A graffiti artist has been tagging Holohigh with insults aimed at the student council president, and Gawr Gura got caught red-handed. She didn’t do it. Proving that is your job.
That’s the setup for HoloTrials: Case Covered, which landed on Steam September 10, 2026, costs nothing and has fans talking since launch. Free games show up on the platform constantly. Most of them aren’t worth the download. This one is.
You play Watson, and yes, that’s the joke
You’re Amelia Watson, defense attorney by circumstance, and the case runs across two days. Investigate the scene. Gather facts. Then get into a courtroom and defend your friend’s honor against a case built out of lies and misinformation.
It’s a highschool whodunit with Sherlock Holmes bones, and the game never pretends otherwise about where it got its ideas.
The Ace Attorney tribute is the whole point
Dramatic finger pointing. Comic-style dialogue overlays. The art is cutesy and cartoonish, but the visual grammar comes straight from Capcom’s trilogy, and the developer clearly means it as tribute rather than theft.
The structure follows suit: side-scrolling adventure, crime scene investigation, courtroom cross-examination. One full case, start to finish.
There are mini-games. There are puzzles. There’s a tongue-in-cheek gacha game tucked in there too, which is funnier than it has any business being.
The VTubers aren’t just a skin
Characters from HoloEN’s Myth and Council turn up with hand-drawn animations, and the expressiveness is doing real work. Pair that with a script that’s sharp and genuinely funny, and you get something that sits well above the usual free-to-play shelf on Steam.
The rating backs it up. So do reviews warm enough to make a small indie developer blush.
Worth a couple of hours before GTA 6 eats everything
Hardware costs money. Triple-A games cost more money. A polished courtroom drama that asks for neither is a small mercy, and this one has no right to be as good as it is.
If you like Ace Attorney, you’ll finish it. If you’re just here for HoloLive, same. And with the clock ticking toward Grand Theft Auto VI, a two-day case you can actually close is a decent way to spend an evening.
Should you pass on it? Not on my watch.
