Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes series has been going strong for over twenty years now, and it has seen the detective pitted against the likes of Jack the ripper, Arsene Lupin, and the ups and downs of fatherhood. But with the world's greatest detective now in the public domain in the United States, the future of the series that has already been more than willing to envision Sherlock Holmes in scenarios that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never could have imagined for him could be given free rein to push even further still.
The developers behind the series that follows the consulting detective are the Ukranian studio Frogwares, whose team has worked even through the ongoing Russian Invasion to finish the upcoming remake of their 2006 game Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened. Many of the studio's other works also feature fictional characters from the late Victorian era. Frogwares has made two adaptations of works by H.G. Wells - Journey to the Center of the Earth and 80 days - and a 2008 title based on Bram Stoker's work with Dracula: Origins. They've also developed the science fiction game Magrunner: Dark Pulse and the 2019 Lovecraftian adventure game, The Sinking City. Going forward, though, the studio will be able to double down on Sherlock Holmes and do many interesting things with the character.
An Investigation into the Unknown
Frogwares' upcoming game sees the consulting detective confronting the Elder God Cthulhu in a match up seemingly designed to challenge how far the character's infallible rationalizations will hold up against a being that is beyond human comprehension. But what fans of the series are curious about is what will come next for the detective. While Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened's premise holds a lot of potential, the game itself is a remake. The last Sherlock story written by its original creator Doyle was The Adventure of Shoscombe Old Place, published in 1927 as part of The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes collection of serialized stories. As of January t of this year, the tale passed the 95-year mark for copyrighted material, which at last placed all the detective's adventures within the public domain, allowing any and all to use them as they please.
The Ukranian studio has never been shy about pushing the beloved character to places and situations he has never before been imagined in, but with the entire catalog of his stories now open for everyone, it begs the question of where to take Sherlock now that he can go anywhere. The franchise is considered by many to be the definitive game series for the consulting detective, and the way their stories portray the character frequently gives a new and human insight to the often cold and withholding detective. The series has given Sherlock a daughter, framed him for heinous crimes, and pitted him toe to toe against the supernatural. But the question remains as to how Frogwares will continue to push further since there are no longer any limits.
Sherlock Holmes has always been the sort of character that has belonged to the world, to the point that even Doyle himself had to back down from his attempt to kill off the detective when fans rioted after The Final Problem. But the character now no longer being anyone's sole property could mean big changes for how fans will be seeing him in the future. Many rumors are already flying about who else might have a project in the future featuring Sherlock, but what will be next for Frogwares' version of the character remains quite fittingly, a mystery.
Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened is scheduled to release in 2023 for PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
