DLCMurders on the Yangtze River Original SoundtrackLoading store offers
Murders on the Yangtze River
The appeal of Murders on the Yangtze River is piecing together scene details and testimony rather than simply following a plot. At the current low, ≈ $4.08 at 
Kinguin may suit you if you enjoy weighing clues and exposing contradictions across linked cases. The Steam PC version supports full controller input, and its interface is available in English and both Chinese scripts. At Kinguin, the game is ≈ $4.08; Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and English are the interface options to consider before buying.
KinguinMurders on the Yangtze River PC Steam CD KeyAll-time low ~ $8.99across Steam & third-party storesat the recorded all-time low
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $4.062026-07Current Low Across Stores~ $14.99Kinguinvs. Historical Low+269%
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
DLC
01About Murders on the Yangtze River
In early-20th-century China, detective John Shen travels along the Yangtze to solve baffling cases and investigate his brother’s death. Examine crime scenes, gather evidence, question suspects, and find contradictions in testimony to reach conclusions through logic. Steam players rate it 96% from 15,914 reviews. Released January 30, 2024. Interface languages: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, and English.
Credits
Developer
OMEGAMES STUDIO
Publisher
OMEGAMES STUDIO · NPC Entertainment
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$4.062026-07-30 · KinguinBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Traditional Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| English | Yes | Yes | — |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-19
02Before you buy
Play style
The Steam PC version has full controller support and is a single-player detective game built around examining scenes, gathering evidence, and challenging testimony.
Languages
Interface text and subtitles are available in English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. Full audio is available in Simplified Chinese.
03Frequently asked questions
What is the story about?
You play traveling detective John Shen, investigating cases along the Yangtze. The main story begins with his brother’s death, which the police ruled a suicide.
What do you do while investigating?
Inspect crime scenes, find evidence, question suspects, and spot contradictions in testimony to solve cases through deduction.
Where does the game take place?
The game is set in early 20th-century China and visits places including Dongting Lake, Yangzhou, and Shanghai.
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
As the years between new Ace Attorney releases get larger and larger it's very uplifting to see more and more indie studios try to fill the gaps in between the wait. Murders on the Yangtze River is the newest who dun it murder mystery game with heavy influences to said franchise, but it also manages to establish an identity of its own through a cute artstyle, rich descriptions of Chinese culture and a style of pacing that helps the structure of each of it's 6 cases feel unpredictable. It's not just Ace Attorney that influenced this game. Yangtze River is clearly appreciative of all sorts of murder mysteries, taking the time to detail a rigid unlock able glossary detailing murder methods, court systems, autopsy methods and more. The studio also constantly takes the time to mention great detective novels of the past like Holmes and uses China's fascination of murder mystery in the early 20th century to set the tone for several of the games characters. There is a true love of the craft here and that's just great to see. As such the murders the player will discover feel rather well crafted in terms of complexity and structure. Cases 3 and 4 particularly used some neat tricks that may have the potential to rival some of the great murder mystery games out there for some. The downside is that OMEGAMES studio possesses SUCH an intelligent grasp of murder, forensics and history, that if often lets itself get over immersed in the smaller details behind HOW many things can happen that it runs the risk of alienating the player to the simple executions of its actual crimes. It also doesn't use visual aids as often as it should to help show the player exactly how these crimes are being committed. As such there were a few cases when I only understood about 90% of what actually had happened by the end. And while we'll touch on this later, the translation itself also doesn't do the game any favors when these moments happen. Also while the murders are interesting, the grander narrative that this game tries to build, while leading to an interesting place, feels like it constantly gets derailed by other unrelated cases on the way, only really building the details of its larger narrative by the games final two chapters and without feeling like there was enough setup to make the payoff feel as great as it could. Still, the ride to the conclusion will still be worth