Detectives United: Origins

Detectives United: Origins is the first installment in the Detectives United series by Elephant Games. It's also the first crossover game from the company.

Various mystical artifacts have been stolen by someone called the Collector. Three skillful detectives must join forces in order to stop his evil plan.

Plot
"Miss Shade? It's the Queen of the United Kingdom. I beg your pardon for disturbing you personally. I need your best detective for a very delicate matter."

Dorian Brown, a special agent in the Mystery Trackers, is sent to the Royal Palace by the request of the Queen. One of the royal treasures is missing and the Queen wants the best detective for the case. While examining the crime scene, he meets James Blackthorne, a detective and expert on paranormal activities. His family's signet ring, which contains an important artifact, has been stolen. He comes to the palace when he learns that one of the mystery artifacts belongs to the Queen. As they search for clues, they receive a threatening note from "The Collector," claiming that he's hiding in Black Swan Clinic on Black Isle.

At Black Swan Clinic, Agent Brown and James meet Anna Gray, a private detective who has the ability to travel through time. Like the Queen and James, her family artifact has also been stolen and her investigation leads her here. The three agree to work together; Agent Brown and James search for more clues here while Anna conducts the investigation in the past. In the town of Raincliff, Anna finds the Collector's house. His real name is Theodore Alphardi; he was a successful pharmacist and chemist, and members of Agent Brown's distant family approached him about curing a strange condition which afflicted certain family members. Another distant relative, the crime boss known as Headless, threatened Alphardi to get him to drop the case; when he refused, his wife Maria and their six-year-old twins were murdered by Headless's men. Alphardi succumbed to despair and began searching for a way to bring them back. He learned of the existence of five jewels with supernatural powers, and that if they were to be combined, they would form an artifact called the Reality Cube which could accomplish his goal. The items he stole from James, Anna, and the Queen each contain one of the gemstones, and he only needs to find the remaining two. Anna is about to go back to her own time when the Collector appears. The partially assembled artifact has allowed him to travel through time, and he uses it to close the portal through which she was about to return to her point of origin. In a last act of desperation, she's able to pass Richard's skull through the portal to the waiting James and Agent Brown.

In the present, Richard's ghost appears. He tells Agent Brown and James to perform a special ritual to open a portal to the past and bring Anna back. After she shares her discovery with the men, they move to the Freedom Hotel, the Collector's next destination. But they are too late; the Collector's already recovered the artifact here, and he uses the cube to disarm his foes. Agent Brown is knocked unconscious, while James is badly wounded. After Anna and Richard help them, the team get a message from Agent Shade. Mystery Trackers headquarters in Silent Hollow is under attack as the last artifact, Azazel, is kept there. However, as the Collector is about to learn, Azazel isn't in the headquarters at all - Agent Brown, suspecting it might be of relevance to the case, took it with him when he went to investigate the Royal Palace. Prior to his joining the Mystery Trackers, Azazel was a prized possession of Agent Brown's family, so he is well acquainted with its powers.

Agent Brown reveals that he's actually an invisible man - it's a hereditary condition in his family, and it was this which his estranged relatives had asked Alphardi to find a way to cure for them. He proposes to use his invisibility to distract the Collector so that James, Anna, and Richard can attack him. The plan goes forward, but the Collector activates the Reality Cube to fight them. As the Cube is distorting reality, Richard gives a ritual goblet to Anna so that she can travel to the past. Once again in Raincliff, Anna saves Alphardi's family before Headless kills them. The history is changed, Maria Alphardi and the children are still alive, and Theodore Alphardi never becomes the Collector. The Queen thanks the team for returning her artifact. Agent Shade suggests the team need a good name, Detectives United, if they're going to continue investigate the most complicated cases together. Mystery Trackers headquarters grants the new team their own set of offices within the castle.

Bonus Chapter
James has gone to Louisiana to investigate a case of missing people at a place called the Danver Mansion. Anna and Agent Brown have not heard from him since he left, but when James is captured by the ghost of a girl named Christina, he manages to send them a distress message. They travel to the house, where Agent Brown helps Anna construct the ritual that will send her back in time to rescue James. Using an amulet from Richard, Anna is able to defeat the spirit and bring James back to the present. The three of them head back to the office while a mysterious man watches.

Characters

 * Dorian Brown: Mystery Trackers special agent from Mystery Trackers series.
 * James Blackthorne: paranormal expert and detective from Haunted Hotel series.
 * Anna Gray: private investigator from Grim Tales series. She can time travel using personal objects.
 * Richard Gray: Anna's father. His soul is in the skull which Anna always carries with her.
 * The Collector: the main antagonist. He plans to restore the legendary artifact known as Venta, or the Reality Cube. His real identity is Dr. Theodore Alphardi.
 * Agent Shade: Mystery Trackers intelligence agent who acts as liaison to the three detectives on this case.
 * The Queen of United Kingdom
 * Headless: A Raincliff crime boss and distant relative of Agent Brown, who ordered the murder of Dr. Alphardi's family.
 * Maria Alphardi: Theodore's wife.
 * Christina: The spirit of an orphan child who became evil.

Connections

 * Raincliff, the setting of the Mystery Trackers installments Raincliff and Raincliff's Phantoms, is Agent Brown's hometown. Headless, the crime boss who orchestrated the murders of Maria Alphardi and her children, is a distant relative of Agent Brown's. He is also the primary antagonist of Raincliff's Phantoms.
 * At the beginning of the game, Agent Brown is shown to be writing a report about an incident in Silent Hollow. This is a reference to the Mystery Trackers installment Silent Hollow.
 * Black Isle, home of the Black Swan Clinic, is the setting of the Mystery Trackers installment Black Isle.
 * The achievements screen (in the collector's edition) includes partial newspaper clippings about 'the Butcher of the Axiom Hotel,' which is a reference to the 11th Haunted Hotel installment, The Axiom Butcher.
 * The Freedom Hotel, seen in the later part of the game, is the setting of the 14th Haunted Hotel installment, Personal Nightmare.

Trivia

 * This is the first time Elephant Games has brought any of their disparate game series together in a crossover. Origins was so well received that it allowed the sequels to receive the green light.
 * At the end of the first act, when James and Agent Brown meet Richard for the first time, a dartboard on the wall has scores underneath it. The two men were apparently playing darts to entertain themselves while Anna was investigating in the past, and Brown was beating James by a fair margin.
 * It's possible for the game to glitch in one scene at the Black Swan Clinic so that Agent Brown appears in two parts of the scene at the same time. This does not interfere with gameplay at all, but it's visually humorous. Seen here.
 * According to Theodore Alphardi's diary, his twin children are named Jack and Larry, suggesting that they are both boys. However, when the twins are actually seen, they are very clearly a boy and a girl. It may be that "Larry" is the developer's misspelling of the girl's name "Laurie."