The Case of The Golden Idol Redux announced, free update for existing owners

The Case of the Golden Idol is getting a little bit of a makeover.

Developer Color Gray Games has detailed a new Redux version of its detective murder mystery game, and it's set for Steam and Switch.

This Redux version of Case of the Golden Idol will overhaul the game's UI and add a new hint system. It will also offer 13 new localisations, readability and save improvements, and "dozens more" quality-of-life changes. All of this will make for a "much more seamless and enjoyable experience", the developer said, particularly highlighting Steam Deck.

"In the spirit of making sure every version of The Case of the Golden Idol is the definitive version to play," Color Gray Games wrote, "we will ship a free update that will provide all of these enhancements to the original Golden Idol experience on Steam".

It reiterated that everyone who already owns the game will receive these upgrades free of charge, when it goes live. As for when that will be, that's 10th October.

From that day, those on Steam will "receive a prompt when launching the game asking which version they wish to play". If players choose to go down the Redux release route, they will be able to transfer progress from the original to the Redux version of Case of the Golden Idol.

On the console side of things, the developer noted Xbox and PlayStation players won't notice any changes, as the game is already built on the Redux version for these platforms.

It's a bit different for Switch players, however. The studio said the original version of Case of the Golden Idol will be delisted from Nintendo's platform on 9th October, with the Redux version then taking its place.

"Anyone that owns or purchases the current version of Case on this platform before this date will retain the ability to play this version, and will be granted the Redux release of the Complete Edition free of charge," Color Gray Games said. Unlike with Steam, the Nintendo Switch does not support save transfers.

Image credit: Color Gray Games

Eurogamer was rather fond of The Case of the Golden Idol on its release in 2022, with Alexis Ong calling it an "excellent period murder-mystery".

"For me, Golden Idol's biggest triumph is the understated writing - this is a story with full-throated confidence in the player's deductive abilities, which elevates this from a basic murder-mystery game to a singular piece of narrative art," she wrote in her review.

As for the future, a sequel known as The Rise of the Golden Idol is on the cards (you can check out a trailer for it above). Our Katharine has had a shot with the sequel already. You can read her thoughts in Eurogamer's Rise of the Golden Idol's preview here.