The Séance Of Blake Manor review – a ghostly whodunit that’s more than it seems

Playing detective is becoming an increasingly common activity in video games and this paranormal mystery tale is one of the best there’s ever been.

As popular as detective fiction is in other mediums, it’s not until very recently that it’s ever worked properly in video games. There were early attempts, like the Agatha Christie inspired adventure Cruise For A Corpse, and lots of games where you play as a detective (such as Disco Elysium) or where there is mystery to unravel (like The Sexy Brutale) but very few that are the direct equivalent of playing as Sherlock Holmes or Columbo.

Ace Attorney and Danganronpa have always been more focused on the legal drama but while 2011’s L.A. Noire didn’t really require much brainpower the more recent Her Story, Return Of The Obra Dinn, Case Of The Golden Idol, and Duck Detective are bona fide detective games, where if you don’t work out what’s going on the game won’t do it for you.

The patronising mind place elements of Alan Wake 2 represent the more usual video game approach to detective work, where everything is laid out for you and it’s barely interactive, but The Séance Of Blake Manor is a full fat detective mystery, with bonus supernatural elements, and it’s one of the best games of the year.

Now that the new releases have dried up, we’ve been trying to catch up with games we missed earlier in the year, which are invariably PC-only indie titles, such as Look Outside and Consume Me, whose qualities only became clear after launch. The Séance Of Blake Manor was a relatively recent release, coming out just before Halloween, but despite being bombarded by dozens of press releases every day, about indie games we’ve never heard of, somehow it’s never the interesting ones that promote themselves.

The Séance Of Blake Manor is by Irish developer Spooky Doorway and for once this is a European made game where its origins are not just obvious but integral to the game itself. Set in 1897, you play as private investigator Declan Ward, who has been engaged by an unknown client to travel to the titular manor, which is now a hotel, and investigate the disappearance of a woman named Evelyn Deane.

There is a built-in time limit to the mystery, as a séance is due to take place in two days, at which point all hell, literally, will be set loose. The specifics of the supernatural elements are based on Irish mythology, but the detective work is firmly based on logical deduction and careful investigation.

Ward knows his business and much of the game is spent carefully observing, in true Holmesian style, the many suspicious characters, as well as poking around looking for unnoticed clues or discarded messages. There’re some more video-gamey style puzzles involving secret codes and locked boxes but that only adds to the variety and mystery, in what is a rich soup of gameplay elements.

The time limit is key, as everything you do uses up a set amount of time. Walking around costs you nothing but anything more involved than that causes time to move on at least a minute or two. This is especially important as there’s a schedule that is followed each day, where people come and go in a predictable manner. So when you know where someone’s going to be at a particular moment, you can sneak into their room or get in place to eavesdrop on a whispered conversation.

The game uses a first person perspective, with comic book style visuals that come across a more clinical version of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy. Coincidentally, that means it also ends up looking quite a bit like Blue Prince, given you’re exploring a large mansion in both. The animation can be quite stilted but the voice-acting is excellent and despite the no doubt low budget the game looks and plays great, with very professional presentation.

As a detective game, The Séance Of Blake Manor impresses on several levels, with the game offering almost complete freedom to explore, especially in the latter half of the story, but with some clever signposting that rarely leaves you without at least a few good leads. The menu interface can be a little daunting at first, but it keeps track of everything you’ve learnt and employs the now common feature of constructing hypothesis for you to test and discuss with other characters.

But as well as being a good mystery the game also has thematic complexity. It’s not just the mythology that takes advantage of the developer’s Irish background, with the legacy of colonialism underpinning much of the story, in terms of the history of the manor and the people living and working there. Many of the guests at the hotel also have complicated backgrounds, and family histories, that allows the game to explore the same subject from multiple angles.

Although it builds on the gameplay concepts pioneered by others, The Séance of Blake Manor is an exceptionally good detective story, with depth to both its mystery and its characters. If nothing else, it would make a great movie but more importantly it’s one of the best detective games ever made, helping to establish an increasingly large body of work for what is quickly becoming a distinct genre all of its own.

Formats: PC
Price: £16.75
Publisher: Raw Fury
Developer: Spooky Doorway
Release Date: 27th October 2025
Age Rating: N/A

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