Every Clue/Hint in Return Of The Obra Dinn 

The update video is out! Thanks to all of you amazing commenters, I was able to make a video showing even more clues! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NIgkPdQ6iHc.html Edit: So this video just reached 10 thousand views and I am genuinely amazed. There is so much I wish I had scripted and edited better had I known it would blow up to this extent. (especially that horrible intro) Regardless, thank you all for watching, and I have genuinely loved reading all of the nice comments. The Obra Dinn community is such a nice and supportive community and I’m happy to be a part of it. Edit 2: Making this edit a year and a half after this video was uploaded... I promise if you subscribe my voice isn't still this nasally. That's all...

Fun fact: At the very start of the game, before you visit any memories, the only face that is not blurred is the Helmsman, indicating that the only hint you need for his identity is the drawing.

Yeah this is cool and all, but I am so smart because I noticed that Emil was holding beer in one of the pictures, making him the only Irishmen on the ship.

Player: “Alright, let’s get started” Game: THE END

One of the coolest clues is for Lewis Walker - not including a Captain, he dies last, and because there wasn't anyone to put down his hammock, it's still up on gun deck - number 44.

One thing that I noticed, too. The one from Sierra Lione is a very big man. If you look at the hammocks during the 2nd chapter, his hammock is riding very low

One big clue for the stewards is that they are all standing next to their boss in the execution scene. The ship's steward can be identified by process of elimination once you get the others.

Interesting how different peoples minds work. It seems alot of people worked through by using details like shoes, pipes, swords, cabins and bunk numbers and so on. I barely went near any of that stuff; mostly just using their behaviours, associations, and apparent duties. It's a credit to the game, that so many approaches are viable.

When the video says: “The steward also asks the corpse of O’Hagan if he’s still breathing. We can deduce that…” my brain finished the sentence with “We can deduce that O’Hagan is not still breathing”

This game without knowing about the hammock trick is Hard Mode

Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redeption really got that right; "I mean honestly, how often do you look at a man's shoes?"

the only way i know to distinguish the peters brothers is to look at the hammocks in doom chapter 2. the only corresponding hammock that is still present of the two is 48, which is nathan's, while samuel's, 60, is never seen in the game. same can be done with alexander booth (57), because his hammock is empty due to him escaping, but he's still alive, while the other empty hammocks are lars, nathan, and omid gul. omid can be ruled out easily through the sword in later memories, which only leaves alexander booth as the third escapee. some other miscellaneous clues i can think of are: a) the 4th mate can be seen looking out the window of his quarters in edward nichols' death scene (visible at 22:00) b) if you go to the left of zungi in soldiers of the sea ch7 and peek into the armory, you can see both the gunner and gunner's mate there together. c) as far as i know wei lee is the only chinese topman for whom you don't need the shoe clue for, as he's the only surviving chinese topman by the time of doom ch2 and his hammock number is the only one still present d) i didn't know this until after i played the game, but apparently the striped kind of shirt that mr. charles miner wears was part of the french naval uniform at the time e) another clue as to samuel gilligan's identity is in murder chapter 2, where he can be seen whispering into edward nichols' ear, signifying him as nichols' steward and accomplice. and that's all i can think of off the top of my head. seriously tho this was a very well done video and i'm glad i stumbled across it! thank u for taking the time to make it!

An interesting hint is Evans's box. It's the very first thing we see in the game and it's a very unique article due to its design, contents, and weight. In my playthrough, I was able to identify Henry Evans before the game thought it was possible due to the fact that you can see the very box he gives you in the boat with him.

Bun Lan Lim was actually the second person I got. I played the game in my native language portuguese and we have gender specific words for "passenger" ('passageiro' for men and 'passageira' for women)

When I noticed there were numbers on the hammocks and they corresponded with the crew manifest I felt like an absolute genius. With regards to the Peters, Nathan Peters' hammock is still hanging up later on, and you never see hammock 60, therefore the brother that died must be Samuel.

