Expert Witnesses in Media: Video Games 

By Noah Bolmer

Video games have become a dominant form of media worldwide, more than doubling film and music profits combined. As interactive experiences, they invite players to participate in them, reshaping familiar genres in the process. Courtroom drama is a striking example. What might be a brief procedural detail on screen becomes, in games, a space for puzzles, tension, and often parody. 

Across decades of titles, the figure of the expert witness has been borrowed and bent to serve different purposes, reflecting how games transform familiar legal roles into interactive drama. What follows is a look at how five very different games have reimagined expertise in ways that range from procedural realism to absurd spectacle.

1. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (2001)

Platforms: Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Windows, Wii, iOS, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Steam. 

Capcom’s Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney is the game that turned the courtroom into a stage for interactive drama. First released in Japan in 2001, the series is set in a stylized version of the Japanese legal system, though localizations often dress it up with Western names and settings. Over more than two decades, it has grown into one of gaming’s longest‑running franchises, with sequels, spin‑offs, and remasters that continue to draw players back into its eccentric trials. 

The tone is deliberately melodramatic and silly. Trials are staged like theater: lawyers slam desks, witnesses shout their testimony, and judges react with exaggerated surprise. Expert witnesses appear throughout, often as coroners, forensic specialists, or handwriting experts. What makes Ace Attorney distinctive is not that experts dominate every case, but when they appear, their testimony is exaggerated into puzzles the player must solve. Expertise becomes part of the spectacle, folded into the game’s blend of melodrama and logic. The series shows how games can take a role that other media often treats as tangential and exaggerate it into a central obstacle, all while reveling in its own absurdity. Its longevity underscores how effective that formula has been: for over twenty years, players have been gleefully dismantling expert certainty in courtrooms that are equal parts legal drama and dinner theater.

2. Detroit: Become Human (2018)

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Windows 

Quantic Dream’s Detroit: Become Human is a narrative adventure set in a near‑future Detroit where androids begin to develop self‑awareness. The story follows three android protagonists as they navigate questions of autonomy, morality, and identity. Unlike Ace Attorney, the game doesn’t stage traditional trials, but it does feature hearings, interrogations, and public inquiries where expert testimony plays a role. 

Instead of forensic reports or autopsies, specialists testify about whether androids can feel emotions or exercise free will. Their statements are delivered with the authority of science and policy, but the player’s choices can undermine or reshape their impact. In one sequence, a psychologist insists, “They are sophisticated simulations, nothing more.” The line is delivered with confidence, but the player is immediately positioned to challenge whether that authority can withstand lived experience. 

The hearings are staged with theatrical intensity—spotlights, hushed audiences, and moral stakes that go far beyond procedure. Experts here frame the philosophical debate over personhood. Their testimony becomes something for the player to push against, a foil for the choices that define the narrative. Detroit reimagines expert testimony as part of a broader moral spectacle. Expertise is respected, but it is also dramatized, exaggerated into a debate about humanity itself. Experts provide the scaffolding for one of the game’s central questions: what does it mean to be human?

3. Judgment (2018)

Platforms: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows, Stadia 

Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s Judgment is a spin‑off of the Yakuza series, set in Tokyo’s fictional Kamurocho district. Unlike its parent franchise, which focuses on organized crime, Judgment follows Takayuki Yagami, a disgraced lawyer turned private detective. The game blends legal drama with investigative mechanics, and its courtroom sequences bring expert witnesses into sharper focus than most action‑driven titles. 

Their testimony provides the official version of events—cause of death, medical records, or procedural explanations. In one hospital scandal, a doctor testifies that a patient’s death was natural, a statement that carries institutional weight. Yagami’s detective work outside the courtroom uncovers evidence that challenges this narrative, showing how expertise can be used to reinforce a cover‑up. Experts give the trial a veneer of credibility, against which Yagami’s discoveries can be measured. Their presence highlights the tension between official authority and the messy reality uncovered through investigation. In Judgment, experts help make the courtroom drama feel grounded, even as the game leans into stylization.

4. L.A. Noire (2011)

Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch 

Set in post‑war Los Angeles, L.A. Noire puts players in the role of detective Cole Phelps, solving cases across homicide, vice, and arson divisions. The game is built around interrogations and evidence gathering, with expert testimony woven into its investigations. 

Coroners and forensic specialists provide reports that guide the player’s choices. In homicide cases, autopsies establish time of death, cause of injury, and other technical details. A coroner might state, “Cause of death was blunt force trauma. No doubt about it.” That testimony sets the baseline for the investigation, but the player’s work can complicate or expand on it—finding evidence that suggests a different weapon, or uncovering circumstances that the expert’s report doesn’t capture. 

Expert testimony doesn’t solve the mystery, but it frames the investigation, giving players a starting point and a sense of official certainty to test against. Combined with the game’s facial animation technology, which turns every twitch and hesitation into a clue, the experts help create a world where technical detail and human behavior intersect. In L.A. Noire, expertise is part of the texture of the investigation, providing the noir drama with a touch of reality.

5. Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc (2010)

Platforms: PlayStation Portable (Japan), PlayStation Vita, Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, Android 

Spike Chunsoft’s Danganronpa series takes the courtroom setting and pushes it into surreal territory. The premise is simple but outrageous: a group of high school students is trapped in a deadly game where murders must be solved through “class trials.” These trials borrow the structure of courtroom proceedings, but they are stylized into logic battles, complete with rapid‑fire arguments and visual metaphors. 

Expert witnesses in this context are not seasoned professionals but students whose specialized knowledge suddenly becomes decisive. A character with medical training might testify about wounds, another with mechanical expertise might explain how a device works, and their testimony is treated as authoritative within the trial. Yet the game immediately turns that authority into a puzzle. The player must spot contradictions, fire “truth bullets” at flawed statements, and dismantle the expert’s certainty in real time. 

Across its sequels and spin‑offs, Danganronpa has sustained this formula, making its own version of expert witnesses central to its identity. The trials are absurd and melodramatic, but they also highlight the potential fragility of expertise when subjected to scrutiny. In this way, the series turns the expert witness from a tangential figure into the centerpiece of its surreal courtroom theater. 

Conclusion 

The figure of the expert witness—so often a procedural footnote in other media—becomes a flexible device in interactive storytelling. Each approach reflects the medium’s capacity to turn expertise into something participatory; something the player must engage with rather than passively observe. Whether grounding realism, heightening drama, or lampooning authority, expert witnesses in games illustrate how interactive media can bend familiar roles into new shapes.  

If you’d like to be considered for expert witness opportunities, join Round Table Group. For over 30 years, we’ve connected litigators with the most qualified experts across disciplines. Call us at 202‑908‑4500 or sign up today to learn more.