Blacksad: Under the Skin is a noir detective game that has taken the story from the famous novel of a feline detective working in the 1950s. The game has been revealed for quite a while, and as we're coming closer to its release date, the publisher Microids wants to raise the heat up a little bit.
However, I didn't expect that it has released a 25-minute-long gameplay trailer, which illustrates a lot of gameplay features of Blacksad: Under the Skin. It might be too long for your limited amount of time, so you can skim through the scenes, and come back to our article for explanations.
Nevertheless, let's watch the trailer below:
The story of Blacksad: Under the Skin
If you haven't read the graphic novel Blacksad yet, here's the summary of what will happen in this game. Blacksad: Under the Skin takes place in a fantasy world, where all citizens are anthropomorphic animals. You'll take control of the feline detective - John Blacksad to investigate a strange case regarding the boxing scene.
To be more specific, in New York City, the 1950s, a series of suspicious events has happened before one of the biggest boxing fights. Joe Dunn - the holder of a boxing club - mysteriously died, and followed by the bizarre disappearance of Bobby Yale - the rising boxer that is going get on the ring for the biggest fight in his career.
As a result, the daughter of Joe Dunn - Sonia Dunn - has to sit on the chair of her father, taking over the club and deal with the impact of her father and the boxer's loss. And to help her with this case, she has hired Blacksad to find out about the mystery behind Yale's disappearance and her father's death.
The deeper Blacksad digs into this case, the more shocking facts he will find in the middle of the corrupted scenes.
Gameplay features
Blacksad: Under the Skin is a third-person narrative-driven game, where you'll take control of the detective black cat trying to put the pieces together. Investigating in the darkest corners of New York, you'll have to collect as many proofs as possible, as well as the clues from other characters to solve this mysterious case.
Meeting the characters that might be the witnesses, you can't just pull everything off their mouth that easily. Instead, you'll have to tighten your relationship with them through dialogues and decisions, and once they've trusted you, you'll get what you need. There are a lot of clues in this game, so you'll have to spend a decent amount of time analyzing them to be able to get to the final conclusions.
And since there are too many clues, this game gives you a deduction system, which will establish a link between the proofs to make you stay on tracks. Simply just put your clues and observations in it, and if some clues match each other, you'll immediately come to a conclusion. If it's not, they will not disappear but stay until you successfully linked them. It's basically a forging system, but instead of forging weapons or equipment, you're forging the truth!
Additionally, Blacksad is not an ordinary detective. He has the special instinct of the feline species, allowing to sense what he's seeing, hearing and smelling, which will bring a whole new approach to the situations. This ability is very useful, as it grants him access to the hidden details that no one can reach.
Last but not least, there are several quick-time events, which require Blacksad to get through in order to get through the story. They cannot be skipped, and if you failed, you'll have to try it again until making your way through. Those events are quite simple: hitting the precise buttons at order, or pumping up the bar by constantly one button.
Digital version coming out soon, physical editions delayed for a while
Blacksad: Under the Skin is coming out for PS4, Xbox One, and PC via Steam on November 5. The Switch version is confirmed for 2019's release but doesn't have a specific release date yet.
At first, the developer Pendulo Studios and the publisher Microids has planned to sell the physical version of the game on the same day as the digital editions. However, to better polishing their product, they've delayed it until November 14.