The fatal flaw of detective games

Major spoiler alerts for L.A. Noire, Heavy Rain, Detroit: Become Human, and Fallout: New Vegas

Over the years, I have played many genres of video games, but one has always felt unexplored, and most games in this genre haven’t lived to their full potential. This genre in question is the detective genre. I was first introduced to the genre within video games through 2011’s L.A. Noire and 2010’s Heavy Rain. I thoroughly enjoyed both of these games and have been fascinated with the detective genre ever since, but like I said before, the genre hasn’t had a full, proper outing. When I first played L.A. Noire back in 2013, I remember talking with my brother about the game and why he wasn’t interested in buying it. I think he pointed out that the game doesn’t really allow a case to fail, and I have seen this point talked about in the years since. This point is 100% true. When you fluke a case, the worst thing that happens is that Cole Phelps gets chewed by his superiors, you see the stats for your case’s investigation, you move on to the next case as if nothing happened. No real consequence is given to the player you don’t have to repeat the case or get demoted and have to earn your way back up to working cases and to be fair to the developers it’s not really trying to be that type of game. L.A. Noire is a game that mainly tries to immerse you in the time period and deliver that Noire experience. The cases are presented as episodes of a TV series about Cole Phelps’ rise and fall within the L.A.P.D. and his struggle to expose corruption within the city. When you pair this goal with the state-of-the-art tech Team Bondi used to create the interrogation scenes and the mass turnover the project saw during development, the team probably never had the resources to design a system for failing a case beyond what we saw in the final version. The game’s open world is paper-thin and is more in line with the design philosophy of the Mafia games, where it’s just set dressing between point A and point B, further supporting this constraint. Unlike the Mafia games, there is some meaningful side content, but not much, and certainly not enough to support a new system for when the player fails a case, which some content creators within the gaming community have suggested. I think if there were ever a follow-up to L.A. Noire, this is something they could fix, but it’s a very delicate balance between fun and tedious tasks. It would be very easy to end up with a game like Mafia 3 that feels padded, but I think there is a way to fix this problem, and more than one way of doing so.

One effective way I have seen this problem of no real consequences being addressed is through branching narrative, and I think the most effective usage of this storytelling method within the genre is Heavy Rain. In this game, you play as 4 characters, and 3 of these characters can die throughout the game. I found this out the hard way when I got Norman Jayden (FBI) prematurely killed halfway through the story, and then I only played as 3 characters for the rest of the game. It was a moment in the game where I realized there was no way to fix my failed QTE section to get that character back without starting the game over. Heavy Rain has many opportunities for the character’s fate to change based on player actions. On a different playthrough, I failed another QTE sequence, and Ethan Mars was stuck behind bars and was unable to be present in the game’s finale. Speaking of the finale, there are so many permutations of it. It’s completely possible to fail the entire game and see most of the characters die. Ethan can end his life after failing to save his son, Madison can die at various points of the story, and Norman can die during the story. I have never gotten this end because there has always been someone to present in the finale to save the day. One thing that never changes in my playthroughs is that Shelby's partner, one of the parents of a past victim of the Origami Killer, has never made it out alive. For the longest time, I sat watching the closing cutscene of the game and wondered why the camera hovered over the grave of the Origami killer. It wasn’t until later that I looked at different endings of the game on YouTube that I discovered her death was not a fixed point in the game’s story, and to this day, I have never gotten her to the end of the game and have no idea how to do so.

