The Birdwatcher is the thirteenth game in the Carol Reed series. Set in Sweden in the summer, Carol has been down with the flu. She is contacted by Immodia, a character from a previous game Profound Red, because her future husband Henrik, a recent widower, has disappeared. She wants Carol to help her track him down. The game uses its trademark first-person view with photographs of real locations and objects in a fixed-screen slideshow style. There are puzzles to solve with items stored in an inventory near the top of the screen. A journal is used to keep track of objectives.