L.A. Noire: The True Story Behind The Black Dahlia

Myth and reality collide in Team Bondi's painstaking recreation of post-war Los Angeles.

by Ewan Paterson
LA Noire Black Dahlia
Rockstar / City of Los Angeles Police Department / Public domain

Team Bondi's L.A. Noire is one of the greatest games of the last console generation, combining detective gameplay with third-person shooter elements to embody the spirit of classic film noir as best it can. Of course, that spirit can be seen in more than just the title's gameplay.

The game's story, told through the use of then innovative motion scanning technology, combines all the classic tropes of film noir with a keen eye for historical detail, ensuring myth and reality collide to impart one of the most unique gaming experiences seen on the last generation of consoles.

Nowhere is this relationship better embodied than in the game's homicide desk, which sees lead protagonist Cole Phelps plunged into an LAPD wracked by corruption, and a grizzly murder with no leads or breakthroughs.

The year is 1947, and the Black Dahlia has made headlines across the globe. The LAPD investigation is going nowhere, and with more bodies turning up, it's down to Phelps and the cantankerous Rusty Galloway to crack the case. But what did the game get right, and where does its story diverge from reality?

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and the Golden Age of Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled.