This is the Zodiac Speaking (v2020.11.13)

1970s California becomes a place of cigarette smoke, lonely roads, and creeping paranoia in this first-person thriller built around the still-unsolved Zodiac case. You play Robert Hartnell, a San Francisco journalist whose connection to the murders turns personal after a deeply unsettling phone call from the killer. Rather than treating the subject like a simple slasher story, the game leans into dread, uncertainty, and the psychological toll left behind by violence. Its stylized visuals and moody, film-inspired score give the period setting a grimly surreal character without losing the weight of its real-world inspiration.

Investigation drives most of the experience as you search locations for clues, reconstruct events, study documents, and use a detective-focused interface to separate meaningful evidence from background detail. The story shifts between examining the killings and confronting Robert’s own increasingly unstable state of mind through psychological sequences that blur memory, fear, and reality. Stealth sections add immediate danger, asking you to stay out of sight and move carefully instead of relying on weapons or action-movie heroics. Choices made during the investigation affect how events unfold, and multiple endings encourage a second look at important scenes and decisions.

What stands out is the attempt to combine a true-crime framework with the uneasy subjectivity of psychological horror. Victims’ recorded voices and case-inspired details make the mystery feel more intimate than a conventional police procedural, while the art direction avoids chasing photorealism in favor of an oppressive retro atmosphere. It is closer in spirit to a slow-burn narrative adventure than to a survival-horror shooter, with echoes of games such as Observer or Layers of Fear in its reality-bending tension. Fans of investigative stories, stealth-driven suspense, and mature crime fiction find the most to appreciate, while players seeking fast combat or a neatly resolved mystery may find its deliberate pace less satisfying.