taking, although it seems likely that the team would like to create a sequel to continue furthering its characters. Speaking of which, while Shen, Ah Fu and Wen K'e are certainly leads worth rooting for, the supporting cast sometimes feel like they lack the same eccentric personalities that you'll find in AA or Danganronpa that can often keep you from connecting or caring about them as much because often times, these supporting characters will feel like no more than cogs in the machine of a murder mystery, here to deliver one fact and then be gone for good. It would be nice if the game took a page from Ah Fu (Who is easily the games strongest character) to get more characters to pop. Still, the games not without a handful of good ones, and in one instance a cases twist actually bummed me out because I found that I cared more than I realized. The only other thing worth noting is a plot device of Shen's character that is hinted at throughout the story that in my opinion goes absolutely nowhere and is easily the most disappointing part of his character. The art style is very much its own, reminding me of the cutesy looking characters from something like a vanillaware game with a much smaller budget. When the game uses its models to depict crime reenactments I find the style to be at its best as the models almost feel like toys playing out the crime. The artwork for the close ups is also good, and occasionally takes AA influence to give repeat animations for characters like Ah Fu smiling, or looks of agony when an incriminating piece of evidence is presented to a suspect. You won't find anything close to a classic breakdown sadly. The music is also good but may lack a Showstopping track that you'll want to play over and over. Though the "objection" theme and the studios take on a "cornered" theme definitely come close. The logic and gameplay itself are also quite good. While Tyrion Cuthbert, an indie game from last year borrowed heavily from the original AA trilogy, Yangtze takes a closer approach to something like the spin-off duology Ace Attorney Investigations. Keeping you (for most of the game anyways) out of court, closely examining crime scenes, interrogating suspicious people and even occasionally solving some light puzzles like measuring out a liquid formula, or connecting a series of light switches. In fact while you will Cross Examine people several times, you may be surprised to find that it doesn't happen quite as often as you might expect. This keeps the game play variety rather fresh and often times a game play sequence won't even repeat itself. It's certainly one of the more varied murder mysteries out there. The logic itself while not impossible to follow, will require a fair amount of brute forcing and in one instance a puzzle that required me to pick out multiple pieces of evidence at once to theorize how a murder device was created, tipped me over to my only use of a guide (or since one doesn't exist at the time of this review a community post). Stick with it however, and you'll appreciate the variety. However perhaps the extra brute forcing came from the games biggest problem. While this game is certainly worth your time, if English is the only language you speak, then a rather muddy translation may stifle your ability to get full appreciation from the stories largest moments. It's a problem that goes beyond simple grammatical errors and punctuation. Character names change from basic English names, to their best translated Chinese names randomly throughout the story making it often difficult to keep track of which characters are being referred to. Sometimes the game will refer to the Protagonist as Chung Shen and other times John. Sometimes his assistanat Ah Fu will be referred to as Franklin and the player is just left to interpret who it is, that the game is referring to. On top of this, when details are left to the specifics, the translation can often struggle to fully explain what it's trying to say. I recall multiple instances of a murderers motive being difficult to understand through the translation because sometimes the lines just don't flow like the proper spoken English language. Characters will speak about the person they are speaking to as though they are not even there VERY often, words will double up on themselves, and sometimes I just flat out have no idea what the game is trying to say. (Also I encountered a SINGLE line of untranslated dialogue in the second case.) It is FAR from a deal breaker as one can still understand the gist of the story and reach the end without many problems, but the lack of polish in the translation WILL keep some from being fully immersed, and probably kept this from being a truly memorable experience that i'll be playing over and over. This is a small team who have indicated from the start if players detect any problems they should let them know. While I feel that the issues with translation may go beyond simply identifying key errors and realistically could benefit from an enhanced translation altogether, to speak on this any further would be insensitive to the level of passion that was clearly put into this game. Murders on the Yangtze River is not the best indie murder mystery game I've played but it is DEFINITELY one of the most passionate ones. If you can't get enough of murder mysteries then the games 15-16 hours of sleuthing will be a worthy addition to any ones murder mystery collection...Just be prepared to deal with a rough translation if English is your only language.Show moreShow less
