Paradise Killer is an open-world whodunnit with celestial stakes
Murder in Paradise
A new trailer for Paradise Killer dropped today, which means it's finally a chance to check in on Kaizen Game Works' open-world crime-solver. Pretty standard, murder mystery visual novel stuff then, right? Chat to the suspects, explore the scene for clues, crack the case before celestial entities hard-reset the universe into its 25th iteration, a perfect reflection of Paradise as a concept, borne of the corpses of alien gods.
Y'know. The usual.
Best I can tell from this latest trailer, Paradise Killer is Tom Parkinson-Morgan webcomic Kill Six Billion Demons filtered through the chirpy 90s crime-solving vibes of Murder By Numbers. Alright, then.
Paradise Killer is, on the face of it, a pretty standard mystery. As yer man Taggart used to say, there's been a murder, and you're the out-of-town detective here to work out whodunnit. Just a day on the job for any Columbo or Marple, right?
Only, well, the town is Paradise, an island unmoored from space and time that cosmically resets every millennium - plagued by demons and inhabited by a "rogue human civilisation" that unleash psychic power into the universe to resurrect dead alien gods. The murder victims? The Council that was to birth a new, perfect reality. The detective is "investigation freak" Lady Love Dies, summoned from exile to enact judgement.
By exploring the "alternate future history" world of Paradise and talking to its strange inhabitants, you'll need to piece together a case to convict. That, in particular, seems a curious puzzle to solve. In Paradise, facts aren't the same as truths. It sounds like there may not even be one "true" killer - put together a compelling enough case, and the convicted murderer could be whoever suits your fancy.
It sounds absurd and fascinating, a strange thing Katherine described as "Danganronpa meets Sherlock Holmes, with all the flair and style of a Suda51 game" in our EGX 2019 round-up. Paradise Killer's celestial murders are set to release on Steam this Summer.