13:19 This just made me realize that Henry Evans was probably using the pocket watch to figure out how his patients died. Also you can determine the purser because he is carrying books when he is in the escape boat.

18:37 I’m gonna be honest, I said that he was killed by Brennan not by looking at the bullets but instead I wanted to increase Brennan’s kill count.

As someone who doesn't know anything about nautical dress or uniforms, I used the gunner's mate's unusual speech pattern/accent when he's discussing the mutiny during The Escape, Part 4 to identify him.

A couple of things: In the scene where Nichols gets shot, if you pull up the schematic of the ship, you'll see someone watching from the fourth mate's cabin window, and can mark him as the fourth mate there. You can also use that to identify Chioh Tan as the shooter, since all other members of the Formosan Royalty are dead by that point. The carpenter and his mate can also be seen at least once both working in the carpenter workshop during the merfolk attack, with the carpenter standing in his open door, looking out to see what the commotion is. And has been mentioned, checking on which hammocks disappear from scene to scene will give large clues as to who died or disappeared in the interim.

Great video! Sorry if you already know this, but John (sworded by Captain's Stewart) was likely guarding the lazarette where the sirens and shells are stored. The Captain's Stewart, Filip Dahl, was likely trying to enter the lazarette to steal what's inside and throw it overboard to stop the "curse", but had to go through John to get there, explaining the killing.

2:56 i figured this out not by the ring but by age. I assumed the older one had to be married so the the title of miss belonged to the younger one.

I like how you stated the carpenter's were "carrying some wood"... IT'S A STRETCHER!

Just finished it! Honestly, I used the sketch so much! You could see all that they hung out in groups like most of the topmen sit up high in the drawing, the stewards are basically dressed the same, etc. We felt like geniuses for noticing the shoes and the numbers! :)

fun fact: you can tell who the bosun mate is from the very first time you see him, because he is wearing a french sailors outfit and he’s the only frenchman on board!

The way to deduce George Shirley’s identity is (I believe) in doom part 2. In it, he’s sitting at a table with Wei Lee (who’s own hammock is right above him) with a knocked down hammock next to him, obscuring the number. If you compare its position to the hammocks in Bitter Cold part 1, you’ll find that number can only be George’s number or one of the Chinese topmen. Since he not a topman (thanks to him working with the other seamen in Soldiers Part 2) he must be George Shirley! Besides that you did a great job! The only stuff I can think of is small tidbits that narrow down roles. Get ready for a unnecessarily long list! Soldiers Part one clearly shows who all surviving topmen and seaman are and distinguishes between them (in the rigging or pulling the rope on deck) Unholy Part 2 has all the midshipmen hanging together, the gunners together, the bosons together and (of course) the Surgeons together. (Once again) doom part 2 has one of the Russians hammocks up and none of the others, as such, you can deduce that the topman Russian is number 45 because the other Russians are already dead. In the real world, you can find a whistle in the Boson’s room which he wears throughout Unholy Captives, and one last hammock still hanging, Lewis Walkers. Whom you can presume to be left because NO ONE could take it down i.e everyone’s dead. So someone who died in the end must be Lewis Walker. Whoo! That’s it! stars n muffins mentioned anything else I can think of (thank god) so that’s all the clues I noticed in Return Of The Obra Dinn! Thank you Lucas Pope.

Also the captain has the biggest hat and first mate the second biggest hat so duh.

Technically there's one role we can find before any of the scenes. The helmsman of the ship, seen in the execution photo, holding the wheel of the ship as the execution goes off.

The gunners THICC german accent is also a good clue, since only two people are from a german speaking country

If you have an ear for accents, those can also all be clues.

Another clue that you missed is that in the scene where John Naples dies you hear Fillip Dhal Speak in Swedish witch is another clue assuming you got everyone else in the scene.

I can only dread to think how any players not British would grasp a good few of these characters based on dialects and origins.