15.5 hours at review63 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
--90% of the game is pretty fun. The setting (early 1900s Qing China) is a lot of fun, the cases flow together, the game looks and sounds very good, and a bunch of the side characters are excellent. Aside from the factory case, the cases aren’t particularly boring. It's a Chinese Ace Attorney game with generally lame case solutions. --The other 10% is terrible. You'll be blindly guessing a lot because the “solutions” are frequently unfair, ludicrous or impossible. There's too many plotlines and killers that don't make any sense at all. --Quality of life disclaimer: none of the cases involve an accomplice. All of the cases involve a sole killer, but usually not a killer that makes sense. In the riverboat case, the killer is intimately familiar with the ship's machinery so it's clear a crewmate is involved. The murders also incorporate amazing feats of sleight of hand, which strongly points to the suspect hiding they are a stage magician. In a good game, the case solution has to involve a crewmate and the magician, right? Spoiler: this game is not good. In particular, the riverboat case hinges on a magical waitress having like 8 rare skills which make zero sense for a 15 year old to have and which are not mentioned or even hinted at during the investigation. --So many characters randomly act out-of-character for their background or abilities. In a good game, if a killer bludgeons a man to death and then drags his body across a factory floor by hand, we reasonably should be able to rule out anyone physically weak. In this game, nope it's a scholarly accountant who had been planning this kill for some time and apparently forgot any plausible weapon or way to move the body. And also he traps himself in a part of the factory where he can only escape when a coworker happens to leave an unscheduled escape route open. Oops. All earthly logic here points to the killer having an accomplice to work the escape route, but remember, neither accomplices nor earthly logic factor in this game. --At one point, the game asks you who could have committed a series of kills where a killer took a tremendous risk to plant ~6 "you will be murdered" declaration cards on live targets in a crowded room. In a good game, we'd reasonably assume we're dealing with a killer with unusual sleight-of-hand and theatricality, like the suspect hiding that they're a literal ****ing stage magician but instead our miracle killer is a random ~15 year old crewhand? Who's working as a waitress? Who plants the murder cards while taking orders at a table... when everyone is looking at her... which is what people usually do when waiters approach a table.. making this just about the worst opportunity on the boat for approaching 6 people with as little attention as possible. --There are way too many places where a crime requires unusual mental or physical ability to have been executed like it was, and the game expects you to accept that an entirely implausible character has it, without setting it up at all. Like, there's one character whose murder scheme is unusually convoluted, hinging on time of death analysis, and sets this all up in a semi-improvised manner, and works in a job where an exotically convoluted crime would be extremely weird. The only indication that this person is mentally unusual is that there's one sentence mentioning that he/she used to go to boarding school. This is not great. At one point, the 15 year old magic waitress ~improvises a plan trying to trick everyone that the ship is in a different location by NOT slowing down when the captain calls the engine room to slow down by 50% in a fog, and then committing a murder in the engine room while this is happening. Without any plan for "what if the captain notices that the ship is moving literally double the speed he wants, in a notoriously dangerous foggy area where only a madman would be okay moving at full speed?" or "what if the captain has literally ANY tool for measuring speed or the engine settings, such as ears, or eyes." --At one point, a character kills a martial artist by attacking him with a frontal strike, with a hairpin. You might be expecting... a desperate unplanned self-defense? Someone unbelievably confident in their combat skills, or a stealthy operator? Nope, it's the magic 15 year old waitress again, she PLANNED a kill with a hairpin. The martial artist lets her kill him without resisting/dodging because he's guilt-stricken about having betrayed her years before, but what was her plan if he WASN'T okay letting her stab him to