Everything you need to know about The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story

The new live action investigative adventure is out now on PS5, PS4, Switch and Steam. Find out more about it here!
By Duncan Heaney

If you like detective stories, you’ve probably had your magnifying glass on The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story for a while now.

Directed by Koichiro Ito (Metal Gear Solid V) and produced by Junichi Ehara (NieR:Automata), this gripping new live action investigative adventure takes you through four complex cases, each one full of surprising twists and revelations.

If you’re wondering when can you play it… well, that’s no mystery. It’s out right now on PS5, PS4, Swich and Steam!

Read on and we’ll tell you everything you need to know about it.

What’s the story of The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story?

The story begins when mystery novelist Haruka Kagami gets an invitation from the scientist, Eiji Shijima. He wants her to help uncover the identity of skeletal remains found under a cherry tree on his family estate, and to investigate the fabled ‘Fruit of Youth’, said to be hidden undiscovered in its grounds.

The Shijima Mansion

Joined by her editor, Akari Yamase, Haruka sets out for the Shijima family home, nestled at the base of Mount Fuji. The writer is sceptical about the Fruit of Youth until she sees an antique book on the subject, written a century ago by Eiji’s ancestor, Yoshino Shijima.

Although it’s written as a novel, it seems to detail a very real murder case from the past. But murder isn’t far away in the present either…

Haruka Kagami reading an old book

How does the game work?

As Haruka, you’ll investigate four murder cases, all set at three different points in time, from a murder at an auction in 1922 to a fresh killing at the Shijima residence in 2022. How are these cases connected? That’s for you and Haruka to find out.

Events take place through live action scenes, with beautiful cinematography by Yasuhito Tachibana, producer of Netflix Original comedy drama The Naked Director. You’ll have to use your powers of logic and observation as you identify all the clues in the scene.

A highlighted clue in The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story

When you’ve discovered some clues, you’ll enter Haruka’s cognitive space, and help her fit the mystery and clues together like a puzzle, create different hypotheses and build a connected path of logic.

Your hypotheses will become options to help you corner the killer. If you've been lax in creating hypotheses in the cognitive space, you may find that you don’t possess the correct answer - so take care!

But don’t worry too much about getting things wrong - there are features that will gently guide you back onto the right path. If you absolutely can’t seem to find the way forward, you can try using the hint feature to get a glimpse of a scene slightly further ahead in the story.

The cognitive space also has a feature that lets you use ‘Insight’ to highlight clues that correspond to the mysteries. Insight can only be used a limited number of times, but you will gain another charge of Insight every six hypotheses you create. It doesn’t affect your Reasoning Evaluation at the end of the case, so feel free to use it liberally.

Using these tools and more, all players will be able to peel away the many layers of lies and mysteries, until only the truth remains.

Testing hypotheses in The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story

How do you get The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story?

The game is available now digitally on PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch and Steam.

If you purchase the game before May 19, 2022, you’ll not only get the base game, but also The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story BEHIND THE SCENES, comprising of 50 minutes interview footage. You’ll also receive The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story mini soundtrack, featuring 12 tracks selected from the game, composed by Yuki Hayashi, Daiki Okuno, Ryoshi Takagi, Shuichiro Fukuhiro and Shogo Yamashiro.

Good luck unravelling the threads of The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story. It’s a mystery adventure that fuses the thrill of uncovering a murderer with high-quality human drama! It’s sure to leave an impression - we hope you enjoy it!

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