26:10 - The bald man playing dice in the drawing is seen drinking with a Chinese crew member, so we can assume they're friends. We can see that George Shirly's hammock is with all the Chinese crew members. The hammock is also up but empty while he is drinking with the Chinese guy, so that supports the theory, since he would have to be off duty to be drinking, and people's hammocks are only up during their off-hours. There's no hammock for Alexander Booth at that time, so I assumed he was on duty somewhere else. It's a bit circumstantial, but it worked for me.

I actually determined that the guy with the striped first was French because I thought it looked similar to a mime's outfit. Sure enough, that outfit has its origins in the French navy.

Hammock and numbers is the real thing that I missed while playing the game , making some deducation really hard even when it was supposed to be one triangle difficulty (the answer was right under my nose...). I understood later in the game that it was really helpful to just put some random names on character that you know for sure how they died, so that each time you've got the validation of a trio you know fo sure that all those random name placeholder were wrong,and you need to switch them (I did mainly to distinguish russians, chineses, and indians). Clearly not the detective style, but clearly I didn't knew enough about sailors "lifestyle" to make even the most obvious deduction when it was needed.

I was waiting for a video like this to be made by anyone really! It’s really well made! A few times you mention names that are hard to identify, so I’ll show how you can figure them out: George Shirley can be identified as his hammock is found in bitter cold 1 with the Chinese top men, and in doom 2, we see him again with wei lee, and we can cross reference these scenes to put him down as #59. Booth can be figured out, as his hammock is empty during doom 2, and the 2 other black men aboard are already dead, so there hammocks would not be up. Diom can be figured by the similar hammock use, as his hammock is slumped over a lot, as he is a huge man. Finally, though I doubt anyone got this, Lewis walker can be identified after doom 6, since you have acces to the gun deck. #44 hammock is still up, so a top men must’ve survived to the very end, and in doom 7 you can see the same man who attacked the captain climbing rigging, so he must be topman Lewis walker.

I just finished this game, and only now know about the hammock numbers. Please tell me I'm not the only one who missed that, making the game way harder than it should have been.

You deserve more views for this. I just cleared the game and wanted to see what I'd missed. The Lewis Walker clue given in the comments just blew my mind!

The audio when the cow is butchered begins, "Take him to the carpenters."

In The Doom part 2 there's a hammock with Nathan Peters' 48 on its tag, meaning he is the one alive to flee

You can actually identify Wei Lee and George Shirley by going into Doom Pt 1 where the artist dies and looking at the table where a Chinese man and another seaman are talking. You can identify Wei Lee by looking at the tag number of the hammock above him and you can identify Shirley by knowing the position of his hammock and going back to Bitter Cold Pt 1. He’s the only Englishman that sleeps with the Chinese top men.

Extra clue is that when Chioh Tan(I think that is is name) shoots Nichols you can see one of the mates in his room. Match up the room he is in with the map and you have his identity

I felt really proud that my boyfriend and I were able to beat this game without any hints even though we did a fair amount of brute forcing but after seeing this I realized we missed sooooo many simple things and I think we really just got good at making lucky guesses that we thought were educated. Now I dont feel so smart

I had no idea that the "midshipman's scarf" was a thing. I thought the only uniforms were the stewards clothing and the fact that the officers had fancy hats.

Played through it, did POORLY, and was really wanting to know what all I missed and how. This was exactly what I was searching for!

Very interesting. In some cases the Game accepts different conclusions about the crew's fates. I definitely marked the other man who died simultaneously with the gunner (i guess it was Shirley) as beeing shot by a cannon too and it checked off. Also Charles Hershtik was marked as burned to death by you, but I marked him as stabbed by the beast, which was also correct. It seems like they were aware of some scenes could be interpreted differently.

The first letsplay I ever watched of this game noticed the shoes, but did NOT notice that the number tags matched the roster. So he couldn't use it.

I watched this video after fully completing the game, and it's a very - very nice complement to everything. I've downloaded the video as a keepsake for my precious time with this absolute experience with this game.

