphics.

This game is moderately hard, and gave me motion sickness, but it's also a true work of art and a testament to creativity. Lucas Pope made something very special with Obra Dinn.

There will be some guesswork, and some frustration, and some retracing of steps — but in the end the experience as a whole was very much worth it.

If you like the aesthetics and the idea of solving multiple mysterious deaths with nothing but your wits, then go in as spoiler free as possible and be immersed in this excellent detective game.

A skill-based detective game dealing with the fates met by multiple dozens of people aboard a 18th century sailing ship.

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Return of the Obra Dinn has you set foot on the titular sea vessel, which somehow returned to the seas of England without any living crew left. You're tasked with uncovering the fates of all people present during the ship's last voyage, along the way uncovering the various events that caused the ship's current state.

The main gameplay loop revolves around a magical compass, which can be used on dead bodies to catch a glimpse of their death. Upon using this ability, you're transported to a static scene depicting the moment of death along with a short snippet of audio leading up to the moment. You can move around in this scene, though limited in how far you can move from the death itself. From there, Return of the Obra Dinn asks you to fill out a log entry, stating which passenger was killed and by what they met their fate.

While this premise may seem simple, things quickly turn complicated, as identifying people is often a rather tricky feat. Beyond the limited content of the death scenes, you're equipped with a logbook which lists all people aboard the ship alongside their professions and a couple of pictures depicting the passengers. While these are helpful in connecting the dots, they don't provide much information on their own, resulting in a lot of work to identify people.

You'll have to look for various hints, such as the way people are addressed, their activities, clothing, belongings and accents among other things hinting at their identity. You'll rarely identify people in their initial scenes, with the game requiring you to follow people's actions across multiple scenes and keep track of information gathered in completely unrelated scenes.

To disincentivise trial and error, the game provides a large selection of identities and death causes, only confirming your selected answers whenever you manage to correctly deduce 3 entries. This creates genuinely gripping detective gameplay, with varied paths leading to satisfying deductions that rely purely on your observation skills. Besides varying widely in the way you uncover them, the fates themselves are rather varied, keeping things interesting as you work your way through the rather large ship and its many passengers. While some deductions are genuine nail-biters, all of them feel fair and very much rewarding to solve.

The narrative told through events you uncover as you make your way through the many deaths along the ship's journey had me quickly gripped, acting as a great progress incentive throughout its runtime. Mundane sea travel incidents are intermixed with genuinely unexpected encounters, creating similar variety to the individual deaths themselves. Given the game's rather grounded theme, there's some very intriguing world building found throughout its runtime. The game left me craving things to have been explored a bit more, though I also believe that the way things are hinted at makes the game's events so interesting in the first place.

As for the conclusion of its narrative, Return of the Obra Dinn keeps one of the chapters of its voyage log locked until you've concluded your investigation, teasing you with the revelations it may contain. Its contents serve as the game's finale, opened by a very intriguing way of accessing the information and tying up some loose narrative threads. While there aren't any really groundbreaking reveals, I feel that the ending provides good closure and does a good job of wrapping up a more than decent story while leaving some things just vague enough for you to do a bit more thinking yourself after finishing the game.

Presentation-wise, Return of the Obra Dinn goes for quite a stand-out look, emulating the look of low-resolution dual-colour displays, which manages to create a fitting and genuinely great atmosphere. While this look helps to obscure some of the more explicit events of the game, I rarely felt like it got in my way when it came to reading the scenes presented to me. The game takes great care to preserve readability, with good use of contrast and a great implementation of the dual-colour effect, which nicely keeps all shading static while moving around.

As for audio, I have to mention the game's soundtrack, which perfectly captures the emotions of the scenes it accomplishes, is rather varied over the course of the game and often feels genuinely bombastic. Beyond its music, Return of the Obra Dinn also features some good if not exceptional soundscapes that fit right in. Beyond that, the sound design feels a bit lacking in some of the scene intros, though these also feature some really good voice-acting which arguably is the star of the show anyways.

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Return of the Obra Dinn is one of the best detective games to date, combining satisfying gameplay with a charming presentation and a rather unique premise. Do yourself a favour and give the game a shot - it's a great time.

