Twin Mirror is a detective game from the French studio Dontnod, which you may know by Life is Strange. Dontnod also has other games – Remember Me and Vampyr, and the highly controversial Tell Me Why, but when discussing Twin Mirror, it is important to remember Life is Strange – they are in many ways similar. The new game also talks about the inhabitants of a provincial American town and the secrets associated with them, albeit this time without mysticism and the supernatural forces.
Another thing that the two games have in common is form. Both are relatively short stories about people and the relationship between them. Stories that fit well into the serial structure – thanks to such structure, writers of the Life is Strange managed to find time for every character important to the plot.
The problem is that Twin Mirror is not divided into episodes. It’s a cohesive game of the same form as Life is Strange, painstakingly compressed into a predictable five-hour or so detective story. Because of this, each of the game’s characters is always missing something – screen time, lines in dialogue, cutscenes, details, and so on. For some gamers Twin Mirror will become a real gamble. Some may like it, others will hate it. It’s like gambling on casino CasinoRex. Love it, or hate it, there is no golden mean.
Storyline
The main character of Twin Mirror is journalist Sam Higgs. He returns to his hometown of Basswood, from where he fled several years ago, leaving everything dear to him. He escaped because not long before that he wrote an article-investigation about the negligence of the leaders of a local mine, a city-forming enterprise. The coal mining site was eventually closed, because of which many lost their jobs – of course, they blamed the journalist for everything.
Sam returned for an even sadder reason – because of the death of a childhood friend. However, at some point, everything did not go according to plan, and as a result – a severe hangover in the morning, blackouts, and … someone’s blood on Higgs’s clothes.
Trying to figure out what happened, the hero learns two things. Firstly, the blood on his clothes belongs to one of the residents of Basswood, with whom he quarreled the day before – now the body of the poor fellow lies on the floor of the editorial office, where Higgs once worked. Secondly, there are many indications that Nick, Sam’s friend, did not die in the car accident himself – apparently, “someone” helped him. Don’t worry, all of this can hardly be considered spoilers – this is just the premise that Dontnod gives in the first 30 minutes of the game.
In the center of the plot is the investigation led by Higgs. In this sense, Twin Mirror is very close to the games about Sherlock Holmes by the Ukrainian studio Frogwares. The new Dontnod creation is also a very leisurely adventure game with a minimum of action. Most often, the hero wanders around the locations and places of crimes, looking for clues and communicating with the characters (with the rare opportunity to choose an answer option in the dialogue, which can affect the game ending). And then he combines all his guesses in the “mind palace” – just like Sherlock Holmes.
Gameplay
Perhaps the main gameplay element that favorably distinguishes the not too bright story of Twin Mirror is the local “mind palace”. Searching for clues, solving simple puzzles, guessing ahead of time what a particular character is hiding – this is what fans of detective games generally play for and Twin Mirror will hardly disappoint them. The only thing that confuses me is the lack of variety in the delivery of conditional verdicts. In other words, Higgs will not be able to make a mistake with the version of what happened – the game simply will not let him. There is only one correct version of how a journalist will put together certain evidence.
Conclusion
Dontnod managed to create in Twin Mirror the atmosphere of a quiet provincial town with many secrets, familiar to fans of Twin Peaks and Alan Wake. You’d like to spend more time in Basswood but the game ends just at the moment you finally catch the mood of the American wilderness. But even those short five hours make an impression. You will surely remember Basswood and its inhabitants. Despite the good representation of the provincial town, Twin Mirror may become boring sometimes. You may even think that you rather play online slots with various themes than the latest creation of Dontnod. However, if you are a fan of Life is Strange and Sherlock Holmes, Twin Mirror will be your number one stop for sure.