I actually replayed the game after 3 years since playing it at release, was almost a fresh experience. Sure you remember how most people died and it won't be the same but you won't remember who is who

I have no idea how I finished this game considering how many of these I missed

Actually what's often missed in Chapter 5 Part 4 is that the place of John Naples's death is on the OPPOSITE side of the Cargo Deck: the place you found John's missing leg was near the Lazarette to the Stern of the Cargo Deck, where John Naples was tasked to bring the mermaids into; the actual scene of John Naples's death, however, was near Bosun's Storage to the bow of the Cargo Deck. In Part 3, Chapter 5, you can see that John Naples was one of the Seaman that was tasked to bring the mermaid in the Lazarette, while in Part 2, Chapter, 5, you can see that Fillip Dahn was already running toward the opposite side of the crowd, who were walking down the bow stairs from the Gun Deck. In Part 6, Chapter 4, you can see Fillip Dahl was one of the few witnesses that saw the mermaids and treasure box first-hand with the mermaids and corpses with 2nd Mate. Judging by Fillip's activities, we can deduce as follows: On the night of Miss Lim's kidnapping, Fillip Dahl witnessed the slaughterhouse scene and was exposed to the shell, along with the 4th Mate. Shocked by the deaths and possibly influenced by the mind-altering magic of the shell, Fillip Dahl believed that the mermaids carried a curse, and was in dismay that the Captain determined to bring the mermaids onboard. Trying to stop the whole fiasco with limited understanding of the essence of the whole journey (apparently Captain and the Formosan Royalty were the only ones that know what they were carrying right at the beginning), Fillip Dahl ambushed John Naples when the gang was carrying the mermaid to the Lazarette. Fillip was subdued and taken near Bosun's storage for punishment, obviously, but John was also carried there for an unknown reason. It is possible that almost none of the crew had ever realized that the shell also contains a passive curse to make its surrounding humans more prone to death in situations otherwise easily survivable under normal conditions. The fact that one stowaway and one Seaman died of falling cargo (keeping and using ropes that were prone to snap on an ocean-going ship in the early 19th century is completely unthinkable because ropes are the life of sailboats and Bosuns were specifically tasked to inspect and replace any ropes with questionable quality), two Indian Seamen died of normal cold, John died of merely losing a leg (as implied by Dr. Henry Evans: "Been in worse spots I think"), and that the Bosun died of merely losing an arm further supports the theory. Edit: viewing the story again, I just realized that even the Captain did not know about the potential dangers of the precious cargo he was tasked to deliver until Chapter 5. Talking about how the passengers were supposed to declare any dangerous goods before boarding on any vessel...

the miss jane bird deduction was one of my proudest moments of my life.

The way I solved george Shirley was that he's drinking with Wei Lee in one scene and when you check the hammock numbers in a bitter cold his #56 is the only non Chinese to have the hammock there.

Amazing job man! Very enjoyable to watch after solving the game!

For Alexander booth, when you see the bunks in doom he unblurs meaning we use that, process of elimination of who's bunks are empty and naming those above deck give us him remaining

25:51 If you look at the numbers on the hammocks you can see that number 60 (Samuel Peters) is nowhere to be found so the remaining Peters would be Nathan

For 6:15, if you missed the third mate's identity previously, you can deduce who he is by the direction he is walking with his stewart. They are walking to the side of the boat with the first and third mates cabin. We already know who the first mate is, therefore etc.

During my playthrough i was suprised of the the ammount of things the big picture of everyone itself revealed. For example almost all topmen sat together in the back. The stewards all stood behind their respective mates. I could almost immediately decide who the gunner was simply because you can see him shoting the fire order. I found him out long before i even found his respective memory

This is exactly the content I was looking to find after finishing the game.

This is exactly what I hoped to find when i searched for it. Great job.

A Bitter Cold: Part 1 was by far the most invaluable scene in my playthrough, as I scoured it for every possible detail I could - and yet, I still had to brute force the names of the four Chinese topmen when it came time for them, because I never noticed their unique shoes. This game is so absolutely brilliant, I'm in awe

Watching this video after having solved every case was a treat. Quite a few hints I didnt pick up on.