Note: I can very much recommend playing alongside someone - me and a buddy of mine had a blast teaming up to work out solutions and experiencing the narrative together.

Masterpiece mistery detective experience with fantastic world building, gorgeous unique visuals and no real comparable games on the market at the time of the writing of this review. 10/10, must play if you're a fan of investigative games.

Although it took me a few tries to really get into it, Return of the Obra Dinn ended up being probably one of the best games I have ever played. It is extremely unique, in both gameplay and visuals. It is very difficult, but so satisfying to complete.

I only wish I could go back in time and replay it again, knowing nothing about it.

this game goes from great to horrible once you actually beat it

the gameplay was SO good and I found myself so absorbed into what I was doing that I just beat the whole game in one go around

but like.... THATS IT? what kind of fucking idiotic story is this like the whole time I was under the assumption that the extra chapter was going to be some kind of all encompassing thing but it just tells me information that I pretty much already just inferred while playing the game for fucking 9 hours

like what is the fucking point of finding all the fates of all the passengers if ultimately I have as much of a grasp on the story as I did when I was like an hour in

what did I gain from spending 8 entire hours finding all the rest of the fates?

maybe I'm just bad at this because this game had me STRUGGLING to find information for some people and I felt so happy once I beat it only to just like sit there looking at the credits with my mouth wide open and my hands on my head

I was going through so many emotions trying to find all the fates because in my head there would be some kind of reward for doing so and like don't get me wrong I had a TON of fun doing so, but like WHAT WAS THE POINT??

hearing everyone compare this to outer wilds makes me SO mad, because outer wilds has an ending that made me FEEL SOMETHING, this game just left me empty inside and now I want my money back

great game though

Brilliant. Can't say much that hasn't already been said.
I am not very much into Detective / Puzzle games, but this game is really well designed and overall an extraordinarily fantastic experience. Go in blind, don't search anything, have fun.

A game can truly live-or-die when it solely goes for atmosphere. This is equally true when the game is a puzzle game which already teeters on the quality of the puzzles. Yet the Return of the Obra Dinn is able to tackle both head-on. The product is able to pull you in and makes you want to explore the ship, piecing together what happened aboard the Obra Dinn.

To begin, the visuals and soundscape. Both are absolutely imperative to the success of this game. The visual style brings you back as she you explore the ship. I would say the visuals can become make a scene muddied initially, but after a few moments to take the view in, it is easy to parse things out. But the visuals can only do so much to bring the ship to life. And while there isn't really music to speak of, the sound effects are the bow which tie everything together. Your footsteps along the creaking boards of the ship. The wind and rain crashing down around you as you explore the ship. The way a door will sound as you open one up. The sounds of chaos and voices in each flashback. All of these are terrifically done that, with the visuals, completely entrances the player aboard the Obra Dinn.

The story is a fascinating tale with plenty of ups-and-downs. While I believe there are a couple of points throughout that I think would have preferred a bit more fleshed out, I found myself rather engaged while exploring the ship. I do wish that there would possibly have been little blurbs about some of the shipmates as I feel that would have only engaged me in the story more. Instead, a lot of the people just feel like names. Even the characters who have a more important title on the ship would do with a bit more.

Lastly, the gameplay. A deduction-style game where you need to piece together all of the characters on the ship and how they may, or may not, have met their demise. What happened on the Obra Dinn? It's up to the player to piece it all together. Going back in time using your handy watch, you see the last moments of someone's life to gather clues for the journal you hold. I found myself intrigued from the beginning. The game game does very little to explain and wishes for the player to piece it all together on their own. I love this as it does make you engaged more to the work. However, in the beginning, it does state the player will need to make plenty of deductions and I do think this is a point of contention. The leaps the game expects you to make for some of the characters, especially when you're running out of names to put to people, I found a bit rough. The endgame is definitely a struggle and I did find myself needing to trial-and-error a bit before I lucked out with some of the names.

Return to the Obra Dinn is a lovely puzzle game. For $20, it's genuinely a game everyone should look into if you're a fan of the genre. While I do have some qualms with the gameplay later down the line, I would by lying if I said I didn't have fun. Even while struggling, I always had a blast trying to piece it all together. My playthrough also took approximately 8 hours for a first time through. There's an atmospheric game that is ready to be explored! You just have to journey out and answer the question yourself: What did happen on the Obra Dinn?

