It’s been a bit since I last played a Nancy Drew PC game. This is the eleventh Nancy Drew game I played and I still am not halfway done with completing all of them. I was contemplating which game I wanted to play next and figured Midnight in Salem would be a good pick since it takes place in Salem, MA. Midnight in Salem is a departure from the previous Nancy Drew games, but I don’t think that’s bad.

Midnight in Salem begins with Nancy investigating a room in a castle. Her father, Carson Drew, asks Nancy to look for a book. When she finds it in a hidden compartment, a thief shows up to steal the book. While Nancy does her best to recover it, the thief gets away. Meanwhile, Nancy is called to Salem to help investigate a fire set on a historical building. Someone in the town is blamed for the crime, but Nancy is not convinced she did it. As usual, Nancy talks to the townsfolk, goes on a ghost-walking tour, and discovers the true culprit.

I mentioned how Midnight in Salem was a departure from the previous games. The controls in this game were noticeably different. To view an area, I had to hold down the right mouse and move it around to see an area versus the point-and-click motion from the previous games. At first, this was clunky and I did not like it. However, once I was used to it, it was fine. Another noticeable change was Nancy’s smartphone. Instead of logging her tasks in her journal, she has her phone which lists her task list. Most of the Nancy Drew games came out in the early 2000s, so I liked how this game made her character more modern. With the tasklist, I felt the tasklist was short and concise. In previous games, there would be eight or nine tasks to complete. This task list featured broad goals and it made the game way more straightforward than other games I played in the franchise.

When I played Midnight in Salem, it reminded me of Ghost of Thornton Hall because there were jump scares in both games. To be clear, I do not do well with jump scares or horror games, so while I may think this game has jump scares, some might disagree. I thought it made for the perfect game to play before Halloween.

With this being a more recent Nancy Drew game, I liked the inclusion of achievements. There are 23 achievements to unlock. Most of them are story related and there are a few that I didn’t unlock when I first played the game. I like the inclusion of achievements because it adds replay value to the game. If I want to play this game again, it gives me something new to unlock.

Midnight in Salem has some mixed reviews on Steam and I get it. This game is different than other Nancy Drew games. Once I got past the initial shock of this being a different game, I found myself enjoying this game a lot. I loved the setting, the mystery, and the history revealed throughout Nancy’s time in Salem. I’d put Midnight in Salem towards the top of my list of favorite Nancy Drew games I have played.