Black Mirror III

About Black Mirror III

Black Mirror III was made by the German studio Cranberry Production, who had made Black Mirror II two years before, and came out in 2011 (in North America as Black Mirror III: Final Fear). It closes the trilogy that began with The Black Mirror in 2003. Steam and GOG sell it for Windows, published by THQ Nordic.

The game starts where Black Mirror II stops. In the English village of Willow Creek, Darren Michaels is handcuffed and held as the main suspect in a killing. He hardly reacts. After weeks in a cell he is suddenly let go, someone having paid his bail, but the nights bring no sleep, only visions of murder and death. With most of the village against him, Darren starts again to find out what has happened to him, what his nightmares mean and what is waiting in the crypts beneath Black Mirror Castle.

It plays as a classic third-person point-and-click, with more than 100 locations and over 50 characters, and in the last part you switch between two playable characters. You talk to the villagers and the police, collect and combine a large inventory, read old books and letters, and solve mechanical puzzles and mini-games. Each puzzle has a switch to skip it, and the inventory puzzles are hard in places.

The horror is the trilogy's slow, gothic kind: rainy empty streets, a village where everyone watches you, crypts and ruins, and the Gordon curse closing in. Adventure Gamers called it a satisfying ending to the trilogy, while GameSpot found it as chilling as the earlier games but slow and hard without a walkthrough. Play the first two games before this one; the story makes little sense on its own.

How to play Black Mirror III

1. Click to walk Darren around Willow Creek and to look at, take or use things.
2. Talk to the villagers and the police about every topic for clues.
3. Scroll the inventory bar at the bottom of the screen and use items on the world or on each other.
4. Solve the mechanical puzzles and mini-games, or pull the skip switch if one stops you.
5. In the last part, switch between the two playable characters to solve puzzles together.

Tips

• Play The Black Mirror and Black Mirror II first; this one continues straight on from the second.
• Look for hidden ravens and optional hotspots if you want every bonus.
• Revisit people after each discovery; the game often waits for one missed conversation.
• Save often in separate slots.

Questions