Brilliant game, I wasn't interested in detective games/stories before playing this but now I'm really looking forward to playing another game like this. The graphics are really unique, which is not surprising coming from the creator of Papers Please. They make it hard to identify some things, but help create an eerie atmosphere. I also adore the voice acting and sound effects.
The only things I dislike are that some characters have such little clues on who they are that I had to guess who they are. And the "intervals" for scnenes were a nuissance sometimes, although very minor. Sometimes the game forces you to wait through this zoom in effect and book animation before you observe the scene fully and sometimes there's not much to observe so you're forced to walk around and wait.

Anyways, at last I'd like to mention that my favourite death was one of the characters getting killed having a sh*t

Facilmente um dos jogos mais legais que eu já joguei na vida. Vi alguém falando que Retun of the Obra Dinn é um Outer Wilds de barco, e realmente faz bastante sentido fazer essa comparação, mas sinto que esse jogo merece ser reconhecido por ser único, já que ele consegue ser muito diferente e legal em TUDO: toda a estética desse jogo é muito foda, acho que os gráficos tem MUITO charme e combinam demais com a gameplay de investigação, que também é diferente de tudo que já vi, mesmo com alguns aspectos de jogos como Outer Wilds. Você se sente o rei dos enigmas e não da vontade de parar de jogar até descobrir tudo. Não sei como que um caba praticamente sozinho conseguiu fazer um jogo tão bom, incluindo as músicas.

This is why I like indie games. No hour-long tutorial and exposition. Intuitive interface. Intrinsic motivation and "show not tell". An utter lack of interest in popping out sequels or teasers. I actually don't think another game in this style could be made like this without feeling inferior.

I do wish there were an alternative display version that had a *bit* more detail, or less motion blur.

This game is brilliant. I have never played a game so committed to making sense. I kept missing things because I expected the solution to be obvious, when in reality they were so obvious I didn't even think they were clues. This game's style disguises how realistic it is. It's well written, charming, unique, and doesn't require racial profiling to win...

...but it does help.

I had no expectations, was super lost in the beginning but once you understand how it works it is amazing! The voice acting is so good! The first 3 make it pretty obvious but after that I felt like a genius. My only complaint is when it shows you a related case, it makes you go find it twice essentially. And the little wispy thing you follow can take forever to reach where you reached before but you have to follow it no matter what. Other than that, definitely one of my favorite games. A mechanic I forgot to utilize is zooming in to see who is also in a scene. It helps because it's hard to remember who is who.

One of the most memorable games I've ever played! Excellent visuals and soundtrack and the puzzle solving is delicious.

this game is one of the best detective/mystery game out there
if you're still wondering and looking around the review page, i say get it now and don't look for anything related about the game and such, go with zero knowledge about the game

well, except you're fully stuck, i guess you can look up hints on the internet

The first ~7 hours were very unpleasant (for me). The paths kept branching to absurdity, and I had less and less hope I could solve this expansive web of clues. Ultimately, I pushed through, and with a little help from the internet, I was able to enjoy the closing 4 hours immensely. Lucas Pope knows how to end a game!

The gameplay is unique the puzzle is brilliant. However, I just didn't find this fun.

The game has you solve 60 deaths, which was like a chore. The investigation wasn't enjoyable for half of the characters because the process felt samey after awhile. Rather than feeling good that I solved something, I more felt relief because of how tiny and easy to miss some of the hints can be.

It's also lacking key quality of life features. Time adds up when I have to constantly walk through the whole ship to revisit memories. They should've allowed us to enter the memory through the book. I didn't enjoy waiting for the wisp of smoke to do a bunch of loops before landing on the body only a few feet away.

The ending was completely disappointing too.

A very nice minimal deduction game, it is set only in the ship but don't be afraid, it won't be neither easy nor boring. You will go through the story of this ship trying to understand everything, a mission at first impossible, but give yourself some time and you will find an explanation for every doubt. It might look hard at first but it's very satisfying to solve the fates. I really suggest it if you like this kind of games.

Please go into this game blind, and don't do yourself a disservice by looking any answers up. A perfect murder mystery that's just the right length and difficulty for any player to enjoy. Unfortunately this game can really only be played once, so savor every detail.