16:30 lol I concluded that these two were the carpenters solely based on the fact that the dude is throwing an axe

this is exactly the video I was looking for, thanks. it was really well done

OH MY GOD YOU COULD TELL FROM THE NUMBER TAGS AND THE SHOES?????

I deduced most of them in completely different ways. I love it. Fantastic video. Thanks!

The way to differentiate the Peters brothers is again with the hammocks. Samuel's hammock is never seen hung up, but Nathan's is hanging next to Lars' in a scene (don't remember which one exactly. Maybe a bitter cold part 1 or somewhere in soldiers of the sea.)

Amazing video, thanks a lot!

To tell apart the Peters brother, notice how in the doom, the hammock with number 48 - Nathan’s, is still there, implying that he’s the surviving Peters brother, while the other one, was, as we know, killed earlier in an accident

Excellent work!

Yo, incredibly well done. Thanks a lot! This really gives the already excellent game a whole new perspective :)

great game and great video, learning that the order you do the chapters in heavily influences what information you have and which guesses can be easier/harder. and i agree that the captains steward cutting the guys leg off is kind of a stretch given the information available

Great video! I missed the numbers on the hammocks. Worse yet, I even saw the numbers and wondered what they were for but never even thought about the crew numbers. Oh well.

I felt racist assuming the carpenter's mate was the carpenter

another clue for the bosun (and the way i solved it) is that he uses the German "Verdammt" (or essentially "Damn!" in english) making him one of the two Austrians on board.

Good work, I salute you!

Alexander Booth can be identified by his hammock, him doing seaman activities, speaking in an English accent when boarding the rowboat in Doom pt1, and he wears a scarf associated with English sailors (similar to the bosun's mate, who wears a shirt associated with French sailors). One clue you didn't mention with the bosun is that he says "Verdammt", which is a germannic word, and he's from Austria. (The gunner is also)

How to deduce the Peters: After Samuel Peters death by falling cargo, his hammock is gone, leaving the only hammock of the Peters brothers to be Nathans. Alexander Booth can be deduced by looking at the empty hammocks in "The Doom, part 2" There, only a few hammocks are empty (36, 48, 49, 57) meaning these people are above deck. Since you know 3 of them already, you can safely assume it has to be the last one; Alexander Booth. This one was a hard one tho. As to George Shirley, i couldn't 100% identify him, but he was always seen and on the sketches drawn together with the Chinese group. His hammock (#59) also hangs close to the ones of the Chinese, so i assumed he had to be Shirley.

22:31 In the bottom of the boat, you can see a knife which the Russian who's being grabbed drops. This knife will be used by Beng to kill the steward. Spotting the knife here is useful for identifying the steward's cause of death, because it's hard to see the weapon in Beng's hands as he attacks, and the steward's corpse gets all pixelated once the Memento manifests its image, obscuring your view of the knife left jutting from the neck.

Bro you deserve much more views and likes, very nice video by the way.

By the way, the French Bosun's Mate is wearing a French navy shirt, so if you recognize it, it's quite obvious that the man is French

The intertwining of the voice lines into your explanations cracked me up too much hahahaha. Also, the only way I could discover the Bosun's mate was cos I spent the whole game wondering why he was the only guy wearing striped clothes and I googled why the navy wore stripes and it turns out that it's a French thing, and the only Frenchman on the ship is the Bosun's mate

the most upsetting thing in the game was the Captain Robert mispelling the name of the sweet sweet kind violin player Nunzio Pasqua, AND YOU DID THAT AS WELL. it's "noon" followed by the zio in "conversazions" xD great video by the way :) love how you mixed the in game dub to do quotes. That was a nice touch

The great thing about this game is that you cna figure some stuff out based on things that may not have been directly intended - I got to a point where the only identities I didn't know were the Bosun's mate, two Seamen and a topman but couldn't figure out who was who. Bug then I went back to Bitter Cold to see if I could use the hammocks at all and realised that Charles Miner was the only one of the four not present - because, as Bosun's Mate, he has his own room, while the others do not. That was such a specific situation, but because so mcuh attention to detail was put into this game it was possible to figure things out like that.

