The Mermaid Mask Is Out Today, and It Locks Detective Grimoire in a Submarine Full of Suspects

Locked-room mysteries are usually set in manors and trains, so putting one at the bottom of the sea is a fun twist on a very old formula. The Mermaid Mask is out today, July 16, on PC, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, and it hands you exactly that case: Captain Mortuga lies dead beside an ancient cauldron aboard a very strange submarine, the room was sealed, and everyone left on board is a suspect.

Video: SFB Games on YouTube

The Tangle Tower follow-up, seven years later

The Mermaid Mask comes from SFB Games, the London studio that made the cozy launch puzzler Snipperclips for Nintendo, the retro survival horror hit Crow Country, and the 2019 detective gem Tangle Tower. This new game is the direct successor to that last one, and the next entry in the studio's long-running Detective Grimoire series. You once again play as the flamboyant Detective Grimoire and his sharp-tongued partner Sally, interrogating a crew of eccentric, hand-animated suspects and piecing together clues into deductions.

The production has clearly grown since Tangle Tower. The full cast is voice acted in English, the soundtrack was recorded with the Budapest Art Orchestra, and clue objects are hand-painted 3D pieces you can rotate to find hidden details. Text is localized into twelve languages, including French, German, Japanese and both flavors of Chinese.

What kind of game you are getting

This is a pure point-and-click adventure, no combat, no timers, just conversations, contraptions and logic. SFB Games describes the case as an impossible murder, and the pleasure is in the slow unpicking: why the room was sealed, what the cauldron actually does, and which of the sketchy crew members is lying about where they were. The studio's trademark tone, dark subject matter delivered with light British humour, is intact in everything shown so far.

If you want to test the waters first, a free demo is live on the Steam page right now.

Our take

Tangle Tower remains one of the most polished detective games of the last decade, and this is the same team with more time, more money and a full orchestra. That earns real benefit of the doubt. The honest caveats: SFB Games has not published a playtime figure, and adventure games of this style are typically one weekend long with little reason to replay, so wait for player reviews if length matters to you. Pricing also had not been posted on the store pages as we wrote this, hours before the Steam unlock. For puzzle and mystery fans, especially anyone who loved Tangle Tower or wants something relaxed on a Switch 2, this is the easiest recommendation of the week.