THE PAINSCREEK KILLINGS (2017) Allows Me to (Almost) Solve a Cold Case Through Immersive Burglary

 

Recently my wife and I were discussing the best and worst video games we played in 2024, and she was surprised that I ranked immersive murder mystery sim The Painscreek Killings so low. I was surprised that she was surprised, since I remembered excoriating it, while she remembered me giving a glowing opinion. It turns out I had done both, at different times, so here is my second-chance attempt at synthesizing my evidently mixed opinion into a holistic review.

The Painscreek Killings is a first-person mystery game that "mimics real world investigation". You play as journalist Janet Kelly, who has come to Painscreek to investigate the cold case murder of philanthropist businesswoman Vivian Roberts and the subsequent abandonment of the town. Armed with only a camera and whatever real-life notes you choose to take, your goal is to solve Vivian's murder and get a front page snapshot for your story. Of course, the game is called The Painscreek Killings, and as you investigate you gradually uncover a tangled web of violence that stretches back decades.

There was a lot to like about the mystery aspect. The story was complex while also logical. The killer felt a bit obvious, but it took me a long time to piece together a motive. Painscreek itself is effectively eerie, and there were stretches of the game where I was as engrossed in the lead I was pursuing as I was paranoid, realizing just how deep the rot goes in this pretty little town. But this is a video game, and as far as gameplay and execution, there are three gameplay-related points that prevented me from enjoying it wholeheartedly. Those would be the marketing, the narrative structure, and the ending.

As mentioned, Painscreek attempts to distinguish itself from its peers through claiming to be a hardcore, realistic mystery experience. Nothing wrong with a little marketing fluff, but when a game is described as realistic, I have certain expectations. For example, that there are no ghosts.

You see this shot on exiting a creepy house, and I am sure it was intended as a soft jump scare. I am less sure of whether it was intended as a deliberate genre bait-and-switch. Either way, I would have preferred if they hadn't drawn attention to the game's relationship to reality.

The unexpected supernatural element is bordering on a nitpick, and didn't bother me too much. (I've played Ace Attorney. I am ghost-agnostic.) The larger sticking point, as far as realistic investigation, is that Painscreek is exceedingly linear when it doesn't need to be. Rather than being directed by the player's curiosity, most of the game is spent collecting keys. For an abandoned town, the residents have done a thorough job of locking up their houses, their rooms, their drawers. At one point, it seemed that a victim had locked their car while being dragged out of it. Conscientious of them!

The key-based narrative gating can also be really odd. All of the game's numerous plot threads eventually terminate in a note, letter, or diary from one of the THREE detectives who solved this case before you did. You'll come up with a pretty good theory that it was Miss Scarlet in the Conservatory with the Candlestick only to unlock a drawer that contains a note reading "Interviewed Mrs. White. She confirmed that she saw Miss Scarlet and Mr. Boddy enter the Conservatory at the time of the murder." Often that note will be accompanied by the Conservatory key, so you can finally enter the Conservatory and see the suspicious bloodstains on the ground and think yeah, that other detective was probably correct. Every time this happened I found myself thinking, you know, I wish I had been able to investigate this myself.

Other open-ended mystery games, such as Paradise Killer or Her Story, place a little more faith in the player—it's definitely possible. Paradise Killer's open world has some gating, but vastly more leads to start off with. Her Story's keyword search system has no gating, and fully allows the player to "get lucky" and stumble on some crazy reveal early in the game. In both cases, I think, the approach is that the player cannot follow every lead at once, and so if your mystery is sufficiently complicated, they will keep investigating anyway. Painscreek is complicated enough to support this approach, and I really wish they had taken it. I think this would have removed a good two-thirds of my issues with the game.

The remaining third is the ending.

Spoilers ahead, although nothing about the solution.

So, you spend 8-12 hours wandering around an empty town gathering keys clues, breaking into houses, reading diaries. Then, at the very end of the game, you enter the killer's secret room (locked, of course) and find both the murder weapon and a taped confession. You listen to the confession—and the killer enters the room! Suddenly this is a horror game with a chase sequence, and your character has a health bar.

This section was not well-executed (despite the ghost's help) but beyond that, I think a fair chunk of the prospective audience would really struggle with playing through it at all. I know I did. Many people who play mystery games don't play anything else. These players may struggle with timed sequences or navigating 3D environments. Luckily I was spoiled on this, so I collected all but one piece of evidence, spit-shined my photo of a real ghost, and left town, and called it a day without getting the true ending.

Although the mystery is solid, I think you have to be a certain type of player to be able to get through The Painscreek Killings—one who can sit through a linear walking simulator of decent length while also having enough gaming experience to get through a janky action sequence. And that's really the root of my mixed feelings. As much as I enjoyed the first 8-odd hours of the investigation, can I fully recommend a game I wasn't physically able to complete?