Square Enix and h.a.n.d. have revealed that The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story will release soon on Nintendo Switch.
This “immersive live-action mystery-adventure game” comes from director Koichiro Ito (Metal Gear Solid V) and producer Junichi Ehera (NieR:Automata), and centres around the ill-fated Shijima family who have “experienced a chain of inexplicable deaths in their family over the past century.”
You play as mystery novelist Haruka Kagami, and must use your powers of deductions to uncover the truth behind four murder cases that have taken place in the Shijima household over the last one hundred years. That will see you transcend time across different eras of Japan, as you search for information scattered throughout each to solve an age-old mystery and identify the culprit.
Yasuhito Tachibana (The Naked Director) has served as cinematographer and scenario director, with his involvement “taking visual storytelling to a new level with high-quality cinematography and thrilling live-action gameplay.”
The experience also promises “compelling performances” from Nanami Sakuraba as Haruka Kagami and Yuta Hiraoka as Eiji Shijima, the second son of the Shijima family who returns home to help unravel the mystery behind his ill-fated family.
Producer Junichi Ehara explains: “This is a mystery game that we’ve poured our efforts into wholeheartedly, following extensive discussion between the director, Koichiro Ito – who has created a great many adventure games – and Yasuhito Tachibana, of Netflix’s The Naked Director, on the topic of ‘a live-action game, for gamers.’
“An intricately woven story, a gameplay experience where you use your powers of reasoning to uncover the culprit, and the massive secret that threads together multiple murder cases that occur at different points in time… We’ve entered the last stage of development, with the aim to make it a mystery game that everyone can enjoy. I hope you’ll look forward to the game!”
The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story will release digitally on the Nintendo eShop for Nintendo Switch worldwide on 12th May 2022.
