This murder mystery farm sim will let you accidentally romance the killer, but I might just do it on purpose
In case yesterday's spooky Stardew-like game wasn't enough for you, don't worry, there's another one. Grave Seasons is also a cute farming sim where you start putting down roots in the countryside, dating around, and—wait, hold on—finding out that there's been a streak of murders in town. You know, like small town farmers do every Tuesday.
I was psyched by the concept of Grave Seasons when I first heard about it but at the time you basically had to go surfing through the creative director's posts to learn anything about it. As of this week, Grave Seasons has a proper trailer and a shiny new Steam page that has, well, a little more information on it at least.
"You escaped jail and managed to make it to Ashenridge, but at what cost?" says developer Perfect Garbage on the store page, which is a hell of a backstory compared to the usual inheriting property from a relative bit that farm sims do. "Build your farm, fish and mine, and explore the unknowns of a strange, ancient town all while romancing the secretive local townsfolk. Just make sure you stop the supernatural murders before it’s too late in Grave Seasons, an all-new murder mystery farming sim RPG!"
The trailer up above really gets the horror vibes across with some kind of shadowy supernatural attack by the light of a streetlamp and a very bloody victim getting dragged deep into the woods. Instead of just some normal human murderer it seems like Ashenridge is home to some kind of werebeast killer. I joked last year that it seemed like the farm sim version of Werewolf to me and I may have been more right than anticipated.
Oh, and for another twist: you might accidentally romance the killer before you figure out who it is. Or maybe you'll do it on purpose, just a thought.
In some now deleted posts, creative director Son M had previously described some randomization in who the killer would be each time you begin a game. The new store page doesn't reference that element though, so best to wait and see if it's still on the table.
Perfect Garbage is still referring to Grave Seasons as in "early development" so there's no release date yet, but you can follow and wishlist it on Steam to get updates instead of trawling through clues on social media. If you do want to do a little digging though, you can find the studio posting introduction videos to Grave Seasons' characters on TikTok.