The Inquisitor
THE INQUISITOR is a grim yet strangely gripping dark fantasy adventure
There’s no doubting the pitch for The Inquisitor catches the attention. You play Mordimer Madderdin, a holy inquisitor of the church whose job it is to hunt out heretics and enforce the faith – even if that means a spot of torture. That faith, by the way, comes courtesy of none other than Jesus himself, who in the world of The Inquisitor did not die on the cross but instead broke free from it and then went on a bloody rampage across the world.
The Inquisitor opens with Mordimer being dispatched by the church to investigate rumours of a vampire operating in the 16th-century town of Koenigstein, where he soon discovers a series of bloody ritualistic murders, as well as strands of a far deeper and more sinister plot.
You step off the boat at Koenigstein’s dock, and from that point on it’s your job to investigate what is happening and who is responsible, with the game’s narrative unfolding at a leisurely pace.
The Inquisitor really is a relatively slow-paced detective narrative adventure first and foremost. You will engage in plenty of talking in this game. From chatting to notable figures in Koenigstein, such as the mayor and notable merchants, through to interrogating suspects, learning about in-game lore from religious officials, and onto investigating potential leads with the town’s nobility, Mordimer is a detective first and fighter second. There’s fighting for sure, but it is a small part of a game that’s almost closer to a Broken Sword: investigative dialogue interspersed with puzzles, rather than an action-adventure of clashing swords and levelling up.
PRIMARY SUSPECT
If they hadn’t been told anything about the game beforehand, I can imagine some being a bit thrown by The Inquisitor’s true nature, as on first glance it looks like it should play like CD Project Red’s The Witcher series. While those games are inescapably an aesthetic influence on The Inquisitor’s developer The Dust, the moment-to-moment experience couldn’t be more different.
The Murk is constantly trying to devour your soul
For example, Mordimer sports a suitably gravelly, almost monotone voice. He also has the ability to follow scents in the air while hunting out his targets, which are displayed as glowing red smoke trails. Mordimer also recharges his holy spirit energy, used to perform such scentfollowing sleuthing acts, by kneeling and praying at shrines. The inquisitor can also investigate objects, such as a victim’s corpse, to discover clues that help him discern the wider truth.
