From the start of the demo, it’s clear that my character is on a journey to simply find out what happened here – there’s no grand goal, no heroic mission. You’re just driven by a simple question: what’s going on? And to back that up, your journal isn’t full of concrete explanations of what to do, but rather full of clues you’ve collected. Early on, I met a merchant who would sprinkle in local gossip with every trade we made – this gave me a clue to a local bunker I could explore and a rough location on my map.
Later I visited Wyndham and decided to look at the church there – and here the prospect of clues became very exciting. Inside a priest was standing over a murder victim – he asked me not to investigate, for fear of incurring the wrath of the soldiers who had occupied the town. I could have left it there, but I searched the body and found a bloody note that led me to a local hotel. Again, I could have followed that lead and gone exploring – but I decided to speak to the church warden, who told me that she had seen the victim go into a secluded cellar the night before.
Now I had two leads roughly along the same lines – the game didn’t tell me if it was the main quest, nor did it give me any hints on the right path, it was simply due to my own interest. I decided to search the basement, and at first glance thought I’d hit a dead end – until I saw a glimmer of light coming from under a wall and realized I could crawl through. There I found a note identifying the local shopkeeper as the murderer, and a hint that he was aligned with the local Druid faction. I went to confront him, and was presented with several options – I could report him to the soldiers, explain his role in the murder to the vicar… or even make a deal for his silence.
