You’re standing on the deck of a ghost ship, the wind is howling, and you have a pocket watch that lets you see exactly how people died. It sounds like a power trip. Honestly, though? It’s mostly just you staring at a guy’s shoes for twenty minutes trying to figure out if he’s Russian or from Sierra Leone. Lucas Pope’s masterpiece isn’t just a puzzle; it’s a test of how much you can infer from a striped shirt or a specific type of tobacco pipe.
If you’re looking for a Return of the Obra Dinn walkthrough, you’ve probably hit a wall. Maybe you’ve solved forty fates and now the game is just refusing to "click" those last twenty. It’s frustrating. You know someone died, you know a beast did it, but the game won’t confirm it because you’ve got the name wrong. That’s because this ship is a giant logic puzzle where the smallest details—like who sits next to whom at dinner—matter more than the actual murders.
Stop Guessing and Start Observing
Most players fail because they treat the book like a multiple-choice test. It isn't. The game waits for you to get three fates exactly right before it locks them in. This is a brilliant mechanic because it prevents you from just brute-forcing the names. If you’re stuck, you probably haven't looked at the "blurry" faces vs. the "clear" faces in your journal.
If a face is blurry, the game is basically saying, "You don't have enough info yet, don't even try." But once it clears up? The clues are there. You just might be looking at the wrong deck.
The Memento Mortem is a Time Machine, Not a Camera
When you use the pocket watch, you aren't just seeing a death. You’re seeing a frozen moment of the entire ship. Don’t just look at the corpse. Walk through the doors that suddenly opened. Go below deck. See who’s sleeping in which hammock.
Hammocks are actually the "god tier" strategy for any Return of the Obra Dinn walkthrough. Each hammock has a number. That number matches the crew manifest. If you see a guy sleeping in hammock number 42, and you know he’s a Topman, you just solved a massive piece of the puzzle without hearing a single word of dialogue.
Solving the "Impossible" Identities
Some characters are notorious for being "run-enders." You know the ones. The Chinese topmen, the Russian seamen, and that one guy who just seems to be everywhere but says nothing.
- The Chinese Topmen: These are the hardest for most people. Why? Because they look similar in the 1-bit art style and they’re often hanging off rigging. Look at their feet. Seriously. Their shoes and the patterns on their socks are unique. One memory shows them in their bunks; match the feet to the faces.
- The Russians: There are three of them. They usually stick together. If you identify one by a specific pipe or a hat, you can usually narrow down the others by process of elimination when they appear in "The Escape" or "The Doom."
- The Officers' Stewards: People always mix these up. A steward usually wears a uniform that’s a slightly "cheaper" version of the officer they serve. If you see a guy bringing a drink to the First Mate, he’s probably the First Mate’s steward. It sounds simple, but when there’s a kraken tearing the ship apart, it’s easy to miss.
Accents and Language Clues
Turn your subtitles on. Kinda feels like cheating, but it’s not. When the game labels a voice as "Frenchman" or mentions a "Scottish brogue," it’s narrowing your list from 60 people down to maybe two.
The Chapters You'll Keep Revisiting
The story is told backwards, which is a total brain-melt at first. You start with "The End" and work your way to the beginning.
The Doom
This is where the bulk of the "beast" deaths happen. It’s chaotic. People are being pulled overboard, crushed by rigging, or spiked by mermaids. Pay attention to the background here. While the Captain is fighting a monster, who is running for the lifeboats? Those people are the ones who "disappeared" in later chapters. If someone isn't dead on the ship, they either escaped or were "torn apart" by a beast.
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Unholy Captives
This chapter is crucial for identifying the Formosan royalty and their guards. The "chest" is the catalyst for everything. If you see someone guarding a specific room or holding a specific key, check the map. Is that the Carpenter’s room? The Gunner’s? Roles on the ship are very rigid. A Seaman isn't going to be hanging out in the Surgeon’s office unless he’s dying.
Fates That Most People Get Wrong
Sometimes you have the right person, but the "cause of death" is slightly off. The game is picky.
- Speared vs. Spiked: If a mermaid did it, it’s usually "speared." If it’s a spike from the beast's tail, it’s "spiked."
- Drowned vs. Torn Apart: If a beast drags someone underwater, they drowned. If the beast bit them in half first, they were torn apart.
- The "Unknown" Fate: You cannot solve the "Bargain" chapter until you’ve finished every other fate in the book and left the ship. Don't drive yourself crazy trying to find the bodies for Chapter VIII while you're still on the deck. It’s physically impossible. You’ll get a package in the mail later (in the game’s timeline) that finishes the story.
The Strategy for the Final 10
When you're down to the final ten people, the "Process of Elimination" becomes your best friend.
Check the "Manifest" again. Cross-reference the origins. If you have one person from India left and one person on the ship you haven't named, chances are they’re the same person. But be careful—the game sometimes throws "red herrings" where people of different nationalities are hanging out together.
Look for the "Gimmicks"
- The Artist: He’s usually carrying a sketchbook.
- The Butcher: He’s in the galley, usually with a bloody apron.
- The Midshipmen: There are three of them. They are young, they wear similar jackets, and they are almost always together until... well, until they aren't.
Practical Steps to Finish Your Logbook
If you want to wrap up your Return of the Obra Dinn walkthrough and get that "well-done" insurance report, do this:
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- Review "The End" first: You can solve several of these immediately. The Captain is obvious. The First Mate is named in dialogue.
- Use the "Bookmark" feature: In the journal, you can bookmark a person. This highlights every memory they appear in. Flip through their entire life on the ship in ten minutes. You’ll see them go from a healthy sailor to a corpse, and you'll catch small details you missed.
- Check the deck maps: If a death happens in a specific cabin, the owner of that cabin is your primary suspect or victim.
- Don't overthink "Killed by a Beast": Most of the time, the game accepts "Beast" as the culprit for any of the supernatural entities. You don't need to specify "Kraken" or "Spider-Crab."
The Obra Dinn isn't just about who died; it's about the tragedy of a voyage gone wrong. Once you stop looking for "the answer" and start looking at the people, the names will start filling themselves in.
Go back to the Orlop deck. Check the hammocks. Look at the tags. That’s usually where the truth is hiding.
Actionable Next Steps:
Identify the three Midshipmen by finding the scene where they are being reprimanded or working together; their uniforms are distinct from the Seamen. Once they are locked in, use the remaining "unknown" young men to narrow down the Ship's Stewards by seeing which officer they are standing behind in the "Justice at Sea" memory. Finally, cross-reference the hammock numbers on the Orlop deck with the crew manifest to solve the remaining Seamen and Topmen who have no dialogue clues.