Chapter One attempts to modernize Sherlock Holmes into a seemingly-AAA formula, but loses so much of what made the series great while gaining very little.

The open-world fictional island of Cordona is as expansive as it is lifeless. Very pretty on the surface, but running past the same handful of character models over and over on the way across the island to my next investigation point isn't exactly engaging. Weirdly the main questline only uses like a third of the island, and there's really very little incentive to explore the rest of it if you aren't a completionist.

The gameplay is mostly similar to previous Sherlock games, although many of the investigative elements have been streamlined to menus. It's a little simpler but I do kind of miss the goofy chemical analysis minigames from earlier games in the series. Aside from cleaning up the chemical analysis, the menus quickly become cluttered as cases pile up and were a real pain to navigate. The big expansion to the gameplay comes in combat, and it's so terrible that I wish they hadn't bothered.

I don't hate what they tried to do with the story, but it didn't land for me. Having a less experienced and confident Sherlock is great, but it doesn't feel like the story earns some of his character development, especially late in the game. The cases themselves are largely fine, and while in theory I find the idea of not knowing whether you came to the right conclusion interesting, in practice purposefully not having a correct answer really lowers the stakes when trying to piece the puzzle together at the end of each case.

Finally, please, we really need to wrest away the vice grip that BBC Sherlock Tumblr fans seemingly have on these games. I'm dying to get old Sherlock Holmes back. I just can't handle any more unsubtle Sherlock/Jo(h)n queerbaiting. Or belts.

I guess I can't fault Frogwares for swinging for the fences on Chapter One, even if they missed. But I think their last two entries have both chased a mass appeal that has ultimately been to their detriment.

I think Overland deserves a lot of credit for how understated it all is, even if that's sometimes to its detriment.

The story here is simple: an alien meteorite has crashed into Earth and society has collapsed as the infestation spreads. Our characters are heading west across the United States, looking for... answers? Hope? Some sort of catharsis? That's really up to you. A couple of randomly generated lines make up each person's backstory, and the rest is up to how the game unfolds from there. It gives just enough crumbs of small story beats throughout for me to color in the rest in my head.

Ross stole a flashlight early on from a group of traders. They reacted poorly, but he and Joel got away easily. Still, being marked a thief (literally, in the game's menus) never sat right with Ross as he would comment on it frequently. He and the crew avoided traders for a while, and when they did happen upon one he let Joel or Violet do the talking. Ross stayed in the car. Ross hates tomatoes. Ross is a thief.

When stories play out like that, the game really sings. Sometimes though I wish the game had a little more to say. Randomly generated conversations started to feel similar to one another as we got further down the road. Enemies and items are inscrutable, which fits with the survival aspect of the narrative, but the deeper I journeyed into alien territory the more I just wanted to know what certain things would do. It was fine on normal difficulty (with the ability to restart levels if things got too off the rails) but I could see how it would get old on a harder difficulty and hurt replay value.

Overland is entirely worth playing once at the very least. If the art style or unique sound design are drawing you in, I say hop in and enjoy the ride.