Review of Agatha Christie: Murder on the Orient Express – an unconventional classic

Who doesn’t know the writer Agatha Christie and her Belgian detective Hercule Poirot, who, along with Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, is perhaps the most famous hero of detective stories. And while many novels and short stories have been adapted into a famous TV series or movie, video games have never been as famous. If the Ukrainian studio Frogwares quite regularly gives us stories with Sherlock (this year we received a remake of “Awakened”), then video games with Poirot should be looked for in the first decade of this century, after which there were really few of them.

However, the French company Microids, which now owns the rights to this brand, decided to start the series anew, because after the game with the subtitle The First Cases, this year we also saw the titular London Case, and now another, somewhat ambitious one. The project is based on “Murder on the Orient Express”, one of Agatha Christie’s most famous stories.

• Platform: PC (review version), PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch
• Publication date: 10/19/2023
• Developer: Studio Microids Lyon
• Publisher: Microids
• Genre: Detective adventure
• Czech localization: yes (subtitles)
• Multiplayer: No
• Download data: 21 GB
• Game time: approximately 13:00
• Price: 949 CZK (standard edition), 1199 CZK (Deluxe edition)

Played with:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-13600K
• FRAME: 32 GB DDR5 6000 MT/s
• Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080
• Storage: Solidigm P44 Pro (1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD)

Modern Poirot

For this purpose, Microids even founded a new studio in Lyon, which is behind the new product. And the word “new” here essentially has a double meaning. The new game takes familiar material and tries to process it very conscientiously, but at the same time adds a lot of its own, be it other characters (including the second main, playable one), a greatly expanded backstory and conclusion, or, and this is probably the most obvious at first glance , the landing itself. While the original story takes place in the 1930s, the video game takes place in the present, in 2023. This may sound a little crazy, but as I’ll try to explain, it works very well.

Of course, the main character remains Poirot with his orderly and logical approach. He enjoys using his “little gray cells” and takes pride in a job well done. Plus, you’ll find familiar characters from the original story, be it Poirot’s friend and railway director Book, Dr. Constantine, Princess Dragomiroff, the narrator Michelle, and many others, including murder victim Samuel Ratchett himself.

All characters retain their personality traits or professions (with the exception of a few modifications), however, as already mentioned, everything takes place in the present. The Orient Express itself is set to celebrate the 130th anniversary of its first launch (the vintage steam locomotive has reappeared for the occasion), with characters using mobile phones, computers and other technology. However, you won’t be able to use them to their full potential for most of the story, as there is no signal when the train gets stuck in a snowdrift. However, this opens up various new possibilities for the development of the entire story.

Detective duo

The investigation itself is really fun, and it’s great that the game often asks you even relatively trivial questions to avoid giving you all the solutions “for free.” Along the way, you’ll be treated to a number of unique logical mini-games, be it the correct sequence of events, identifying people, testifying (which works like Ace Attorney), or rather more complex interactions with various puzzles. Some of the puzzles were too easy in my opinion, but others will give you a real challenge.

Overall the investigation is very similar to what we know from Frogwares’ Sherlock, including the mind map. But I was a little disappointed that while you often have multiple choices, only one is correct, and if you make a mistake the game won’t let you continue and you’ll have to correct yourself. So it’s a purely linear experience, which is a shame because I would have appreciated it if I could have arrived at a slightly different, factually incorrect ending through my own oversight.

While you’ll spend most of the gameplay traveling by train, that’s far from the only location. This is mainly due to the fact that last year the developer decided to take a rather bold approach and added a second playable character – detective Joanna Locke. On the one hand, she helps Poirot in the present, but, above all, you will play as her in flashback sequences during the investigation of the kidnapping of Daisy Armstrong. Of course, this incident is also mentioned in the book itself and plays an important role, but we don’t know too many details about it. In the game we will be able to get to know individual characters in detail and really find out what really happened.

The contrast between the young American police detective and the experienced Poirot is quite large, but that is why this combination works so well, because it significantly changes the experience. By far my favorite part was the final hours of the entire story, which adds a whole new plot following the conclusion of the original. In this part you will see two important European cities and switch between the two main characters as you try to solve the latest mystery.

The story is definitely the strongest part of the entire game, whether it’s the well-written dialogue, the great acting, or the major plot twists and certain “Aha!” moments. The game really doesn’t skimp on bells and whistles; the developers already boasted about this before release. And while you may know many of them from the book or movie, you’ll also find a number of new ones here.

Compromise

Probably the most controversial part of the game is the visuals and overall technical treatment. I definitely have to praise the relatively unique stylization, which is most noticeable on the character models and perfectly complements the atmosphere of the Orient Express. The more modest environment benefited the developers, and some shortcomings could be effectively hidden. However, they were fully shown in open locations, which greatly lack detail and interactivity of the environment; facial animation is also weaker. The most obvious thing about these things is that the game didn’t have that much of a budget and just needed to be stored somewhere (on the other hand, this makes the game very undemanding, the video card practically slept during the game). The sound system is also not impressive, but we must note the excellent soundtrack, which perfectly complemented the tense moments, as well as the investigation and solving of logical puzzles.

Finally, I would like to add that the game, like many other Microids games, has Czech localization in the form of subtitles. However, the translation is really well integrated into the game, because it is not only subtitles in dialogues, but also texts on various signs or in written documents. Unfortunately, the Czech language is not entirely flawless, I did not like the translation of some terms, sometimes integrated texts do not work a little (for example, once they showed me something different than what it should have been). But there aren’t that many mistakes, it’s just good to pay attention to them. Let’s hope they get fixed because otherwise this is a very well done job and it’s good to see a small company investing in the regions. Even the name of the game and its logo are translated into Czech.

Overall, I really enjoyed the modern take on Murder on the Orient Express. Putting aside the poorer technical handling, the overly simple nature of some of the puzzles, or the overly linear nature, you’ll find a solid story with a variety of logic mini-games, well-written and acted characters, and a nice soundtrack. It’s not a traditional Poirot, but it’s still Poirot, and the modern world setting works surprisingly well. I would highly recommend this game not only to fans of books, TV series or films with this Belgian detective, but also to fans of detective adventures in general, which have been dominated by Frogwares and Sherlock in recent years.