Chief Ripley: Everyone's done some soul-searching after learning that someone we trusted and relied upon was actually in league with our greatest enemy! Which is why we've come here, to Antarctica, to recruit a replacement coroner, Grace Delaney.
The Bureau travels to the Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica to recruit Grace Delaney, a previous teammate of the player, as the new coroner of the Bureau due to Angela's arrest. However, their heartfelt reunion gets abruptly cut short when they get informed about a murder just outside of the station, which prompts Jack and the player to rush there, finding the body of climate change activist Julia Lloyd with multiple stab wounds.
Tropes:
- 30-Second Blackout: The power at the station momentarily goes out at the start of Chapter 3, though Elliot quickly fixes it.
- Accidental Pun:Jack: Someone is dead and all you're thinking about is ratings?! That's pretty cold, Mr Foster!Jazz: Ha, cold! Great pun, man! I'll have to remember that one!
- Agent Scully: Zigzagged. At the start of the case, Jack refuses to accept the victim was killed by a saber-toothed tiger like Dr. Emerson claims, but soon starts to believe it when you find no proof an animal didn't do it until Grace confirms the fact a human is the murderer.
- Alliterative Name: Ernest Emerson.
- Amnesiac Dissonance: Blair didn't have memories of him killing Julia until you try to arrest him for the murder, where he slowly starts remembering everything in a painful manner.
- Ancient Conspiracy: A Downplayed example. While they aren't actually ancient, this case reveals that SOMBRA has been active since at least the 1950s, making them far older than the Bureau was led to believe throughout the season.Elliot: Can you believe that, <Player's Name>? We had no idea SOMBRA had been operating for so long!
- Benevolent Boss: Blair Carpenter, the station manager, truly cares about the well-being of his workers, though this later gets slightly Subverted when you discover he's the murderer, although he didn't' actually mean to kill Julia.
- Big Damn Reunion: Between Grace and the player, to the point she tears up the first time she sees you.
- Bold Explorer: During the Additional Investigation, you find an old newspaper article detailing how SOMBRA sent an exploration crew to Antarctica to colonize it and expand territory, though it didn't bear fruit.
- Braving the Blizzard: Jack and the player are forced to look for clues outside the station in the middle of a blizzard. At some point, they even get lost when the storm gets harsher, though thankfully they manage to reach the station before freezing to death.
- The Bus Came Back: Grace Delaney from the Grimsborough Police Department makes her official return in this case as the new coroner of the Bureau.
- Closed Circle: The Bureau and the team at the Antarctic station are forced to be in the presence of a violent killer with no way to flee or get out due to being stranded there.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Dr. Ernest Emerson, a scientist you meet in this case, firmly believes that the victim was killed by a saber-toothed tiger and is convinced that global warming is defrosting prehistorical creatures in the Antarctica. Blair even calls him a crackpot when you interrogate him.
- Continuity Nod:
- Grace recalls how she used to have a fiancé back in Grimsborough.
- Michelle remembers how SOMBRA has a sunken ship in Australia.
- Eerie Arctic Research Station: The case takes place in an Antarctic station where someone has bee murdered and now the team are forced to search for the killer before they decide to strike again.
- Electroconvulsive Therapy Is Torture: Sharon Jeung, the psychologist at the station, tried to get Julia into electroshock therapy due to her "inner problems", despite the fact that Julia was in perfect mental condition, which makes Marina question her psychologist abilities.
- Genki Girl: Dr. Kane Glazebrook claims Julia acted like this, as she was overly naïve yet excitable and curious about everything he did, which got onto his nerves pretty fast.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Both Blair and Sharon claim everyone on the station has been suffering from this. Coupled with a severe case of Polar Madness, and you have a recipe for disaster on your hands.Blair: There are no local inhabitants and only a handful of researchers here at the station. We're extremely isolated, so everyone's on a knife edge!
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The victim was killed by being stabbed multiple times with a broken paddle.
- Impeded Communication: During the Additional Investigation, the Bureau is unable to leave the Antarctica due to the recent snowstorm disabling communications. Good thing they had Elliot with them, or else they would have been stranded for days.
- Important Haircut: Grace now sports a shorter hairstyle as a result of deciding to become a Lady of Adventure.
- Improvised Weapon: The murder weapon is a kayak paddle.Grace: It's no wonder I had trouble identifying the murder weapon during the autopsy, <Player's Name>. Who kills someone with a kayak paddle?
