One of the longest-running series in gaming is back for the 34th entry in 24 years

Fictional detective and crossmedia goliath Nancy Drew is back after a five-year hiatus with her 34th game since 2000.

Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Seven Keys was announced earlier this week by developer Her Interactive as a puzzler that takes us to "the historic city of Prague" to solve more crimes, according to the reveal trailer's description. This time, we're after a client's stolen heirloom necklace and some puzzles, encrypted riddles, and scattered clues will lead us to it. 

From the looks of the trailer below, cybercrimes and beeping tech are now "entwined with medieval legends, alchemy," and rusted artifacts that the Czech Republic should probably put back. We don't actually see our titular girlboss in most of these games, I recently found out, but various suspects are on show to do their best Bethesda NPC impressions.  

Nancy Drew isn't a mainstay in my own life, but it's hard not to be in awe of her cross-dimensional shifts as she's stepped across hundreds of novels, a fair share of films, TV adaptations, comic books, and again, 34 whole video games. Despite being 94 years old, my only exposure to the amateur sleuth was from the 2007 Emma Roberts film that took our small-town girl to big Hollywood. Maybe it's time to change that.

Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Seven Keys comes out on May 7, 2024 - you can grab it and the other 33 games in the series over on Steam. 

Already played the 33 Nancy Drew games? Check out our best puzzle games and best visual novel games lists for more recommendations.

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