Agatha Christie: Death On The Nile Review

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HIGH Well-crafted homage to a classic murder mystery.

LOW Few locales in the campaign, resulting in visual boredom.

WTF Petting street rats?!

Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile sets out to translate a well-known murder mystery novel onto today’s gaming consoles, putting players in the shoes of famous fictional detective Hercule Poirot as he struggles to untangle a well-thought-out and well-executed homicide case. Set in the ‘70s and unraveling mostly on the S.S. Karnak with the Nile river sparkling in the background, this point-and-click adventure presents a series of meaty logic-based puzzle challenges, forcing the player to don their thinking cap right away.

Unlike other cross-media iterations of this popular novel, Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile spices things up by introducing a second playable character that isn’t part of the source material — namely, a budding detective named Jane Royce, who works alongside Poirot while investigating a different death on her own.

At first, I cringed at this inclusion, given that I saw no need to deviate that much from the established plot. Also, as a character, Royce is the exact opposite of Poirot in several regards — he is male, she is female. He is white, she is black. He is hetero, she is lesbian. He refers to himself in the third person, she speaks normally. This play on stark contrasts didn’t do much to lure me in… at first. 

Yet as the chapters rolled on, I got accustomed to and enjoyed controlling Royce as much as I did Poriot. Her sections take a different, more ‘hands-on’ approach and she even stars in several stealth and action sequences, while Poriot mostly moves around and speaks. However — and most importantly — her arc deftly complements the novel’s highpoints, adding to the narrative in a manner fitting for the medium of videogames. As a result, this character never felt like someone competing for the spotlight, and Nile’s runtime proved sufficient to leave even the most cost-conscious consumer satisfied. 

As for the gameplay, it’s comprised of curated, tough-to-crack logic puzzles while also being rich in varied mini-games.

For instance, when a character refused to share info unless she heard her favorite song, I had to meddle with an old jukebox’s interior electronics, altering pieces to allow for proper electric flow. Later, while inspecting why the smoke coming out of the boat’s chimney suddenly turned black, I had to get familiar with how the Karnak’s furnace worked via an iteration of the classic Pipe Dream path-making formula.

I was pleasantly surprised at how varied and creative these challenges were, and the constant evolution in their difficulty is perhaps the most confident example of Nile’s quality — it simply never dropped the ball with any lackluster obstacles. 

Throughout Nile’s chapters, I also had to diligently inspect 3D pieces of evidence before spending hours within the main characters’ “mind maps” (accessible via menu) where all hard-earned deductions are stored and comprehensively arranged. Then, I had to carefully connect the scattered info into rock-solid conclusions that rose above all of the obfuscating layers smothering the truth.

This process often involved pointing out which character could or couldn’t have taken a particular action due to their physical location at a precise moment in the scenario, as corroborated by other passengers on the Karnak. Oftentimes, Nile supported this by arranging all of the uncovered facts into an easy-to-follow timeline where we get to rearrange NPC positions, tracking each of their movements minute-by-minute until we have logically reverse-engineered the undisputed paths and actions all of them surely followed.

Obviously, the difficulty of these segments depends on the number of suspects present at a given scenario, as well as on which of Nile’s three difficulty levels the player chooses. For me at least, untangling these timeline challenges was a triumph in and of itself, leading to unsuspected revelations and coveted resolutions to tricky mental knots,  an experience not unlike solving challenges in any number of other, more puzzle-focused experiences.

Between deductions I was able to freely inspect locations like a nightclub in London, a fancy hotel in Egypt, and a few other places that I won’t reveal here. Of course, chatting with and interrogating the dozens of primary and secondary characters gives Nile much of its richness, almost making me overlook how little variety in locales there is here – a few more areas wouldn’t have hurt things. Luckily, the craft of outsmarting the myriad of multilayered characters is a triumph on par with the way the same process unfolds in the source material itself. My victory here was delicious.

Anyone willing to get knee-deep into exercises like inspecting a vase until they spot the tiny crack that proves the villain must’ve hastily knocked it over in the middle of the night will surely find much to love in Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile, and in the end it stands as an excellent example of the right way to adapt classic material for the modern age and its new mediums.

Rating: 8 out of 10 

Buy Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile: PC – Switch – Xbox – PS

Disclosures: This game was developed by Microids Studio Lyon and published by Microids. It is currently available on the Nintendo Switch, PC, Xbox Series S/X, and PS4/5. This copy was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the Switch Lite. Approximately 30 hours of play were devoted to the game, and it was completed. This is a single-player only title. 

Parents: This game has received a T rating from the ESRB and contains Alcohol and Tobacco Reference, Mild Blood, and Mild Violence. The official ESRB summary reads: “Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile is a seek-and-find mystery game in which players search for specific items/clues on a screen full of objects. Players – as detective Poirot – search through several rooms and interview suspects to find clues to solve a murder. In one room, the partially visible body of the victim is shown as well as a letter “J” written in blood above the victim. Wine is featured in the opening cinematic, while some of the items (selectable and background) include alcohol and tobacco products (e.g., cocktail glass, liquor bottle, cigarettes). Cutscenes depict images of a gun held to a woman’s head as a flash appears when the weapon is fired. Another sequence depicts two characters in silhouette and still frames shooting themselves in an apparent suicide pact.”

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: All dialogue is shown via textboxes, and I found the font to be easily readable at all times. While some of the puzzles lead the player to identify sounds as a means to a resolution, there are enough visual indicators to allow any player to figure them out without relying solely on audio. Plus, players can ask for a hint at any moment at the push of a button, which will prompt the game to reveal the solution instantly. I’d say this game is fully accessible. 

Remappable Controls: This game offers a controller diagram, and the controls are not remappable. However, they are intuitive and easy to get used to, with the movement assigned to the sticks and the face buttons used to make choices and interact with the environment.

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