Return of the Obra Dinn
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Editorial

Return of the Obra Dinn Weaves Unease Through its Mysterious Dead

Return of the Obra Dinn is a challenging, unsettling mystery game. The ship left port in 1802 with a crew of fifty-one people. It turned up in 1807 adrift and empty, its sails torn. As an insurance investigator, you’ll examine the ship and the corpses aboard to figure out how everyone died. With a bit of help from a watch the replays the last moments of a life, that is. Solving this many deaths makes for a captivating puzzle. I found myself dragged even deeper by the look and atmosphere of this ship of corpses. And a sense that something was coming for me just as it had come for all these dead sailors.

The game begins to erode feelings of safety with its visual style. The 1-bit look gives everything this strange sensation as you wander around. Everything is either a murky white or a black void, often sprinkled with dots of opposing color. This style goes further than a straightforward black-and-white look, though, as the 1-bit visuals feel like they’re gritty and dirty. The dots seem to be moving around, which makes the visuals feel like they’re quivering and moving along with you. The effect looks like the whole world is just shifting grains of sand. Or that it’s thousands of creeping insects wriggling. You can’t help but feel reality quivering around you.

This style gave Return of the Obra Dinn a bit of deeper mystery as well. It dances between clarity and obscurity. It shows us the gruesome ends of the crew while making the details just unclear enough. In doing so, it makes the gore and horror of each death feel implied instead of explicit. Horrible things happened to these sailors, and you can see what those things are. However, the visual style somehow makes things feel both vague and utterly clear. It plays around with this sensation of being fairly sure of what you’re seeing. Just never so much that you feel you’re 100% confident that you know for sure.

Return of the Obra Dinn is a challenging, unsettling mystery game. The ship left port in 1802 with a crew of fifty-one people. It turned up in 1807 adrift and empty, its sails torn. As an insurance investigator, you’ll examine the ship and the corpses aboard to figure out how everyone died (with a bit of help from a watch the replays the last moments of a life). Finding out how all of these lives ended is a captivating puzzle to solve, made even moreso by the chilling atmosphere of this ship and your work aboard it. Even if you’re just doing some insurance work, it’s hard to deny the chills that will run through you as you explore this dead ship. The game begins to erode feelings of safety with its visual style. The 1-bit look gives everything this strange sensation as you look around. Everything is either a murky white or a black void, looking like its composed of thousands of little dots at times. This style goes further than a simple black-and-white look, though, as the 1-bit visuals feel like they’re gritty and dirty. Moving around makes the visuals feel like they’re quivering and moving along with you. It’s a bizarre effect that makes reality seem like it’s made of flecks of sand, shifting around under you. Or that it’s thousands of creeping insects. This style gave Return of the Obra Dinn a bit of deeper mystery as well. It danced between clarity and obscurity, showing me the gruesome ends of many of the crew while making the details just unclear enough to make the gore feel implied instead of explicit. Horrible things happened to these sailors, and you can see what those things are, but the visual style somehow makes things feel both vague and utterly clear. It plays around with this sensation of being fairly sure of what you’re seeing, but never so much that you feel you’re 100% confident. That plays well with the general mystery you’re dealing with. You have to figure out what’s happened to the entire crew using only a few corpses and your sinister watch. The watch will dredge you back to the moment the person died, showing the people around them at the time. This probably seems like it will make things clear – you have both killer and victim right in front of you – but you don’t know who they are. To figure that out, you’ll need to cross-reference these moments with a list of the crew, a few hand-drawn images of them all, and a map of the ship. Return of the Obra Dinn asks you to use all of these tools to figure out who died and how. You might be able to find someone who looks the same in the picture, but which name are they on the crew list? The list has various ranks, duties, and nationalities as well, so can you watch for certain details. Does the person in the flashback have a fancy officer’s hat? Did you see someone come out of the carpenter’s quarters at some point? You may have seen just that, but in the flashback of someone else’s doom. This results in you steeping yourself in the horrors that happened aboard the ship. You’ll find yourself poring over someone’s death, looking at the people around them. Walking around the ship to see if someone else is up to something strange as another sailor dies. There’s often information hidden all around you that may help later. As one person dies, you might catch someone leaping from somewhere that helps you identify them. You’re always staring deeply into these scenes of death, and it starts to get under your skin as you play. When you’re looking into so many different violent deaths in Return of the Obra Dinn, it’s hard not to feel like this place is cursed. Or that there’s something evil about the place itself – like unseen forces have killed everyone here. Everyone died of relatively natural (but violent) causes on the ship, but having so many people die here makes it feel like there’s some unnatural force at work. I knew for a fact that this was just a mystery game, but I could never shake off this feeling that, at some turn, someone would come to kill me. This feeling grew worse as I tried to trail missing sailors all through various scenes. I’d pore over the chaos on the deck as a man was struck by lightning, staring into the dark around him to see if some other missing sailor was tossed from the mast. Which of the many topmen was it, this time? And as I would look deep into the darkness and mayhem, it would feel like something was looking back at me. Like I was letting something horrible get closer to me every time I did. Immersing yourself in this many deaths, and in these continually bizarre, violent moments made me feel like I was pulling that same lethal force toward me. The sound design make this feel all the worse. Return of the Obra Dinn is filled with the screams of the dying. Last words among the cannon blasts and bones crunching. It’s explosive and deafening in its sickening, saddening sounds of the soon-to-be dead. It shifts from these sounds to utter silence on the deck once you leave the memories, making you feel like you’re stepping in and out of Hell to find out what happened on the ship. It drags you deeper into the horrors of what happened, and again, makes them feel like they’ll come for you if you take a step too deep into the mayhem. I never found myself attacked by anything while playing the game. That never stopped me from looking over my shoulder the whole time, though. The pile of dead crew members, and the ability to walk through their last, horrible moments makes you feel like you’re stepping into a whole world of violence. And it feels like that violence will come for anyone who boards the ship, yourself included. While I KNEW I wouldn’t be attacked on-board, that never stopped that feeling from sinking into me. Through pure atmosphere, sound, and the nature of the game, I felt an unease no matter how much I tried to tell myself I was safe. Return of the Obra Dinn is an incredible mystery game, but its ability to terrify me despite my mind screaming that I was totally safe, is an even more impressive feat.

