The Rise of the Golden Idol

The Rise of the Golden Idol is a 2024 puzzle video game developed by Color Gray Games and published by Playstack for PC and console and Netflix Games for mobile platforms. It is the sequel to the 2022 game The Case of the Golden Idol. The game received generally positive reviews. There are four planned expansions to be released in 2025; the first, The Sins of New Wells, released in March.
Similar to The Case of the Golden Idol, The Rise of the Golden Idol is a puzzle video game in which players are presented with interactive scenes frozen in a point in time that depicts a murder or similar event. To complete a scene, players must interact with character dialog, objects, and texts in the scene to identify relevant keywords. These keywords are used to identify characters and complete sentences that describe the events depicted in the scene and the actions and motives of the characters. Expanding on the first game, each chapter in the game itself has one or more overarching narrative blocks that connects the event of each scene in that chapter and from earlier chapters that the player must solve to progress.
The game follows the events of its predecessor, The Case of the Golden Idol, which concerned the supernatural powers of the Golden Idol, a relic of the Lemurian empire, and its use and misuse by figures in the eighteenth century. The Rise of the Golden Idol is set in the 1970s, long after the historical use of the Golden Idol has fallen into myth. During this time, the Idol had been sold as a trinket and left on a shelf for centuries.
Initial events in the game take place in 1977. Oriel Toussaint, a patient at an insane asylum, escapes after choking a guard to death. Meanwhile, police investigate a series of deaths dubbed the 'Red Curse', due to the blood-red eyes of the victims, believed to be related to drug abuse. Isaac Nowak, a prestigious academic also discovered dead with blood-red eyes, is subject to a police cover-up to conceal the association between his case and the Red Curse.
The subsequent chapters tell the story of the preceding events presented in loose chronological order. Spiritualist Tesa Nevari, founder of the Harmony Foundation, helps convict Arthur Blythe escape prison because he knows the locations of the Idol's parts. Together, they gather parts of the Idol, including a focus crystal at a 3D drive-in theater and a statue at an auction. After they find the final part, however, Blythe tries to steal the parts from Tesa, so in retaliation, she accidentally makes him fall out a window to his death.
Tesa attempts to reconstruct the Idol and use it to perform a dubious ritual to help devotees of the Harmony Foundation find enlightenment. However, the Idol does not function both because she translated the glyphs on the Idol wrong and because it was not properly assembled. The OPIG Corporation, which had hired Tesa as a contractor, is disappointed with her work and proceeds to seize the Harmony Foundation and its equipment, including the pieces of the Idol.
Oriel Toussaint, a professor of ancient Lemurian history, realizes that the Idol can work if properly constructed, and with his help a group of scientists within OPIG consisting of project leader Marie Westlake, supervisor Tim Spender, engineer Jack Nowak and recently demoted janitor Eugene Marmot discover how to properly reconstruct the Idol. However, Eugene is persuaded by Harmony Foundation protestors that the glyphs refer to empathy and hatred. During a board inspection, he bursts into the lab and presses glyphs to attempt to take hatred, accidentally triggering one of the Idol's abilities that sets him on fire. Because of his discovery, Eugene is made head of the research group, demoting Marie to research assistant. He rehires Tesa to aid in investigating the functions of the Idol. The other team members, given Eugene's somewhat dimwitted attitude, are troubled by his leadership.
By 1977, the OPIG group discovers and refines the Idol's ability to remove memories from one person and grant them to another. By accident, they further learn that the Idol, if used on a camera transmitting a video signal, will transfer its stored memories to all viewers of the broadcast. Jack and Oriel work with a museum curator to test the device using an ancient Lemurian data disc. While they discover that the Idol can store and recall memories from the disc, Jack inadvertently gives Oriel the complete memories of an ancient Lemurian, Echo Secunda, wiping out Oriel's own persona in the process. Echo, now in Oriel's body, flees into the unfamiliar world.
Eugene suggests that the OPIG Corporation could use the Idol to send a subliminal ad for its beverage product O-Range during a major televised peil match, by transmitting happy memories of drinking O-Range laced with amphetamines. Tesa speaks out and is fired, leading her to create a new cult – the Empathy Warriors – to protest OPIG's activities. The Idol is assembled into a device that Eugene names the 'Information-Dispatching Optical Lens' (I.D.O.L.). Marie and Tim, disgruntled with Eugene's success, secretly contrive to sabotage the advertisement and discredit him. Simultaneously, Jack is distressed with this trivial use of the I.D.O.L. and refines the means to use it to fully transfer the identity of one person to another; the process leaves the original body lifeless and with red eyes.
