All Games > Adventure Games > True Crime Engine
Community Hub
True Crime Engine
Investigate cases solo or with friends. Search the web, trace digital leads, examine documents and recordings, and piece together evidence on a shared board. Compare theories, uncover what happened, and discover new cases through Steam Workshop or create your own.

Sign in to add this item to your wishlist, follow it, or mark it as ignored

Features
Languages:
Interface Full Audio Subtitles
English ✔
German ✔
Russian ✔
Simplified Chinese ✔
Ukrainian ✔
Japanese ✔
French ✔
Spanish - Spain ✔
Korean ✔
Polish ✔
Portuguese - Brazil ✔
Portuguese - Portugal ✔
See all 12 supported languages
Content
Includes Interactive Elements

In-game chat, Online interactivity

Coming Soon To Early Access

The developers of this game intend to release as a work in progress, developing with the feedback of players.

Note: Games in Early Access are not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development. Learn more

What the developers have to say:

Why Early Access?

“True Crime Engine is built around community-created investigations.

We are launching in Early Access because we want to grow the game together with the people who will actually play and create cases for it. One of our main goals is to give creators the tools to build their own investigations and publish them through Steam Workshop.

During Early Access, we want to see what kinds of cases people create, how players investigate them, and which tools would make both creating and solving cases better.

For players, this also means that the library of available investigations can grow far beyond the cases we create ourselves. New community cases, new ideas, and new ways of using the investigation board can become a major part of True Crime Engine.

Early Access gives us the opportunity to improve those systems with real feedback before we consider the game complete.”

Approximately how long will this game be in Early Access?

“We currently expect True Crime Engine to remain in Early Access for approximately 12–18 months.

The exact duration will depend on how the game develops with community feedback, particularly around Steam Workshop, case creation tools, multiplayer, and the investigation experience itself.

We would rather leave Early Access when these systems feel complete and reliable than commit to a fixed date too early.”

How is the full version planned to differ from the Early Access version?

“During Early Access, we intend to expand and refine the tools available to both players and case creators. This may include improvements to the investigation board, case creation workflow, multiplayer features, Steam Workshop integration, usability, performance, and the ways different types of evidence can be presented and interacted with.”

What is the current state of the Early Access version?

“True Crime Engine is currently playable and includes the core systems needed to investigate and create cases. Early Access will focus on improving the experience, polishing existing features, and expanding the tools available to players and creators.”

Will the game be priced differently during and after Early Access?

“We currently do not plan to change the price when True Crime Engine leaves Early Access.”

How are you planning on involving the Community in your development process?

“We want the community to have a direct influence on how True Crime Engine develops during Early Access.

Player feedback will help us improve the investigation tools, usability, multiplayer features, case creation workflow, and the overall experience of solving cases.

Steam Workshop will be a particularly important part of this. We want to closely follow how creators build investigations, what limitations they encounter, and which additional tools would let them create more complex and interesting cases.”
Read more
This game is not yet available on Steam

Planned Release Date: January 2027

Interested?
Add to your wishlist and get notified when it becomes available.
 

Report bugs and leave feedback for this game on the discussion boards

See all discussions

About This Game

True Crime Engine is built around one idea: giving you a case and letting you investigate it yourself.

Each case starts with a set of materials like documents, photos, recordings, messages, witness statements or anything else the author decided to include. From there, it is up to you to work out where to look next.

Cases can take you outside the game. You might need to search the web, look up a place, check a website, compare information from different sources or notice something hidden in a recording or document.

Your investigation board

Everything you find can be collected on a board.

Add images, videos, sound clips, screenshots, documents and notes, move things around, connect related evidence and keep track of whatever theory you are currently working on.

There is no required way to organize it. If something seems important, put it on the board.

Investigate with friends

Cases can be played alone or in co-op with up to 8 players.

In multiplayer, everyone works on the same investigation and can add evidence to the shared board. You can split up leads, research different things at the same time, or simply argue about what you think happened.

You can see everyone else's cursor moving around the board in real time, so it is always clear what your friends are looking at or working on. Built-in text and voice chat let you discuss evidence without leaving the game.

Examine everything

Evidence is not limited to static cards on the board.

Open PDFs directly inside the game, inspect images in detail, play audio and video files, and work with other types of case material without leaving the investigation.

Basic tools let you zoom, crop and inspect images, move through documents, replay specific parts of recordings, and take a closer look at anything that seems suspicious.

Sometimes the important part is not what a file tells you at first glance, but what is hidden inside it.

Cases from Steam Workshop

True Crime Engine is not built around a fixed set of investigations.

Cases can be downloaded through Steam Workshop, so different authors can create completely different kinds of mysteries using the same system.

They can be crime stories, missing person cases, internet mysteries, fictional investigations, ARG-like cases or something else entirely.

Make your own cases

You can also create and publish investigations yourself.

A case can contain text, images, documents, audio, questions, links and other material. You decide what the player receives at the beginning, what they have to find themselves and what they need to figure out before they can move forward.

Once it is ready, publish it to Steam Workshop for other people to investigate.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

We used AI to generate mock data during development, and the developers also used AI-assisted tools for parts of the code. However, we do not use AI in the production version of the project.

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

The game itself does not contain any depictions or references to violence, murder, or other 18+ content. However, user-created content available through the Steam Workshop may include such material, so please be aware that this type of content could theoretically appear.

System Requirements

Windows
macOS
SteamOS + Linux
    Minimum:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 10 22H2, 64-bit
    • Processor: 64-bit dual-core processor
    • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Integrated graphics
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 500 MB available space
    • Additional Notes: Additional storage may be required for downloaded cases. Internet connection is required for Steam Workshop, multiplayer, and cases using online content.
    Recommended:
    • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
    • OS: Windows 11, 64-bit
    • Processor: 64-bit quad-core processor
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Integrated or dedicated graphics
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 1 GB available space
    • Additional Notes: Additional storage may be required for downloaded cases. Internet connection is required for Steam Workshop, multiplayer, and cases using online content.
    Minimum:
    • Requires an Apple processor
    • OS: MacOS 26
    • Processor: Apple M1
    • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 2 GB available space
    • Additional Notes: Additional storage may be required for downloaded cases. Internet connection is required for Steam Workshop, multiplayer, and cases using online content.
    Recommended:
    • Requires an Apple processor
    • OS: MacOS 27
    • Processor: Apple M1
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 4 GB available space
    • Additional Notes: Additional storage may be required for downloaded cases. Internet connection is required for Steam Workshop, multiplayer, and cases using online content.
    Minimum:
    • OS: Ubuntu 24.04 64-bit or equivalent
    • Processor: 64-bit processor
    • Memory: 4 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Integrated graphics
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 2 GB available space
    • Additional Notes: Requires GTK4 and WebKitGTK 6.0. Additional storage may be required for downloaded cases. Internet connection is required for Steam Workshop, multiplayer, and cases using online content.
    Recommended:
    • OS: Ubuntu 24.04 64-bit or equivalent
    • Processor: 64-bit processor
    • Memory: 8 GB RAM
    • Graphics: Integrated or dedicated graphics
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 4 GB available space
    • Additional Notes: Requires GTK4 and WebKitGTK 6.0. Additional storage may be required for downloaded cases. Internet connection is required for Steam Workshop, multiplayer, and cases using online content.
Review Filters