The Ratline makes Nazi-hunting satisfyingly methodical

Owlskip Games, led by former ZA/UM developer Tim Sheinman, has long specialised in investigative games such as Family, Rivals and Riley & Rochelle. Their new release, The Ratline, is set in 1971 and puts you in the role of a private detective tasked with tracing Nazi war criminals who escaped justice and now live under assumed names — dentists, wine merchants, or even senior members of South American police forces.

The casework unfolds on a pinboard above a desk with a telephone, rolodex and radio. You dig through documents, research points of interest, and call people who might help; photographs, business cards, private letters and other scraps must be assembled to reveal real names and present locations.

Fill in the evidence correctly and you move on to the next chapter. The Ratline, named for the postwar escape routes Nazis used, feels deliberately scrappy. You juggle paperwork and sometimes type keywords into an anachronistic machine to pull up more documents — a neat trick that can also fail to return obvious results.

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