Gaming: Upcoming Tr-49 Review
Inkle builds a weirdo computer for the ages, then let you use it to solve a beautifully-written mystery. Outstanding.
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What is it? The most tense database search of your life. Release date Jan 21, 2026Expect to pay TBADeveloper InklePublisher InkleReviewed on Asus ROG AllySteam Deck TBALink Official site
It’s set entirely in a damp crypt. All you do is jam four-digit codes into a machine. It’s got a title only slightly more marketable than 'Mindseye 2: The Randy Pitchford Cut’. And it’s so good that you’re honestly lucky I’m not currently throwing a Steam Deck at you and forcing you to play it.
If those stakes sound severe, they’ve got nothing on what poor Abbi is going through. She’s the unfortunate protagonist of TR-49, stuck in the underbelly of a cathedral with nothing but a mysterious machine for company. At least she’s got it easier than William, the man upstairs keeping watch while also offering occasional advice. Though he’s far more frequently offering pleas to hurry up and use the machine before they get caught by the murderers hunting them down.
Sorry to sideline your boring problems, William, but what a machine! I visited Bletchley Park on a school trip once and got bored, ungrateful millenial cretin that I am. Fortunately, Inkle got inspired instead and has crafted something delightfully esoteric. It’s like a code breaker, library archive, record player, and super-satisfying lever pull rolled into one.
The machine is full of books that have been ‘fed’ into it by its eccentric inventor. Your initial goal is to find a specific book. Unfortunately, just having the book title won’t help you much. You can only search via a four-character keypad, always consisting of two letters and two numbers, which is why they called the game TR-49 (and presumably made their marketing team burst into tears in the process).
Authors have been uploaded by their initials and the year the work was published. So if someone uploaded this review into the machine you’d find it under AS-26. But say the uploader left a note underneath saying “not as bizarre as her positive review of that Pac-Man Metroidvania the year before”. That clue would take you to AS-25 where you’d learn the terrifying truth of how high I overscored Shadow Labyrinth, and perhaps more clues within th
Source: PC Gamer