death? "Just gonna die", I guess. You know, most killers DON'T blindly assume they will have the complete cooperation of the victim, #1 because that's stupid and #2 in general, if you have a murder list, it's best to start with the victims you hate the most and are the easiest to kill*. This martial artist, who you can only kill if he genuinely is so contrite that he'd let you do it, is neither. *I've heard they teach this at boarding school. --At one point, the detective guesses that the ninja waitress will still have the hairpin on her because he thinks she hasn't had an opportunity to dispose of it. While on a boat. In a fogstorm. With 6+ people she has already successfully sleight-of-handed. To make him sound less stupid here, I'd have him skip to "the killer OBVIOUSLY could have quietly disposed of the weapon, but I don't think they did. They chose this weapon for sentimental reasons and I suspect they kept it for same." (If you want to be very flowery, this killer's as sentimentally attached to her one last family possession as a samurai's katana or a Gurkha's kukri, of course she wasn't going to throw it away). --The first case is great. This is genuinely an excellent example of a killer that is definitely improvising. It's clever and smooth. I enjoyed it very much. --The English version does a good job avoiding annoying or hard-to-read dialects, but I'd suggest going lighter on the chemist's Elizabethan/Shakespearean dialect. This character's in the 1900s, there's no obvious reason he'd sound like Frog from Chrono Trigger. (If thou knowest, thou knowest). The game mentions that the character's accent is useful for suggesting that he didn't write the suicide letter, but we could figure that out without the accent... a European chemist would probably not be familiar with the the Chinese mythology/folklore referenced in the suicide letter, and also classical Chinese calligraphy is pretty hard I've heard. (Then again, there's also no reason to think a random crewhand can sleight-of-hand six people, or would come up with an elaborate plan to fake the order of deaths or the ship's location, and an English chemist randomly revealing that he's also a classical Chinese calligrapher would not be the most ridiculous case solution in this game.).Show moreShow less
77.8 hours at review29 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
So far I have only played Case 1 of the demo, which is in English, and loved it so much that I went straight to purchase the full game hopeful that it was actually in English. Devs are estimating that the English version will be released in March so, for now, I'll wait until it's released. Based off the demo this game is a must if you're a fan of Ace Attorney, I'm very excited to play the full version next month!Show moreShow less
0.1 hours at review61 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Chinese Phoenix Wright, but wait a bit to get this one. The English translation is like trying to read a poorly translated webtoon and is full of typos and grammatical errors. I knew there were gonna be some issues early on, especially when I saw the typo "offcier" in the very first chapter. But I'm a slow reader, and they had one section, a "debate" format that cropped up in chapter 3, where it was just rapid fire, back and forth conversation between two characters and then you have to choose from 3 similar sounding options while the other person is still going off on their argument or you'll get a mark against you for taking too long to make a decision (no countdown warning) or for choosing the wrong option. It already takes a little extra time to process what some sentences are trying to say due to the translation, so to then force a speedy response was just obnoxious. Aside from that, there was a "doubt" that triggered early and told me how a dead body didn't seem to have anything to do with "the missing bottle of red wine" before I knew there WAS a missing bottle... And there's a time when you need to realize that an object is the reverse image of another object, meaning there's two of them... but the characters' images... are flipped depending on which way they're facing... so like... a person will have a scar on one eye, and then it'll be over the other eye... or broken glasses change which lens is broken... So having a clue like that... while I VERY HESITANTLY guessed correctly, is not well designed... On top of that, there was apparently an update to fix some of the English translations a little while ago... I'm guessing that's when they changed "Dan" to "Old Chao". How do I know his name was Dan before? "No, there's even no need to write on the wall, as there is an abunOld Chaoce of paper in the office." "It is indeed more laborious and Old Chaogerous to work on the factory floor than in a laboratory." (Also known as why people should never push the "Replace All" button) So my review is: wait a bit. I'm going to wait a bit, as well, before trying to get the remaining achievements, especially because some of the ones I didn't get are in Chinese, so I have no idea what they're saying...Show moreShow less
