Sherlock Holmes The Awakened, the latest mystery-adventure from developer Frogwares, has officially been dated, after several war-induced delays pushed out its development timeline. As announced via Twitter, the game will now officially release on 11 April 2023.
This long-awaited remake sends Sherlock Holmes on his spookiest adventure yet, with his sleuthing skills working overtime to fight against a rising Lovecraftian horror. The original game launched in 2007, and was the first in Frogwares’ Sherlock Holmes adventures to tackle supernatural, Cthulian themes.
According to the studio, the game has been rebuilt from the ground up in Unreal Engine 4, with the major story beats and quests ‘reimagined’ for modern audiences. The latest trailer gives a glimpse of this action, while revealing more of the creeping horror players will encounter along the way:
Read: Frogwares is relocating Ukrainian staff with Epic Games aid
While originally set to release earlier in 2023, developer Frogwares has detailed the game’s extremely difficult development cycle, complicated by much of the Frogwares team being based in Ukraine. Over the last several months, developers have had to contend with infrastructure issues, including frequent blackouts and strikes on nearby towns.
‘While the development of the game since April 2022 had always been challenging due to the war, the last 5 months starting in October 2022 have been extremely difficult for our team,’ Frogwares said in February 2023. ‘As you may know, initially we were aiming to release our game in a February / early March release window. Unfortunately, the relentless strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine have forced us to work around continual blackouts and redo the entire production pipeline.’
‘We’ve been trying really hard to make our planned release window, but the near-daily interruptions of electricity, on top of the missile attacks that come every 10 days or so, meant we had to replan everything. It also means the game itself has been impacted too, not just the schedule. But we’ll do our best and push on as much as we can.’
After months of work, and overcoming major challenges along the way, it now appears the team is ready to launch Sherlock Holmes The Awakened on 11 April 2023.
Those wishing to support the developer, and others working and living in Ukraine, are encouraged to donate to relief efforts via organisations working in the region: UNICEF, UN Crisis Relief and Save the Children.
