Agatha Christie – Death on the Nile review for PC, PS5, Xbox Series X, PC

Even though I mostly enjoyed 2023’s Murder on the Orient Express, I still went into Death on the Nile with no small amount of trepidation. After all, as a longtime Agatha Christie fan, it still felt deeply weird to me the way that Microids changed her iconic detective Hercule Poirot from a fussy older Belgian to a strapping younger man. Would it be any less odd this time around?

Nope, not even close. In fact, if anything Death on the Nile is even weirder, since this time around the game is set in the 1970s. While that may be closer in time to the Poirot of the books than the more modern take in Murder in the Orient express, in Death on the Nile the weirdness quotient is dramatically increased by the way the game really wants you to know that it’s set in the ‘70s. That means lots of thumping disco music, afros, leisure suits, and all kinds of other markers of the era. It’s all a very long way from the interwar period that largely defined Christie’s reputation.

It’s not the setting that’s the problem with Death on the Nile, though – it’s Poirot. A core part of his character is the way everyone sees him as a slightly doddering, very vain retiree. It’s not a Poirot mystery unless someone remarks about how the detective used to be great, but it’s clear that the years have caught up with him and he’s started to slip – inevitably before he uses his little grey cells to wrap up the entire case in a neat little now, in no small part thanks to the way people underestimate him. It’s hard to imagine anyone looking at this version of Poirot and having the same reaction. Sure, the mustache is as luxurious as you could hope for, but the rest of the package is all wrong.

So Death on the Nile makes for a lousy Agatha Christie adaptation. How is it taken on its own merits?

On that front, it’s pretty much your standard point-and-click mystery. The story is okay – it can fall back on the Christie classic, so how could it not be? – but the game often feels kind of aimless. You spend a lot of time doing fiddly little puzzles, trying to find just the right spot to eavesdrop on conversations, and doing other tasks that too often feel like they’re just there to pad the length of the game. On the flip side, however, it should be noted that the game makes very good use of its mind map, expecting players to follow the conversations and make deductions from there – hardly difficult ones, mind you, but enough that you’ll need to keep up with what’s going on.

Which is to say: Death on the Nile isn’t a must-play adventure, but it’s at least generally tolerable – which is more than can be said about it as an Agatha Christie adaptation. On that front, it fails, so if that’s why you’re interested in it, prepare for disappointment. Still, if you’re fond of point-and-click mysteries, there’s probably enough here to be interesting.

Microids provided us with an Agatha Christie – Death on the Nile PC code for review purposes.