It's been over two centuries since the merchant ship Obra Dinn set sail on its ill-fated voyage. The year is 1802, and the ship is now lost at sea. Fast forward to 1807, and the vessel drifts into port at Falmouth with no survivors on board. An insurance investigator boards the ship to uncover what happened, using a mysterious pocketwatch called "Memento Mortem" that allows him to view the moment of death for each person on board.
Return of the Obra Dinn is a first-person detective game where you play the role of the investigator. Your task is to uncover the fate of each of the 60 people who were on board the ship. You can explore every corner of the vessel, from top to bottom, although some areas are initially out of bounds. Whenever you encounter a corpse, you can use the Memento Mortem to relive their final moments. This will reveal what they said in their last conversation and allow you to explore a frozen-in-time scene that shows exactly how they died.
As you investigate each death scene, you'll fill out an empty logbook with details about the deceased person, including their identity, cause of death, and (if applicable) their killer. The logbook comes equipped with helpful tools like lists of names, group portraits, and a map of the ship to aid in your investigation.
Reconstructing the tragedy of the Obra Dinn won't be easy. You'll need to carefully examine clues from each death scene, often requiring you to piece together events or deduce roles based on behavior, clothing, and relationships. When you get it right โ when three people's fates are correctly identified โ the game will acknowledge your success and mark the correct information in the logbook.
The game is presented with a distinctive retro aesthetic, using a graphical filter to mimic early 1-bit graphics reminiscent of classic Macintosh games.