The Council - Ep. 2: Hide & Seek

The second part of an episodic series may not get the same attention as the first, but that doesn't make it less important. In theory, it should expand on the story and mystery, all while introducing new characters, locations and intrigue. The second episode of The Council, appropriately titled Hide and Seek, tries its hardest to keep things interesting, but the execution had the complete opposite results. This is not the way you follow up an exciting first episode.

When we last left Louis de Richet, he had traveled to a mansion on an island in order to attend a swanky dinner party filled with some of the 18th century's most important world leaders. He was also in search for his mother, who had mysteriously disappeared while attending the party. But the investigation was sidetracked as he discovered a tangled web involving a secret society, the occult and a certain politician's daughter.

Coming out of episode one, I was legitimately excited to see what happened next. It had some rocky moments, but I felt like it built to a pretty shocking cliffhanger. The truth is, in order for me to talk about my thoughts on Hide and Seek, I'm going to need to spoil some of what happened to me when I played through the first episode. And while I have no intention of spoiling the story beats and important details found in this newest episode, some of my complaints deal with elements that you may want to discover for yourself.

For example, the first episode ended with Louis drugged and in a vulnerable state. Elizabeth had a knife in hand and any number of terrible things could happen next. Is she going to kill Louis? Torture him? Perform some sort of sacrifice? Unfortunately, it's none of those things. The opening of episode two completely undoes that cliffhanger by making it almost pointless. You'll spend a few minutes being questioned about what happened that night, but it's such a minor part of this episode that it feels like a cop-out. That's the exact moment I realized that this episode was going to disappoint.

The next troubling sign was when I noticed that this episode only consists of three chapters, with two of them primarily set in a single location. This is a much shorter and less ambitious episode, and I have to say that I'm not a big fan of the sudden emphasis on puzzle solving. It felt like a lot of the conversations and investigation elements from the first episode are missing in action here, and in their place are these small rooms you're locked into until you solve a puzzle. This episode was a real slog to get through.

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It doesn't help that the game suffers from all of the same technical problems that plagued the pilot. The attention to detail found in the mansion is absolutely incredible, but the characters look rough and animation is a mess. I also think the gameplay is slow and clunky, the voice acting is a little iffy and it's not always clear where you're supposed to go. And I can't believe I have to say this again, but the developers have a bad habit of putting white text over white objects. There's an entire puzzle that is made that much harder to solve because you can't read the choices. How is this still a problem?

To be fair to this new episode, there are things that give me hope. For one thing, they introduce a new party guest with some interesting information from France. They also give us more access to the mansion, leading to a compelling cliffhanger that could change everything. But having been burned by this episode, I'm going to go into the next reveal with lowered expectations. I can't imagine that's the reaction the storyteller was going for.

Despite being thoroughly disappointed by this second episode, I'm still invested in these characters and the central mystery. As a standalone episode, there isn't much here to recommend. The puzzles aren't very good, the conversations are lame and there isn't as much intrigue as you would hope. Worst of all, it planted a seed of doubt in my head that maybe the payoff won't be very satisfying. The Council - Ep. 2: Hide and Seek is a step in the wrong direction.