Mystery Games for True-Crime Fans

The mystery games that suit true-crime fans are the ones that recreate the parts of real investigations people find most absorbing: police interviews, recordings, case records and crime scenes that have to be read carefully. All of the games below are fiction, but they share that documentary texture. Strong picks include:

• Her Story: watch clips from police interviews stored in a 1990s database.
• Telling Lies: search secretly recorded video conversations for the truth.
• Contradiction: Spot The Liar: question witnesses on video and catch contradictions.
• The Painscreek Killings: investigate a murder as a journalist, taking your own notes.
• Scene Investigators: reason through reconstructed crime scenes.
• Unheard – Voices of Crime: work out a crime from audio recordings alone.
• The Operator: analyse evidence with databases and lab tools from a desk.

Coming later, Murder Book is an interrogation game inspired by real police footage and psychological interviews.

Key takeaways

• True-crime appeal usually comes from process: interviews, records, timelines and second looks at evidence.
• Games built on video interviews, audio or documents feel closest to documentaries and podcasts.
• The games listed here tell fictional stories, not real cases.
• Games can make judging people look easier than it is; real research shows behaviour alone is weak evidence of lying.
• Murder Book is an upcoming interrogation game planned for the end of Q2 2027.

What do true-crime fans look for in a mystery game?

True-crime documentaries and podcasts tend to return to the same materials: a recorded interview, a timeline that does not quite fit, a statement that changes, a scene photographed from every angle. The pleasure is in weighing those pieces yourself.

Mystery games can offer that directly. Instead of watching a narrator lay out the evidence, you search it, compare it and decide what it means. The games below are grouped by the kind of material you work with. If you are curious about the real-world file that gives Murder Book its name, read What Is a Murder Book?.

Mystery games for true-crime fans at a glance

Games built on interviews and recordings

Her Story

Her Story (Sam Barlow, 2015) gives you access to an old police database holding clips from seven interviews with a British woman about her missing husband. You type search terms, watch the clips they return and build the story in your own head. It is the closest thing on this list to sitting alone with interview tapes.

Best for: fans of interview-driven documentaries. See Games Like Her Story for more.

Telling Lies

Telling Lies (Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid, Furious Bee Limited; Annapurna Interactive, 2019) uses a stolen database of secretly recorded video conversations. You search for words and watch the clips in which they are spoken.

Best for: players who like assembling a story from surveillance material.

Contradiction: Spot The Liar

Contradiction: Spot The Liar (Baggy Cat, 2015) is an all-video murder mystery. As detective Jenks, you explore a village, question its residents and point out contradictions in what they have said.

Best for: listeners who notice when a story changes.

Unheard – Voices of Crime

Unheard – Voices of Crime (NEXT Studios, 2019) takes away the pictures. You listen to recordings of a crime scene and work out who each voice belongs to and who did it. A developer note on Steam says there were five chapters at launch.

Best for: true-crime podcast listeners.

Games built on scenes and records

The Painscreek Killings

The Painscreek Killings (EQ Studios, 2017) casts you as a journalist exploring an abandoned town to find out who killed Vivian Roberts. You take notes, photograph clues and solve logic puzzles. Steam says there are no quest markers or hints, so the investigation is genuinely yours to organise.

Best for: players who enjoy slow, self-directed research.

Scene Investigators

Scene Investigators (EQ Studios, 2023) makes you a trainee investigator. You examine reconstructed crime scenes and answer questions about what happened by observing details and reasoning from them. The official FAQ lists 8 case scenarios.

Best for: fans of forensic and crime scene programmes.

The Operator

The Operator (Bureau 81, 2024) puts you at a desk in a fictional agency. You use in-game tools such as databases and photo, video and chemical analysers to help field agents solve crimes. It is on Windows, macOS and Linux through Steam, and on Nintendo Switch.

Best for: players who like the analyst's side of an investigation.

Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You

Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You (Osmotic Studios, Daedalic Entertainment, 2016) is about surveillance rather than detection. After a series of attacks, you search web pages, social media, chats and private files to profile suspects, and you decide what information to pass on.

Best for: players interested in how digital traces shape a case.

A note on games, true crime and real people

These games are fiction, which lets them explore crime without affecting real victims or families. They also simplify. In many mystery games, a nervous glance or a changed detail reliably points to the culprit. Research on real deception judgements is far less tidy: people average around 54% accuracy when judging lies and truths, only slightly better than chance. Innocent people can be nervous, and truthful accounts can change. Read Can You Actually Tell When Someone Is Lying? and Why Truthful Accounts Can Still Be Inconsistent for the research behind this.

Is there an upcoming mystery game inspired by real police interviews?

Yes. Murder Book: The Art of Interrogation is an upcoming narrative interrogation game from Gungrounds, an independent studio in Zagreb, Croatia. It is inspired by real police footage and psychological interviews, and it focuses on the part of a case that comes from people: unreliable stories, behavioural changes, narrative gaps, avoidance and contradictions. You interpret those signals with an in-game casebook and choose how to press, in cases designed for focused 5–10-minute sessions.

Murder Book is in development for PC (Steam) and mobile, with release currently planned for the end of Q2 2027. Read How Real Police Footage Inspired Murder Book to learn more.

Sources

1. Her Story on Steam
2. Her Story official website
3. Telling Lies, Annapurna Interactive
4. Contradiction: Spot The Liar on Steam
5. Unheard on Steam
6. The Painscreek Killings on Steam
7. Scene Investigators, EQ Studios
8. The Operator on Steam
9. The Operator on the Nintendo eShop
10. Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You on Steam
11. Bond and DePaulo (2006), Accuracy of deception judgments, PubMed
12. Murder Book press sheet, Gungrounds