Deadly Premonition

Deadly Premonition is a survival horror game set in an open world environment and played from an over-the shoulder third-person perspective. The game's objective is to guide the player character, FBI Special Agent Francis York Morgan, as he investigates the identity of the Raincoat Killer, who is responsible for a murder in the rural town of Greenvale. York receives in-game money for numerous actions—both for finishing levels and for minor events, such as shaving his beard or changing suits; he can also be fined for poor performance, such as wearing a filthy outfit, which attracts flies. Additionally, he requires food and sleep at regular intervals, as indicated by the gauges measuring his hunger and neediness for sleep.

If his gauge for sleepiness reaches zero, he will become hungry far more quickly and his heartbeat gauge will increase much faster when running; if his gauge for hunger depletes, he will begin to lose health until he dies. Sleeping restores his health and tiredness, while food and items used to ward off sleepiness, such as coffee, can be purchased from stores in Greenvale.

Deadly Premonition is set in the world in which good and evil are spread by the messengers influenced by the Forest and Red Tree respectively. Contrasting pairs play a role in the game, such as "good and evil, reality and abnormality, earthly life and eternal life, day and night, criminals and victims, the forest and the red tree, and twins and dual personalities". Throughout the game, the protagonist, Francis York Morgan (Jeff Kramer), periodically visits two supernatural rooms: the White Room and the Red Room. The White Room represents a normal subconscious, while the Red Room represents one influenced by evil.

FBI Special Agent Francis York Morgan investigates the murder of 18-year-old Anna Graham (Melissa Hutchison) in the rural town of Greenvale, Washington, in the United States. He takes on the case due to the manner of the killing: a ritualistic murder of a young woman where red seeds have been found on or near the body, similar to a series of other murders across the United States. York generates considerable friction with his dismissive attitude toward the locals, bizarre demeanor, and tendency to interrupt conversations to deliver asides to an unseen person referred to as "Zach". He is assisted by the town's sheriff George Woodman (Casey Robertson), who is scarred by a past of childhood abuse; the deputy sheriff Emily Wyatt (Rebecca Wink), who becomes a love interest for York; and Thomas MacLaine (Christopher Sullivan), George's meek assistant. Additionally, York finds himself regularly ambushed and attacked by the Raincoat Killer, who, according to the folklore of the town, kills only when it rains.

Deadly Premonition originates from Rainy Woods, a game that Access Games began work on in fall 2004. A design document was produced in September 2004, followed by the project's start in March 2005. The prototype was assessed in October, as was an alpha iteration in March 2006. A trailer for Rainy Woods debuted in September 2007, promoting the title as a multi-platform game for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles during the Tokyo Game Show; it featured the "young and very cynical" FBI Special Agent David Young Henning as its protagonist.

Several video game journalists noted that the title shared strong similarities with the American supernatural television series Twin Peaks. Rainy Woods was cancelled soon after its debut, due to considerable "technological difficulties" with the two platforms' hardware, including memory allocation and lighting.

In North America, Deadly Premonition led sales of Xbox 360 games on Amazon for the week of April 9, 2010, temporarily overtaking higher-profile releases such as Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Mass Effect 2, and Left 4 Dead 2. 50,000 copies of Deadly Premonition were sold in North America during the first three months after its debut. According to an interview with Suehiro in February 2013, the original release of the game has not been commercially successful.

The original version of Deadly Premonition for Xbox 360 received a weighted average score of 68/100 from aggregator Metacritic, indicating "mixed or average" reception. It is a critically polarizing game, with scores ranging from as low as two out of ten from IGN US, to as high as ten out of ten from Destructoid. In the 2012 Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition, Deadly Premonition holds the record as the "Most Critically Polarizing Survival Horror Game".