A new Sonic the Hedgehog game has just been announced. The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog is free to play and available now on PC and Mac,  tasking players with solving the beloved blue hedgehog’s murder.

The player’s investigations in The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog will take the form of a point-and-click murder mystery, as players turn up to celebrate Amy Rose’s birthday by taking part in a murder mystery game on a train. In true Glass Onion style, the game takes a turn for the more realistic when Sonic is bumped off for real during the proceedings.

The Sonic Social team proudly presents: The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog!

A brand new Sonic game. Available right now. On Steam. For FREE! pic.twitter.com/qOsvdwCU2b

— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) March 31, 2023

The Murder of Sonic The Hedgehog has a very strong April Fools Day vibe and there’s a precedent for games being joke-announced on April 1 before becoming hugely popular with a community and then having to be created and shipped for real. Hooked on You, a dating sim that has you romancing and being romanced by Dead By Daylight‘s cast of killers, is a recent example and one NME rated.

In this case, it seems that Sega decided to get ahead of the fans and put the game out at the same time as the trailer announcing the project.

“We’ve heard your feedback,” claims the trailer, which pokes fun at some of the more vocal critics of titles like Sonic Frontiers or Sonic Origins, before revealing that the team behind Sonic has taken a bold new direction. One that leads with Sega’s traditional mascot being dead.

Sega is quick to clarify that the game is not canon – so the story doesn’t take place in the established Sonic The Hedgehog universe.

In addition to the point and click meat of the game, it appears from the trailer that there will also be isometric platforming minigames, although as NME hasn’t played the game at time of publication it’s hard to know quite how much game there is for eager mystery fans.

In other news, Escape From Tarkov developers Battlestate Games has published pictures of a forthcoming expansion to the map Streets, which seems like it could add a school to the hardcore first-person shooter’s latest map.