21.8 hours at review23 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Absolutely loved it. Writing is good, for the most part finding the right answer is possible within reason (even if I didn't in many cases, it made sense in retrospective), and the few occasions that required slightly more far-fetched reasoning were not experience-breaking. The game is also very forgiving, you barely have to redo anything when you "die" and retry. There is a surprising diversity of mechanics, some are similar, some are not as great as others, but none of them drag for long nor become drilling or repetitive. Personally, I think the best part of the game is the depth of the historical context, not just the little notes of historical information you get from time to time (which are great), but how that context is part of the plot and is reflected in the various (and also fairly diverse) characters in the story. The complexity and detail in the steel foundry setting was fascinating. The weakest point may be the English translation. It's not terrible by any means, but it generally takes the same style as the subtitles of Asian TV shows, if you have ever watched any of that. It's fine and understandable, but has certain mannerisms that are just not usually seen in common dialogue in English. It also had a few mistakes, although fairly minor. Played it through on my Steam Deck with no issues or bugs whatsoever.Show moreShow less
17 hours at review52 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
As a huge fan of murder mystery games and novels, and someone who one day hopes to write their own detective stories, this is a bit of a difficult review to write. Overall, this game is very good, but plagued by a few small issues and one huge problem which I will discuss last. This review contains spoilers. First, I'll say this: After completing all 11 Ace Attorney games, the danganronpa games, and a couple other more well-known murder mystery visual novels / games, I genuinely began to struggle to find any detective games worth their salt. Most have no logical deduction segments whatsoever (The few that do, like Rain Code, either have ridiculously easy logical segments or poorly designed nonsensical ones), featuring only straightforward investigation sections or simple point and click puzzles, combined with a bad thriller plot. Finally, I feel like I found a game that is not one of those. While the logical segments aren't really that difficult, most are at least challenging enough to be fun. The tricks described are also pretty interesting overall (With a few exceptions like the locked room in chapter one, where the "pretending the room is locked" trick is as basic as it gets). The historical setting is another strong point. Throughout the game, you acquire bits and pieces of forensic and historical knowledge that are always fun to read through. While I have to admit that I don't know much about chinese history, you can tell that the developers put a lot of love into their research of the subject. The background art and music are pretty great too. Now to get into the bad: The elephant in the room is the translation: It's not stellar. While it definitely has gotten a hell of a lot better with updates to the game, you'll still notice a few glaring issues here and there. But unlike some other translated VN's that I've played, it's still more than playable. However, I did also notice that a couple English voice lines seem to be done with AI. Sometimes the game will jump from an AI line to a real voice actor while the same character is still speaking. However, I won't fault the devs for this since the credits show they hired an external studio, but I feel like it decreases the quality of the game somewhat. However, all issues I mentioned above are pretty minor and I would have ended this review on a positive note were it not for the following: In the game's main mystery, a mechanical trick is used to create a locked room where a morse code strip and a phonograph reel the key back to the victim's hand. I remembered seeing the exact same trick (The only difference being that a film strip and reel were used instead) in the Kindaichi Case Files (Case series, Case 2 Kēsu Ni Ginmaku no Satsujinki). At first I didn't think anything of it, since murder mystery authors end up having similar ideas all the time (I once remember discussing unpublished ideas on a discord server and a complete stranger revealed being in the process of writing the exact same idea I had proposed). The real worth of a detective novel is how you expand and develop on that core trick. However, I then noticed that a set of candles mimicking a constellation was also used as part of the mechanism, which was literally the exact same as the one in the manga, and that hardly struck me as a possible coincidence. The final nail in the coffin was seeing the Kindaichi Case Files being listed as one of the works the authors liked and were inspired by. This is the only reason why I'm leaving a negative review for an otherwise pretty good game. Seeing one instance of this happening kind of breaks my faith that the same has not happened through the rest of the story, even if I'd like to believe that that's not the case.Show moreShow less