That plays well with the general mystery you’re dealing with. You have to figure out what’s happened to the entire crew using only a few corpses and your sinister watch. This special watch will dredge you back to the moment the person died, as well as the events around them. This probably seems like it will make things clear – you have both killer and victim right in front of you. But you don’t know who they are. To figure that out, you’ll need to cross-reference these moments with a list of the crew. That and a few hand-drawn images of the sailors and a map of the ship.

Return of the Obra Dinn asks you to use all of these tools to figure out who died and how. You might be able to find someone who looks the same as someone in the picture, but which name are they on the crew list? The list has various ranks, duties, and nationalities as well, so can you watch for certain details. Does the person in the flashback have a fancy officer’s hat? Did you see someone come out of the carpenter’s quarters at some point? You may have seen just that, but in the flashback of someone else’s doom. You’ll have to go watch another grim death memory to be sure.

This results in you steeping yourself in the horrors that happened aboard the ship. You’ll find yourself poring over someone’s death, looking at the people around them. Walking around the ship to see if someone else is up to something strange as another sailor dies. There’s often information hidden all around you that may help later. As one person dies, you might catch someone leaping from somewhere that helps you identify them. You’re always staring deeply into these scenes of death, and it starts to get under your skin as you play.

Return of the Obra Dinn has you staring into so many violent deaths that it’s hard not to feel that there is some force here that wants everyone dead. Or that there’s something evil about the place itself – like unseen forces have killed everyone here. Everyone died of relatively natural (but violent) causes on the ship. Still, having so many people die here makes it feel like there’s some unnatural force at work. I knew for a fact that this was just a mystery game when I played it. There was no ghoul coming for me. But I could never shake off this feeling that, at some turn, someone would come to kill me.

This feeling grew worse as I tried to trail missing sailors all through various scenes. I’d pore over the chaos on the deck as lightning struck a man. I’d stare into the dark around him to see if some other missing sailor fell from the mast as he died. Which of the many topmen was it, this time? As I looked deep into the darkness and mayhem, it would feel like something was looking back at me. Like I was letting something horrible get closer to me every time I did. Immersing myself in these many deaths made me feel like I was pulling that same lethal force toward me.

The sound design make this feel all the worse. Return of the Obra Dinn is full of the screams of the dying. Last words among the cannon blasts and bones crunching. It’s explosive and deafening in its sickening, saddening sounds of the soon-to-be dead. It shifts from these sounds to utter silence on the deck once you leave the memories, creating a jarring juxtaposition. It makes you feel like you’re stepping in and out of Hell to find out what happened on the ship. This sound design drags you deeper into the horrors of what happened, and again, makes them feel like they’ll come for you if you take a step too deep into the mayhem.