This element of mystery for me was only expanded upon down the line for the studio with Detroit: Become Human, with the character of Connor. The two times I have played this game, two different things have happened to Connor and his partner Hank. The first time, I got Connor deactivated because he was showing too many signs of delinquency, and his role within the story ended. The second, I managed to keep him around until the end of the game and saw new sections I was locked out of during my first run, but instead of Connor’s role ending, it was Hank’s. Now I know there’s a way to keep both of them alive throughout the story because the internet is crazy about the friendship that occurs between those two later on in the game. I also saw paths that were unavailable to me within Connor’s sections, and it made me feel there’s so much to uncover with this game. So why haven’t I done more playthroughs of this game? Well, the answer is quite simple: the gameplay mechanics aren’t engaging enough for me. Both Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human gameplay loops boiled down to walking around, looking for interactable items, performing QTEs, and talking to characters. Sometimes you get to shoot a gun, but most of the action scenes are QTEs. Also, the player movement is clunky. It doesn’t ruin the game for me, but it does make replays a bit tedious. But to give the game some slack, these limitations make implementing branching narratives easier on the developers, and L.A. Noire also limits your ability to shoot a gun. However, I still think there is room for improvement.

So far in this post, I have made a point about fail states and consequences, and we could examine this problem through a different lens, choice, and consequence. This is a phrase commonly thrown around when discussing RPGs like Skyrim, Fallout, and Baldur’s Gate 3. I first learned about this concept through watching Mr. Mattyplays’ coverage of the RPG genre on YouTube, and I think it’s an important thing to include in RPGs. I also think the RPG genre and detective sub-genre are perfectly aligned and would make for a good pairing. I am not the only one who has had this thought because Disco Elysium exists. I have not gotten around to playing Disco Elysium yet, but I have heard great things about it. Despite not playing the game, I still feel like I can throw some ideas about where I want the detective genre to go.

Anyway, Disco Elysium acknowledgment taken care of. One RPG game that should be used as the gold standard for how a detective game should work is Fallout: New Vegas. Fallout: New Vegas is one of the best RPGs I have played so far, and a lot of that comes down to how the factions work within the game. In this game, you can ally yourself with factions or become enemies with certain factions, and the game forces you to make these choices throughout the main questline. The most prevalent way that the game does this is by forcing you to choose a side between the NCR, Mr. House, Caesar’s Legion, and Yes Man. Depending on which side you choose, you will create enemies. If you join up with the Legion, you will eventually become enemies with the NCR and Mr. House. If you join the NCR, you will become enemies with the Legion, and with Yes Man, you’re fighting everyone. Outside of the big 4 four, there are some lesser factions that you can either recruit to your cause or destroy. In addition to this reputation system, you can also disguise yourself as a member of the big four factions to avoid combat with them in the open world. I think both of these systems could be used well within a detective game to allow for multiple ways to solve or fail a case.

One last minor point I want to bring up before wrapping everything up is the concept of a mind palace. To those unfamiliar with the idea, the mind palace has been used in games like Alan Wake 2, the Sherlock Holmes games, and The Sinking City. It acts as a place where you lay out your clues and piece things together. In Alan Wake 2, Saga uses her mind palace to review case files and recap the case’s beats. It’s represented visually as a series of connected note cards with questions to which you attach clues. In Sherlock Holmes and The Sinking City, it helps you find your next objective. To some extent, Heavy Rain and LA Noire both have their own version of the device. Norman has his AR glasses, and Cole has his trusty dusty notebook. I think the concept of the mind palace is important, but it has been used as an annoying gimmick in most games. I think the most effective way to use the mind palace is determine what leads you want to investigate and to sort your clues, which can be used in interrogations. If you formed a wrong connection, the game shouldn’t tell you until you mess up an integration with someone. As a result, your case becomes harder to solve, and failure is more likely.

Now this sounds all good on paper, but implementing everything I discussed is hard. You would have to consider your scope and how frustrating you want your game to be. The difficult thing about a detective game is that you want to find the balance between making your player feel like a genius and a total idiot. You want to make the logic puzzle difficult enough that it requires the player to pay attention and possibly take notes of important developments. You also have to find a way to convey the information of what the player will say in interrogation, or else you’ll end up repeating the famous X to doubt and other unhinged moments from L.A. Noire. I do think the detective genre has massive potential and that the genre evolves over the years.