Finally a video like this.

Great vid. When playing the chapter at 12:22 I made the decision that the guy with his boots on the table couldn't possible be a doctor...think of the germs! He'd be fired on the spot these days.

I actually did figure out the shoe thing. I did end up making a couple of educated guesses on my way there, but when I got it down to 4 remaining Chinese topmen it felt wrong to brute force the last few fates of the game. Still tho.... WHO SLEEPS WITH THEIR SHOES ON AND A BLANKET OVER THEIR FACE XD

I NEVER found the lifeboat that was picked up by the kraken, and instead I read the note you receive after exiting the ship to see the only survivors were the people on the lifeboat in the escape, therefore assuming they were killed by the kraken

I'm great at solving mysteries, and remembering the smallest details from ages ago. But I am DOG SHIT at Nautical Terms and Logic.... *I suffered so much in this game. XD*

I 100%'d the game without too much trouble and I STILL missed so many of these clues! It's a testament to how good the game is that you can solve it in so many ways. Save for the carpenters, I never once connected any of the quarters to the people coming in and out of them (the First Mate, the Bosun, etc.), and got those from their behaviors, accents, etc. One of my friends thought I was nuts for taking into account the shoes of the Chinese topmen, so I was delighted when you mentioned them as a viable option for figuring out their identities. Great work!

The visual style certainly was a detriment for some of these clues like the shoes and the wedding ring.

You can actually figure out Nathan is the Peters who killed Lars early, because his hammock is still hanging in Doom Part 2, and you know the Samuel died at some point in the past, so his hammock would've already been taken down.

I believe the Peter's brothers can be deduced by finding one of their hammocks still occupied after one has died and before the other disappears, thereby deducing that the number on that hammock refers to the Peter's brother that died second, and not the one that died first.

How to tell the Peters brothers apart: the Bitter Cold is after Loose Rigging, however in Bitter Cold hammock 48 is still being used, thus Nathan Peters is still alive in chapter 2.

I figured out who Duncan McKay was because he is seen boarding the boat with his book in The Doom Part I, and the glossary at the back of the book says that the Purser took care of money. Since accountants/treasurers/other people who work with money usually keep a transaction book, I assumed that the man with the book must be Duncan the Purser.

I'm glad to hear that the names I brute forced, and felt stupid for probably not finding the obvious clues to, basically needed to be brute forced. Except after reading the comments, I had never realized I could have looked for hammocks (or missing hammocks) in other scenes than Bitter Cold 1 and Doom 1.

Looking back at the game, I played it so wrong. Thinking the tattooed guy is the Frenchman is a common mistake. Not realising that "foreign enemy" tag is a red herring (the game considers all semi-humanoid enemies to be 'beasts') is understandble, though it got me terribly stuck at the end." I was also mislead by the death of the head steward (the only one I had to loook up) because his death sound sounds nothing like a gun shot. But the worst blunder I made was in bitter cold - I missed the fact that the dialogue switches from Russian to Hindi half way through, and got so confused, I spent hours thinking that "Syed" is some sort of pet name for Aleksei.

Be me. Finished the Obra Dinn, feel accomplished. Watched this video, feel stupid. But seriously though, the game is fantastic. I still feel good about having finished it, though I wish I had paid more attention to the hammocks. I don't feel bad about missing the shoes though. Even though they're unique, they still look really similar!

I just missed the chinese unique shoes, and some details with some uniforms, the Peters thing, the thing with the guy that cut off Naples leg, Lewis Walker deduction, and some Gunner's Mate info, damn I played it SO GOOD.

Cool video! I definitely had to brute force some of the names, and I totally missed the Chinese topmen shoes for example. One nitpick about the Russian guy’s name: It’s Aleksei (pronounced ”Ah-lex-ay”), not Aleskei. For his last name Toporov, the emphasis is on the first syllable.

If you look down in the lightning strike scene, you can see that Nicholas was climbing the ropes before getting impaled, further confirming his identity as he is a topman.