Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments announced for PS3 and PS4

Taking advantage of Sherlock Holmes' renewed popularity, Frogwares is bringing a new game based on the fictional detective to the PlayStation 4 and PS3.

"We’ve been developing Sherlock Holmes games for over a decade now, and the recent reinventions of Sherlock Holmes in the new movies and series have put a spin on the character and the world he lives in," said Frogwares' Olga Ryzhko.

The new game is called Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments, and it focuses heavily on investigation with an emphasis on narration. "There’s a lot of exploration and clue collecting, speaking to witnesses and suspects, and — the most important aspect — bringing all of these together to make your own deductions and bring the culprits to justice… or setting them free," explained Olga.

Crimes & Punishments will offer six different cases with each one offering up to six different conclusions — each could incriminate a different suspects. Some new gameplay mechanics are being introduced as well, one of which is character portraits. "While interrogating suspects, you'll now be able to observe and examine their general look in order to unlock their mind, unveiling new clues," Olga detailed. Based on your deductions, you can react to a piece of information and then have several seconds to link it to another clue you found earlier. From there, you can deduce another key element that someone might otherwise have overlooked.

Also, for the first time in the Sherlock Holmes series, you can actually get the case wrong and send an innocent person to jail. But apparently Frogware has worked hard on a new deduction board to reduce the risk of that.

"Each of your discoveries are stored in his fantastic brain, allowing you to match them together, creating a real network of clues, helping you elucidate crime scenes, find suspects, and determine guilt," Olga detailed. "Once you’ve named your culprit, you’ll be facing a crucial decision: will you condemn or absolve them? This particular point is important, as it can impact the future of your investigations. At the end of the case, you’ll be given a detective score, and a moral choice that you’ll be able to compare with your friends and the community!"

Gameplay aside, Crimes & Punishments will run on the Unreal Engine with lots of attention paid to the smallest of details.

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments will arrive on PS3 and PS4 some time this year.