Silent film-inspired Cinema raises more questions than answers in its trailer

Trinity Team has released a trailer for its upcoming game Cinema, and I’m really not sure it explained much to me. Nothing wrong with a mystery, though. I can at least see the aesthetic they’re going for.

The trailer is set up like an old black-and-white silent film. There are short scenes like a dilating pupil and an elderly lady cranking a gramophone. She then says, “Did you hear? I trust him.” All of this is completely without context. There are shots of city streets, a train, and lots of the old lady, but nothing that really explains what the gameplay is going for.

Thankfully, I have a press release that goes along with the trailer, so let’s take a look:

• Interact with mysterious characters while gathering crucial clues and evidence to solve the case.
• Navigate through time by moving both forward and backward, and explore rich Art Deco environments across space and moments in time.
• Use information from the future to change events in the past, creating new timelines to solve complex crimes and uncover hidden truths.

Sounds cool. The Steam page is up and pegs it as Mystery, so while the trailer has an uncomfortable horror vibe to it, it’s maybe more detective work. It also uses the tag “time management,” which is way too literal. Time management is more about how you’ll fit different objectives into a game’s timeframe rather than the actual manipulation of time.

Anyway. We’ll find out more soon, no doubt. For now, Cinema is set to release for PC. No release date has been stated.