Game: Morgan: Metal Detective
Genre: Adventure, Indie
System: Nintendo Switch/Switch 2 (Also on Steam (Windows), Xbox One/X/S and PS4/5)
Developer | Publisher: Studio Morgan | subSilico
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3+
Price: US $17.00 | UK £12.99 | EU € 14,39
Release Date: July 30th, 2025
Review code used, with many thanks to Plan of Attack.
Morgan: Metal Detective is a first-person adventure by the indie developers Studio Morgan. I’ve played a few first-person adventures, like Botany Manor or Garden of the Sea, but this is the first time I’ve been metal detecting!
Will I find buried treasure in Morgan: Metal Detective?
Arriving at Glasden
You play as Morgan, grandchild of the late Jacob Penrose, a keen metal detectorist, who lived on the small Cornish island of Glasden.
Starting on a boat, complete with a gentle rocking sensation, you’ll discover your journal and portable cassette tape player. You’ll place a newspaper clipping of your grandfather’s obituary into your journal, and as you play the cassette tape, a cutscene takes you to the jetty.
Before you get a chance to take more than one step, you’ll launch into a conversation with Dave, who has lost a ring. All of the conversations are voiced, and although it’s a little slow to listen to, it’s a really nice addition to the game. You’ll offer your help in finding it and then need to make your way to Grandpa’s old house. You’ll have seen which direction to head in, but just to make sure you don’t go awry, other routes are blocked.
A quick conversation with Daisy, your mother, and you’ll receive Grandpa’s old metal detector and a cassette tape to listen to. The tape gives an insight into the research your grandfather was doing about the magical history of Glasden. You’ll receive more of Grandpa’s tapes and some music tapes to listen to on your wanderings.
With the newly acquired metal detector, you’ll be able to find Dave’s ring and see who else needs help recovering precious items. The story isn’t long, around 2 hours, so I will not reveal any more of the mystery.
Glasden is big enough to feel that walking around takes a little bit too long, and there were times I wished Morgan would run. The map shows the key locations and the location of the residents. It will also show an exclamation mark if someone has a quest.
Morgan’s Adventures Round Glasden
The main objective in Morgan: Metal Detective is to find buried treasure, and this is done by equipping the metal detector and sweeping the ground in front of you. When some metal is detected, the electronic device will start making a sound, and one or more of the bars on the display will start fluctuating. You then stop sweeping and gently move the metal detector around until you get the dig message. Different items produce different sounds, and I enjoyed trying to guess what metal item I might have found, depending on which bars had activated.
When you dig, there is a little animation of a trowel digging a hole, you then inspect and store the item. It might be what you are looking for, or it might be a bottle cap, horseshoe or some other metal item. The animation continues with the trowel replacing the dirt. There are some clever aspects to this animation, like digging on the beach will have the hole fill with water, but for me, it took just a bit too long to encourage me to do lots of detecting outside of the quests.
As well as finding treasure, you can also take photos of the island. You’ll receive an instant camera, which will take 10 pictures. Selling your finds will enable you to buy more film in the town.
The photos you take can be added to Morgan’s journal. The journal tracks your quests, providing some nice narrative and details about all your finds. There are stickers which can be used to decorate the journal, with other sticker books available from the machine in town.
Gameplay
Movement controls are intuitive, with interact options appearing on screen. There is some juddering, especially in the opening cutscene, and occasionally I found myself bobbing even on dry land. Considering Morgan: Metal Detective is a first-person game, the movement is generally smooth.
I did experience a couple of crashes when I entered or exited the game, but nothing whilst playing. However, I found some of the writing too small for the Switch Lite screen.
There are limited settings, but you can alter the volume of the music, voice and SFX. However, once in the game, you’ll only be able to alter the master volume. One useful setting prior to starting the game is the ability to hide Morgan’s arms and hands, which swing in front of her as she walks. Well, it would be useful if it worked; it did for a time, but then her hands reappeared. Inverting the Y axis and altering the look sensitivity can be done before or during the game.
Morgan: Metal Detective autosaves, with a manual ‘save and exit’ option, but there is only one save slot.
There is no time of day.
Conclusion
Morgan: Metal Detective has an interesting mystery to solve via finding buried objects. It’s a short adventure, but I didn’t dig it as much as I hoped.
Final Verdict: I Like it 
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