Hope in the City

17-year-old Hope Song thought the national exams were her biggest worry... until she got home to a ransacked apartment and two missing parents. Investigate through the eyes of an artist, turn sketches into evidence, and watch her family's mystery grow stranger and darker with every answer. Hope in the City is a narrative mystery game, set in the Chinese city of Shenyang, by the team behind the 2026 GDC Best in Play Winner Sky of Tides and the Annie Award-nominated Eternal Spring. Play as Hope, a 17-year-old girl investigating her parents' disappearance, connecting the clues and uncovering the truth hidden beneath the city's calm. NO NOTE NO WARNING You come home from school like any other day. But the house is too quiet. Your parents are gone, the apartment is in shambles. No note, no warning, no answer. Hope Song is 17, and she's just become the only person willing to ask what really happened. AN ARTIST’S EYE Hope isn't a detective. She's an artist. And that's exactly what makes her dangerous to whoever's hiding the truth. Every room holds details that don't add up: a shadow in the wrong place, an object that shouldn't be there, a lie in someone's eyes. Capture what you see as sketches in Hope's notebook. Every detail matters. FROM OBSERVATION TO TRUTH Connect what you've seen into insights, and push those insights until they crack open into breakthroughs. Piece by piece, sketch by sketch, the picture of what happened to your parents starts to take shape, and it's darker than you imagined. A CITY FULL OF SECRETS Shenyang isn't just a backdrop, it's a character of its own. Rendered in a bold, stylized art style with an edge, every street, storefront, and shadowed alley is begging to be explored. Wander past neon signs and quiet corners alike, and let the city's striking visuals pull you deeper into its secrets. WHO CAN YOU TRUST? On the surface, it's just home: familiar streets, quiet neighbors, ordinary life. But beneath Hope's peaceful existence, secrets are buried. And now it's her time to find the truth.