“Hallucinogens, fax machines, parapsychology, and TV guides”: One of the decade’s best detective games is getting a sequel – and the demo is already here

The Case of the Golden Idol was one of 2022’s best games, a creepy, cultish detective story set among the British nobility of the 1800s. Now there’s a sequel on the way, entitled The Rise of the Golden Idol – and with a playable demo that you can try out right now.

I was lucky enough to get to try out the demo prior to release, and good news: it’s basically more of the game that earned the oh-so-rare “Overwhelmingly Positive” review score on Steam the first time around, with some improvements and tweaks along the way. There’s more dynamic animation in the tableaus you examine now, though the characteristically horsey way in which people are drawn remains untouched, which I was pleased to see.

This time though, we’re in a whole different time period: rather than the machinations of snobbish lords and ladies in the Georgian and Victorian eras, Rise of the Golden Idol’s demo covers a strange series of deaths in the late 1970s: a bloody escape from an asylum, a gruesome industrial accident, and the attempt to cover up a gory scandal connected with a new drug – and that’s just a fraction of the game playable now. Speaking personally, I had a great time, and feel pretty excited to see what the full game has to offer in the age of “an age of hallucinogens, fax machines, parapsychology and TV guides”, to quote its Steam page.

The Rise of the Golden Idol is scheduled for a 2024 release. If you still haven’t played the first one yet, here’s why The Case of the Golden Idol is the best successor to Obra Dinn so far.

You can find even more games to dive into on our list of the 25 best PC games.