- Irony: During his interrogations, Blair explains how people tend to go crazy inside of the station due to being completely isolated with no communication in a barren wasteland, even citing Dr. Emerson as an example. Later, you discover he killed Julia for this exact same reason.Blair: Honestly, people go a bit stir crazy out here, and this whole monster business is proof of that!
- Lady of Adventure: Grace tells you how she left Grimsborough and her fiancé to travel around the world for fun, eventually joining the Antarctic station to start a new research.
- Line-of-Sight Name: A variation. SOMBRA decided to call the ship they used to explore Antarctica decades ago... SOMBRA.
- May–December Romance: Blair, who is 57, was in love with Julia, who according to him was young enough to be his daughter.
- Mysterious Past: Due to discovering that SOMBRA has been around since the 1950s, the Bureau realizes how little they actually know about the organization, and decide to embark on a quest to dig up their past and use it to finish them once and for all.
- Newspaper Backstory: During the Additional Investigation, you find a newspaper article detailing how SOMBRA sent an exploration team to the Antarctica back in the 1950s, but had to abruptly return when the Argentinian government cancelled the expedition with no clear explanation. Thanks to this, the Bureau decides to travel to Argentina to discover more about SOMBRA's past.
- Not Good with Rejection: Julia rejected Blair's advances during one of their trips outside of the station, which coupled with some Go Mad from the Isolation and Polar Madness on his part led to him snapping and killing her.
- Not So Extinct: Dr. Emerson thinks the victim was killed by a resurrected saber-toothed tiger, and even Jack starts to believe it until Grace comes and disproves it.
- Organization with Unlimited Funding: Averted. Dr. Emerson's financial supporters were threatening to cut off their funds if he didn't bring any proof that living prehistoric creatures were present in Antarctica, which put a lot of pressure on him. Jack even theorizes Emerson murdered Julia to make it look like a saber-toothed tiger attack and save his research.
- Polar Madness: Every suspect living in the Antarctic station appears to be suffering varying degrees of this: Kane is extremely grumpy and has a Hair-Trigger Temper, Ernest is convinced that the killer is none other than a saber-toothed tiger, Sharon is so under pressure about maintain everyone happy that she herself has started to crack and suggest electroshock therapies for healthy individuals, and Blair is suffering from dissociative amnesia that prevents him from remembering he murdered Julia after a Rage Breaking Point.
- Posthumous Character: Eduardo Ruiz, a high-ranking SOMBRA operative that traveled to Antarctica in the past, is mentioned multiple times during the Additional Investigation, but he's been long dead for some time according to Michelle.
- Rage Breaking Point: Being rejected by Julia was this for Blair, whose Polar Madness made him completely snap and kill her in the heat of the moment.
- Reality TV: Jazz Foster, one of the suspects, is a TV producer creating a reality TV show set in the Antarctica, something that displeased Julia due to fearing the penguins would be disturbed by the contestants.
- Shipshape Shipwreck: One of the crime scenes is a wrecked ship that the workers at the station take supplies from.
- Shout-Out:
- The Shrink: Sharon Jeung, the psychologist inside of the station. She almost crosses the Psycho Psychologist line when you discover she tried to perform electroshock therapy on Julia despite being completely healthy, claiming that Julia was a ticking bomb. Marina deduces that Sharon is, in fact, the one succumbing to pressure and stress inside of the station,
- Skewed Priorities: Jazz seems to care more about his reality TV show than the fact someone at the station was murdered.Jazz: Someone was killed?! That's perfect timing! Nothing like a bit of drama and intrigue to raise the stakes of a television show! Any chance she was murdered?
- This Bear Was Framed: Dr. Emerson firmly believes that a saber-toothed tiger is the one responsible for Julia's death, even if the killer's intention was never framing an animal in the first place.
- Trauma-Induced Amnesia: Murdering Julia due to his Polar Madness and Rage Breaking Point was this for Blair, who completely forgot about everything and didn't manage to remember until you tried to arrest him. For this reason, Marina decides to step in and suggests sending him to a psychiatric ward instead of prison.
- I Warned You: Ernest regarding the fact that Julia was apparently killed by a prehistorical creature.Ernest: I warned you, didn't I?! I warned you all! A saber-toothed tiger has returned and it's killed Julia!