Jack attempts several tests with homeless people at the local docks, leading to bodies being found associated with the Red Curse. After failing to effect meaningful change by placing a few 'worthy' persons in the bodies of powerful individuals, Jack now plans to alter the advertisement in order to transmit the mind of his uncle Isaac Nowak to the entire viewing audience, creating millions of geniuses to improve the world. He transfers Isaac's memories to a Lemurian data disc and encourages the police to cover up the true nature of his death.
On the day of the match, Marie and Tim overwrite the data disk with bad memories of drinking O-Range. Jack then replaces those with Isaac's memories and prepares to use the I.D.O.L. at the local television station. Unaware that Jack has overwritten their sabotage, Marie and Tim trap Eugene on the roof to prevent him from interfering with their plan. Worried that the people will gain the bad O-Range memories, Eugene disconnects the video broadcast signal just before Jack sends out Isaac's memories. As a result, only Jack becomes Isaac. Tesa's group storms the television station and destroys the I.D.O.L.
In the aftermath, Eugene remains head of the speculative investment department, while Marie and Tim are fired; Isaac, as Jack, struggles with his identity, and Echo, as Oriel, maintains a low profile to avoid being found.
The majority of the story in this chapter is shown from the perspective of Detective Roy Samson while he questions bystanders and suspects.
After fleeing the asylum, Echo Secunda (still in Oriel Toussaint's body) recovered parts of the I.D.O.L. and turned them into a weapon called the Disarranger, which can rearrange things instead of giving and taking them. As he tries to steal food from a diner, he inadvertently gets involved with the drug gang that runs it. Despite using the Disarranger to try to escape, he is captured. However, he makes a deal with the gang's leader, businesswoman Hildegard Bauer, to help her by developing the Disarranger into a more powerful weapon. Later, Detectives Roy Samson and Cliff Savea investigate the commotion at the diner.
Earlier, Hildegard had gained mayor Moira Meredith's trust by helping to weaken the influence of a rival gang. Under the guise of the Heritage Project, she set up labs in old buildings to manufacture drugs, all of which was funded by the unknowing mayor. However, the rival gang uses a tape recorder to obtain evidence of Hildegard's ulterior motives, killing a Bauer gang employee in the process. Roy and Cliff investigate the man's death, with Roy becoming suspicious of Hildegard. Meanwhile, the rival gang sends the evidence to the mayor, leading to her announcing a press conference.
Alarmed, Hildegard pressures Echo to accelerate the testing of the Disarranger. Echo discovers that the Disarranger can scramble people's memories using sound. However, during a testing of this function, one of the test subjects accidentally reveals himself to be an undercover cop, allowing the gang to evacuate before the detectives can arrive. The detectives find the testing notes and realize the harmful potential of the Disarranger.
Hildegard plans to use the device to scramble Moira's memories at the conference, thus preventing her from exposing the drug operations. However, Roy realizes that the Bauer gang plans to rewire the Moira's microphone into a speaker to use the Disarranger, and thus shoots the microphone. Hildegard and her accomplices are soon arrested, but Echo flees with the Disarranger. Roy follows him into a building, but Echo ambushes him and takes his gun. Roy then activates the Disarranger, scrambling both their memories, before destroying the Disarranger with a gunshot.
In the aftermath, the memories of Oriel resurface from the scrambling, so the memories of Oriel and Echo end up sharing Oriel's body. Roy continues to work as a detective, albeit needing translation from Cliff. In jail, Hildegard meets Tesa Nevari, hinting that the pair may return.
The Rise of the Golden Idol was first announced in development during The Game Awards in December 2023. The full game was released on 12 November 2024, for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, as well as for mobile platforms Android and iOS through Netflix.
Four downloadable content packs are planned for release across 2025. The first, The Sins of New Wells, was released on March 4, 2025.
The Rise of the Golden Idol received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic, with the game receiving praise for its complex puzzle design, detective gameplay, and narrative.