Bet you didn’t have this one on your bingo list. Developed by Tactic Studios in partnership with Square Enix, the game was unveiled during the Summer Game Fest livestream, and it’s far from the famed RPG maker’s bread and butter. Killer Inn, as it’s called, is a multiplayer murder mystery that takes Among Us-like gameplay and ratchets it up by handing players knives, guns and many other weapons to kill or be killed while they search for the original killer.
Killer Inn might be one of those games that is best understood after playing a few matches, but even from the reveal trailer, there’s a lot going on. In each match, 24 players enter a sprawling castle-turned-hotel to determine who the real killers are as they’re picked off one by one. There’s deduction and mayhem aplenty.
Killer Inn’s play phases are patterned after detective-style games, from Among Us to Ultimate Werewolf to Mafia. A match begins with most players as cooperative participants (“lambs,” in Killer Inn’s parlance) mixed with a few secret killers (“wolves”). Players complete tasks to earn tokens redeemable for items and weapons, while the killers quietly go about their business — until someone discovers a body. On the corpse are clues left by the killer, so the lambs can try deducing the true culprit (or culprits).
Then it’s all about collecting clues and identifying the wolves — but unlike Among Us, there’s no group discussion to present evidence or vote them out. Killer Inn skips the parlor scene and dives straight into action: If you’re sure someone’s the killer, take them out. Use those token-bought guns and blades to put down the villain. Unless you accidentally murder one of your innocent teammates — in which case, you’re turned to stone for the rest of the match. Bummer.
Lambs have another win condition: assembling four keys to escape on the ship that brought them to the murder island. There are other mechanics, too, like finding relative safety in rooms with hotel staff, who will identify any wolves that kill lambs in their line of sight.
Players can choose between 25 premade characters that each have their own unique appearances and abilities, the latter of which improve as the match goes on, often reflecting the nefarious dark sides of the participants. For example, Winston is a surgeon who kills more efficiently with knives and, when leveled up, deals extra damage while covered in blood. The Otaku, by contrast, gains 25 HP from finding clues and eventually builds resistance to status effects. Levels don’t carry over between matches — everyone starts fresh at level one.
Killer Inn doesn’t have a release date, but the game will kick off a closed beta test over Steam in the near future.
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