Return of the Obra Dinn is a challenging, unsettling mystery game. The ship left port in 1802 with a crew of fifty-one people. It turned up in 1807 adrift and empty, its sails torn. As an insurance investigator, you’ll examine the ship and the corpses aboard to figure out how everyone died (with a bit of help from a watch the replays the last moments of a life). Finding out how all of these lives ended is a captivating puzzle to solve, made even moreso by the chilling atmosphere of this ship and your work aboard it. Even if you’re just doing some insurance work, it’s hard to deny the chills that will run through you as you explore this dead ship. The game begins to erode feelings of safety with its visual style. The 1-bit look gives everything this strange sensation as you look around. Everything is either a murky white or a black void, looking like its composed of thousands of little dots at times. This style goes further than a simple black-and-white look, though, as the 1-bit visuals feel like they’re gritty and dirty. Moving around makes the visuals feel like they’re quivering and moving along with you. It’s a bizarre effect that makes reality seem like it’s made of flecks of sand, shifting around under you. Or that it’s thousands of creeping insects. This style gave Return of the Obra Dinn a bit of deeper mystery as well. It danced between clarity and obscurity, showing me the gruesome ends of many of the crew while making the details just unclear enough to make the gore feel implied instead of explicit. Horrible things happened to these sailors, and you can see what those things are, but the visual style somehow makes things feel both vague and utterly clear. It plays around with this sensation of being fairly sure of what you’re seeing, but never so much that you feel you’re 100% confident. That plays well with the general mystery you’re dealing with. You have to figure out what’s happened to the entire crew using only a few corpses and your sinister watch. The watch will dredge you back to the moment the person died, showing the people around them at the time. This probably seems like it will make things clear – you have both killer and victim right in front of you – but you don’t know who they are. To figure that out, you’ll need to cross-reference these moments with a list of the crew, a few hand-drawn images of them all, and a map of the ship. Return of the Obra Dinn asks you to use all of these tools to figure out who died and how. You might be able to find someone who looks the same in the picture, but which name are they on the crew list? The list has various ranks, duties, and nationalities as well, so can you watch for certain details. Does the person in the flashback have a fancy officer’s hat? Did you see someone come out of the carpenter’s quarters at some point? You may have seen just that, but in the flashback of someone else’s doom. This results in you steeping yourself in the horrors that happened aboard the ship. You’ll find yourself poring over someone’s death, looking at the people around them. Walking around the ship to see if someone else is up to something strange as another sailor dies. There’s often information hidden all around you that may help later. As one person dies, you might catch someone leaping from somewhere that helps you identify them. You’re always staring deeply into these scenes of death, and it starts to get under your skin as you play. When you’re looking into so many different violent deaths in Return of the Obra Dinn, it’s hard not to feel like this place is cursed. Or that there’s something evil about the place itself – like unseen forces have killed everyone here. Everyone died of relatively natural (but violent) causes on the ship, but having so many people die here makes it feel like there’s some unnatural force at work. I knew for a fact that this was just a mystery game, but I could never shake off this feeling that, at some turn, someone would come to kill me. This feeling grew worse as I tried to trail missing sailors all through various scenes. I’d pore over the chaos on the deck as a man was struck by lightning, staring into the dark around him to see if some other missing sailor was tossed from the mast. Which of the many topmen was it, this time? And as I would look deep into the darkness and mayhem, it would feel like something was looking back at me. Like I was letting something horrible get closer to me every time I did. Immersing yourself in this many deaths, and in these continually bizarre, violent moments made me feel like I was pulling that same lethal force toward me. The sound design make this feel all the worse. Return of the Obra Dinn is filled with the screams of the dying. Last words among the cannon blasts and bones crunching. It’s explosive and deafening in its sickening, saddening sounds of the soon-to-be dead. It shifts from these sounds to utter silence on the deck once you leave the memories, making you feel like you’re stepping in and out of Hell to find out what happened on the ship. It drags you deeper into the horrors of what happened, and again, makes them feel like they’ll come for you if you take a step too deep into the mayhem. I never found myself attacked by anything while playing the game. That never stopped me from looking over my shoulder the whole time, though. The pile of dead crew members, and the ability to walk through their last, horrible moments makes you feel like you’re stepping into a whole world of violence. And it feels like that violence will come for anyone who boards the ship, yourself included. While I KNEW I wouldn’t be attacked on-board, that never stopped that feeling from sinking into me. Through pure atmosphere, sound, and the nature of the game, I felt an unease no matter how much I tried to tell myself I was safe. Return of the Obra Dinn is an incredible mystery game, but its ability to terrify me despite my mind screaming that I was totally safe, is an even more impressive feat.

I never found myself attacked by anything while playing the game. That never stopped me from looking over my shoulder the whole time, though. The pile of dead crew members, and the visions of their last moments makes you feel like you’re stepping into a world of violence. And it feels like that violence will come for anyone who boards the ship, yourself included. I KNEW nothing on the ship was coming for me. That never stopped that feeling from sinking into me, though.

I was totally safe the whole time I was on the ship, but I never once FELT safe. This was all thanks to the atmosphere and sound of this game. Return of the Obra Dinn is an incredible mystery game. Its ability to terrify me despite KNOWING I was totally safe is an even more impressive feat, though.

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