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An official trailer has emerged for forthcoming Square Enix adventure Murdered: Soul Suspects, which is set to launch on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC early next year.

It follows the story of hardboiled private eye Ronan O'Connor, who finds himself stuck in a ghostly limbo after being pushed out of a window by a hooded villain. Your job is to avenge your death and capture the elusive killer, though it won't be easy: owing to the unfortunate handicap of being dead, O'Connor can't actually interact with the world of the living.

Handily, it turns out Salem in Massachusetts is a hive of spiritual activity, so the detective can speak to ghosts of the dead to uncover the secrets behind his untimely demise. Not that every spectre is quite so friendly - others are malevolent spirits that O'Connor battles in an attempt to stay in limbo long enough to solve his own murder.

The trailer is mostly CGI, though there's a brief snippet of gameplay footage at the end which looks like a cross between Alan Wake and LA Noire. There's been no official announcement on who's developing it, but a quick look at the fine print in the trailer seems to suggest it's an in-house production.

Either way, the results look impressive, and if the concept isn't entirely new - Capcom's cult DS title Ghost Trick had a very similar premise - it looks like the action will play out very differently.

We'll no doubt see more of Murdered: Soul Suspects at E3, where hopefully the publisher will confirm precisely when in 2014 we can expect to see it.