Best Detective Games With Multiple Endings

The best detective games with multiple endings let your investigation skills determine the outcome, not a single scripted conclusion. Your choices about whom to accuse, which evidence to present and how you conduct interviews lead to different results, making each playthrough feel like a genuinely different case. Strong picks include:

• Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments: reach your own conclusions and decide each culprit's fate.
• Pentiment: accuse different suspects across multiple acts, never certain you chose correctly.
• The Shapeshifting Detective: the murderer is randomised, so the correct ending changes each time.
• Paradise Killer: build your case freely and argue it in a final trial.
• Overboard!: play the killer and steer the story toward different outcomes.
• Lacuna: make permanent deductions that lock in consequences.

Key takeaways

• The best detective games with multiple endings tie those endings to your investigation, not just a final dialogue choice.
• Some games randomise the culprit, giving you a different puzzle each time.
• Others let you accuse the wrong person, and the game continues with that outcome.
• Multiple endings add replay value and make your detective work feel consequential.
• Most picks below have no combat, keeping the focus on deduction and choices.

What counts as a "multiple ending" detective game?

For this list, multiple endings means the game produces meaningfully different outcomes based on how you investigated, not just a good-or-bad binary from a final button press. The best examples tie their endings to evidence you gathered, suspects you questioned and conclusions you reached throughout the case. Games where the only branching is a last-minute moral choice were left out.

Best detective games with multiple endings at a glance

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments

Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments (Frogwares, 2014) gives you six cases, and each one lets you reach your own conclusion. After gathering evidence and questioning suspects, you connect clues on a deduction board and decide whom to accuse. You then choose whether to condemn or absolve them. The game does not always tell you if you were right, which means your endings feel earned rather than scored.

Best for: players who want a classic detective experience where the conclusion is genuinely yours.

Pentiment

Pentiment (Obsidian Entertainment, 2022) spreads its mystery across multiple acts set in 16th-century Bavaria. As Andreas Maler, you investigate and eventually accuse someone, but the game never confirms whether you were correct. Your accusation shapes the community going forward, and the consequences ripple into later acts. It is one of the few detective games where living with an uncertain conclusion is part of the design.

Best for: players who want a historically grounded mystery where your choices carry real weight. See also games where you can reach the wrong conclusion.

The Shapeshifting Detective

The Shapeshifting Detective (D'Avekki Studios, Wales Interactive, 2018) takes a different approach to multiple endings: the murderer is chosen at random at the start of each game. That means the correct solution changes every playthrough, and so does the ending. You question suspects as yourself or shapeshift into other characters to unlock private conversations. Steam notes this randomisation as a feature.

Best for: players who want an FMV mystery they can replay with a genuinely different answer each time.

Paradise Killer

Paradise Killer (Kaizen Game Works, Fellow Traveller, 2020) lets you investigate its open-world island at your own pace. There is no moment when the game says you have found enough evidence. You decide when to stop, walk into the trial and present your case. The ending depends on the evidence you collected and the arguments you make, so two players can reach very different conclusions.

Best for: players who want total freedom in building a case. For more games in this vein, see games where you build a case against a suspect.

Overboard!

Overboard! (inkle, 2021) flips the detective formula. You play Veronica Villensey, who has murdered her husband on a 1930s cruise ship. Over the next eight in-game hours, you steer conversations, plant evidence and manipulate suspects to avoid getting caught. Steam says one playthrough lasts about 30–45 minutes, and the game is designed to be replayed. Each run can end differently depending on how well you cover your tracks.

Best for: players who enjoy short, replayable mystery games with a dark sense of humour.

Lacuna

Lacuna – A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure (DigiTales Interactive, Assemble Entertainment, 2021) makes your deductions permanent. As CDI agent Neil Conrad, you question people, collect evidence and submit conclusions, but you cannot undo your choices. Wrong deductions stay wrong, and the story branches on those locked-in decisions. Steam highlights "real choices and multiple endings".

Best for: players who want a noir mystery where mistakes are irreversible. See also choice-based crime games.

Aviary Attorney

Aviary Attorney (Sketchy Logic, 2015) takes you through four chapters as bird lawyer Jayjay Falcon in 1848 Paris. Your choices during investigation and courtroom arguments lead to one of three fully developed endings. The branching is meaningful because each ending tells a substantially different story, not just a variation on the same conclusion.

Best for: players who want a courtroom mystery with distinct narrative paths.

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc

Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (Spike Chunsoft, 2016 on Steam) traps students in a school where murders occur. After each killing, you investigate and then argue your case in a class trial. Steam describes "timing and reflex-based game systems" during trials. Identifying the wrong killer has consequences, and the broader story unfolds differently depending on your success.

Best for: players who want high-stakes trials with a dramatic, anime-influenced tone.

How do you choose the right multiple-ending detective game?

• If you want to replay with a different solution: The Shapeshifting Detective randomises its murderer.
• If you want your accusations to have lasting consequences: Pentiment and Lacuna both make your choices permanent.
• If you want a short, replayable experience: Overboard! can be completed in under an hour and rewards multiple runs.
• If you prefer a classic detective structure: Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments offers six self-contained cases with branching conclusions.
• If you want no combat: most picks on this list avoid it. For a broader list, see detective games without combat.

Is there an upcoming detective game with multiple endings?

Murder Book: The Art of Interrogation is an upcoming narrative interrogation game from Gungrounds, an independent studio founded in 2016 in Zagreb, Croatia. Development screenshots show a branching case map with achievement endings and a completion percentage, suggesting that cases can conclude differently depending on how you conduct each interrogation. The game also shows a case select screen with results including a "not guilty" outcome, pointing to multiple possible conclusions per case. Murder Book is in development for PC (Steam) and mobile, with release currently planned for the end of Q2 2027.

Sources

1. Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishments on Steam
2. Pentiment on Steam
3. The Shapeshifting Detective on Steam
4. Paradise Killer on Steam
5. Overboard! on Steam
6. Lacuna on Steam
7. Aviary Attorney on Steam
8. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc on Steam
9. Murder Book press sheet, Gungrounds