How enemy encounters add to Murdered: Soul Suspect

Murdered: Soul Suspect takes players on a ghostly investigation, but there are also demons on the loose looking to bring you down. Developer Airtight Games describes how these enemy encounters add to the overall game, while debuting a brand new trailer.

Ozzie Mejia

March 22, 2014 11:00 AM

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There's a killer on the loose in Murdered: Soul Suspect, the adventure/puzzle game from Square Enix and Airtight Games. A new trailer shows some more of the game's narrative, while the developer also discusses some of the main gaming elements players will encounter throughout their investigation, namely the game's enemy encounters.

As discussed in our preview, Murdered: Soul Suspect sees Ronan O'Connor attempting to solve his own murder through an intense police investigation. Although the game mainly revolves around investigating crime scenes and putting together evidence, there's also danger looming around the corner in the form of demons. Senior Design Producer Eric Studer describes how these elements come together to create an engaging, ghostly experience.

"Enemies are crucial for us because they provide a much needed pacing breaker," Studer told PlayStation.Blog. "What we found is that if players spent all of their time doing investigations, they would get fatigued. By mixing enemy encounters into the pacing, it gave us the opportunity to change the core emotion players feel. Investigations should illicit a lot of intrigue and curiosity from players, but the encounters should focus more on threat and tension. Creating this emotional rollercoaster alleviates fatigue and keeps the player invested in what will happen next."

Studer adds that the demons also provide a much-needed source of tension. On the surface, it seems like nothing can threaten Ronan since he's already dead, but the designer points out that since the ethereal world of the Dusk is inherently corrupting, time is not on the detective's side.

"This is important for Ronan, because it reinforces the notion that he doesn't want to stay in this realm," Studer added. "He needs to resolve his unfinished business so he can move on. From a gameplay standpoint, it goes back to the notion of controlling the pacing of the game. We want the player to always feel like the game is changing, or could change at any minute, so they never become comfortable with what will happen next."

Check out the trailer below for a further introduction to Ronan and some of the other characters you'll meet during his investigation. Murdered: Soul Suspect releases on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC on June 3.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?