Really good mystery, I enjoyed solving it.
Most incompetent crew ever with only a few exceptions, good guy Martin did not deserve his fate.

This game was amazing from start to finish. I love a good challenge, and it definitely kept me challenged!

This is a perfect game. I wish I could erase my mind and play it again. I wish there was a whole series of games that function the way this one does. If you enjoy mystery/detective games, look no further.

This is one of (if not) the best detective games I've played. The story unfolds interestingly, sometimes quickly where you feel like you are running around learning it all, and sometimes a little slower, requiring you to think about what needs to be done next to progress. The information is in every detail and can be easily missed if you aren't looking/listening. I am blown away by the work done on this game and would 100% recommend it to anyone interested in a detective-style "who-done-it" game that also had a good amount of challenge and intrigue.

What a unique and fascinating way to build a detective adventure, with an incredible eye for details. I am very happy to recommend this game to anyone, who likes a good story, guesswork, and a game, that has a visual style unlike any other modern product.

Great game, can't wait for a spiritual succesor to this gem.
I love to think and deduce; this is one of the best detective games ever created, so if you're interested in solving a true mystery, you will enjoy this work of art as much as I did.

If you want to sit down and just think with no time limit, this is for you. Storytelling is 10/10. Aesthetics are insanely cool. Many characters. Twists, but nothing "annoying". Good amount of hints and clever details to find. Do get.

An absolutely brilliant game. Seemed to take a while to get my first solves, and I think overall I wasn’t the the fastest, but stick with it because it’s thoroughly enjoyable. I wasn’t sure about the graphics before buying, based on the screenshots, but I needn’t have worried - looks great and I think suits the storyline / era. Works perfectly on the Steam Deck and it’s one of the few games I played wholly on it.

I genuinely wish games like this were more popular. Engaging puzzle-solving and critical thinking, a unique art style, does a lot with the bare minimum. Fantastic. A modern masterpiece.

Probably the most in depth detective game I've ever played. I highly discourage you to not play this game however if you don't have patience for deducing the identities of the crew and their deaths (60 people). The game is not forgiving once you get past the high ranks of the crew. It really does feel like you're solving a mystery though

Tldr: If you like being a detective and like fantasy pirates then buy this

HIghly engaging with lots of detail in the puzzles (some I don't think i ever would have gotten without googling some hints, relying on crew member accents can be tough!).

Looks absolutely amazing, the graphical design is perfect for the gameplay setting and feel. Great music, great story. Just great all round.

nice story)) i got high and play it with so much joy)
waiting for new story in same design!!!

This little masterpiece is one of the best detective games ever made. However, it still not perfect, which is something to take into consideration.
First, the artistic choice of making it seem as if it was from the early PC gaming era is... Bold. For some people (myself included) it can make the screen feel blurry and sick-inducing. I needed quite some time to adapt, and even by the end of the game, the graphics felt like the true antagonist.
Now, as for the gameplay. The unique way in which the game is designed makes it extremely rewarding to investigate and reach conclusions.
I consider myself an extremelly intelligent person (modesty aside), but still some answers felt just impossible to get. You just had to try assigning randoms names until one would stuck, which was very frustrating.
Still, if you can get past the graphics, it is a truly magnific experience that every gamer should at lest try once.
Also, the bad ending is extremely funny.

Very neat little detective game. Does not overstay its welcome whatsoever. Rather, has exactly the right amount of content for its playtime. I loved that there was an actual answer and that you could deduce all of the fates, logically. (even though I did guess a few in the end because I did not want to go pixel hunting for who was wearing this or that)

All in all a very strong recommendation if you are up for some deducing and detective work and like a slightly supernatural story (in the tradition of old pulp stories)!

I would play a million more games just like this. The story is given in pieces all out of order and half the fun is figuring out who was where until when! There's so many layers to this story and I love the task of solving the mystery of what happened to every single individual on the ship. Such a cool game with fantastic twists. I loved it and will play it over and over and over again.

Not for me. The "distinct" art syle means I can't make anything out. There's no in-game guidance on what I should be doing. I wondered around the ship for a 1/2 an hour before I got frustrated, uninstalled, and refunded.