11.6 hours at review22 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
This game is worth the price for the following reasons alone; • The voice acting is stellar. The English characters speak English (and/or Mandarin with a thick accent) and vice versa. Very immersive. I don't speak Mandarin but I assume it's just as good or better than the English. • The localization isn't perfect. Far from it. But no mistakes are glaring enough to detract from enjoying the game. (The developer offers to work on it when given feedback through E-mail, but there's honestly too many MINOR errors to really list it all off in a single e-mail. I would gladly correct the erroneous text if provided with a complete dialog file, though! Hit me up. Making this already great game even better is worth it to me.) • The game plays great and the 'who-dun-it' riddles are very well written. • Dialog (ignoring the translation errors) is fantastic. • As opposed to many other Chinese games on the market, there is very little CCP propaganda. It didn't rear up its head until the end credits, and it was very minor. I can recommend this game to anyone who likes the following: • Ace Attorney games or similar. • Logic puzzles. • Educational content. • A good overarching plot. • Unraveling a mystery. All in all, the game will entertain you for about 12-15 hours if you're playing leisurely. Each of the 6 chapters should last you about 2-3 hours. My playtime is ballooned due to leaving the game running while I was away. Oops. I'm very hard to please, but this title was worth every penny.Show moreShow less
42.5 hours at review41 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I've finished solving 3 cases, and so far the game mechanics is okay, and I also enjoyed very much reading the detailed historically accurate lore. However I must also criticize about the way the plots are planned because I think this is the biggest flaw, not just to this game, but also to the detective genre. In general, I think there are plots in the game when the protagonist arrives at a conclusion, it lacks a logical thinking to back up his decision, but rather the plot exists for the sake of creating a plot twist. For example, one of the game mechanics involves asking the player to point out a contradiction between existing evidences and the witness statement. Often times the correct choice gives an impression that it makes no sense, because the game gives you A (the evidence), and C (the conclusion), but it never gives you B for you to connect the dot. As a result, it gives the impression that the correct choice is correct simply because the developer wants it that way. Also I played the Chinese version, and the writing is misleading sometimes, asking you to point out A but in fact the game is asking for B. I get flashbacks from work while playing the game because that's how my delusional boss operates. I lost count how many times I said "wtf...that's not what you said" while playing the game. In conclusion, buy only if you are looking for a game full of plot twists, but don't really care whether they make sense or not. This is a game similar to LA Noire, it's a game role playing as detective, not playing as an actual detective. *EDIT: I read a lot of reviews commenting on how good this game's deduction reasoning is. I want to add that rather than deductive reasoning, it's more of pattern recognition. As I mentioned above, this game often gives you A (the evidence) and C (the conclusion), but never gives you B (the correct references) to connect the dot. As a result, the game forces us to retreat back to our experiences with the mass media, searching for similar plots we have seen in the past, and then proceed to guess the correct answer. In short, this game's logic feels jumpy because it doesn't always provide the required references for players to solve the mysteries. If you want to experience real deductive reasoning, I would recommend Return of the Obra Dinn. The entire game is a string of deductive reasoning practices, although probably too much.Show moreShow less
6.3 hours at review12 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
If you guys make another one of these point-and-click detective games but set during the Tang Dynasty or Song or Han or whatever, I will love you foreverrrrr. I want to play as Di Renjie (狄仁傑) during China's golden era!Show moreShow less
1.9 hours at review37 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
案子中的推理过程中对话上下文逻辑性不足（尤其是辩论和一部分质询），部分证物的逻辑严密性一般，存在必须反复试错的环节。达不到侦探类游戏的及格水准。 ——另外对第三个案子，多说一句，好好做游戏，别没事贩卖爱国主义春药。汉阳铁厂采买外煤是因为初试的时候马鞍山的煤矿问题，时间问题必须紧急采买。尔后质量问题是铁矿石含磷量高和高炉品类（炼制方法）不匹配，解决方法就是重买高炉。这是两件不同的事情，不存在附加铁矿石去磷工序及需要买外煤的问题，后面汉阳煤矿也是用萍乡的煤矿。技术错误的弯路和使用煤矿的来源汉阳铁厂和尔后武钢的白纸黑字有材料的。 瞎编操弄爱国主义情绪，既与事实不符，唐突前人，还无视逻辑，抹黑自己。有点突破下限。Show moreShow less
5.1 hours at review12 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.