# Top 17 Detective Video Game Protagonists

> Trench coats, deerstalkers and one very small hat. These sleuths range from rain-soaked noir cops to a lawyer who yells at witnesses, plus a few who never quite fit the badge.

*By YPB Team · Published October 31, 2026 · https://youpick.best/ranking/top-17-detective-video-game-protagonists*

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## Current results (no votes yet)

1. **Phoenix Wright** — score 1000/1000
   Capcom's spiky-haired defense attorney who investigates crime scenes and shouts Objection! in the Ace Attorney series.
2. **Cole Phelps** — score 952/1000
   The war veteran rising through the LAPD desks of 1947 Los Angeles in Rockstar's L.A. Noire (2011).
3. **Connor** — score 768/1000
   The android detective sent to hunt deviant machines in Detroit: Become Human (2018).
4. **Tex Murphy** — score 621/1000
   The down-on-his-luck private eye of post-apocalyptic San Francisco in Access Software's FMV adventure series.
5. **Professor Layton** — score 621/1000
   Level-5's top-hatted archaeology professor and gentleman puzzle solver in the Professor Layton series.
6. **Bigby Wolf** — score 621/1000
   The Big Bad Wolf turned sheriff, hunting a killer through Fabletown in Telltale's The Wolf Among Us (2013).
7. **Nancy Drew** — score 548/1000
   The teenage sleuth who starred in more than 30 point-and-click mysteries from Her Interactive.
8. **Lady Love Dies** — score 548/1000
   The flamboyant investigator solving a divine massacre on a vaporwave island in Paradise Killer (2020).
9. **Gabriel Knight** — score 464/1000
   The New Orleans author and Schattenjäger investigating voodoo murders in Sierra's Gabriel Knight series.
10. **Miles Edgeworth** — score 464/1000
   Phoenix Wright's prosecutor rival who leads his own crime-scene investigations in Ace Attorney Investigations.
11. **Harry Du Bois** — score 464/1000
   The amnesiac, self-destructive cop piecing together a murder and his own identity in Disco Elysium (2019).
12. **Kaname Date** — score 365/1000
   The one-eyed special agent who dives into suspects' dreams in AI: The Somnium Files (2019).
13. **Sherlock Holmes** — score 365/1000
   Arthur Conan Doyle's consulting detective, star of Frogwares' long-running series of investigation games.
14. **Kyle Hyde** — score 249/1000
   The ex-NYPD detective turned salesman unravelling secrets at a desert motel in Hotel Dusk: Room 215 (2007).
15. **Ronan O'Connor** — score 249/1000
   The murdered Salem detective solving his own killing as a ghost in Murdered: Soul Suspect (2014).
16. **Sam & Max** — score 249/1000
   Steve Purcell's dog-and-rabbity-thing duo of Freelance Police, stars of LucasArts and Telltale adventures.
17. **Detective Pikachu** — score 0/1000
   The coffee-loving, deerstalker-wearing talking Pikachu who solves cases in Ryme City.

Tags: games, characters, mystery, detective