It’s the 18th century. You’re Louis de Richet, a secret society member who has been invited to a private party by Lord Mortimer on an island just off the coast of England. Also at this party is Napoleon Bonaparte, George Washington, and more members of the social and political elite. Of course, as with any private party for the 18th century elite: it all turns into a murder mystery, which you must solve.
There’s a lot of great games coming out in 2018, here’s some of the top ones to look out for.
That’s the premise for The Council, an episodic ‘narrative adventure’ game that is coming next year. It’s being developed by new studio Big Bad Wolf, and published by Focus Home Interactive, with the first episode releasing in February 2018 and four more to come at a later date. The plot follows de Richet as he tries to discover what happened to his mother (the teaser trailer above implies she was murdered above a pentagram, which only raises more questions) and the intentions of the many guests at the party.
It all looks quite like a traditional murder mystery, where no character is clean and everyone is trying to do something a little bit evil. The full story will, undoubtedly, get a little dark with a premise like this, although there’s no release date for the following four episodes in The Council.
It differs from other games of this kind, such as the Telltale games that spring to mind, in that it has more RPG-like elements. You can invest in 15 different skills that alter how you interact with other characters, and while there’s no way to ‘lose’ the game depending on your skills, “permanent physical disfigurements or mental traits” can alter the game if you’re successful or not in different situations.
There’s supposedly more of a social manipulation aspect to the game than other titles like it, where skills and resources can be spent for specific things, meaning it sounds more like a traditional RPG than more recent episodic adventure games.
Actual gameplay hasn’t yet been shown, but given we’re just a couple of months away from the release of the first episode, it’s likely we’ll see how the social manipulation and RPG-like system work pretty soon.