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A brand new follow-up to classic adventure game Beneath a Steel Sky is “probably going to happen”, and further Director’s Cuts of existing Broken Sword games are likely, the designer of both games has revealed.
Charles Cecil, founder of York-based Revolution Software, told VideoGamer.com that if the upcoming Wii and DS Director’s Cut of the original Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars is successful, “then we probably will do more”.
Not only that, but, assuming the remakes prove popular, Cecil said the developer “will explore new ways of maybe doing Director’s Cuts of other Broken Swords, or Beneath a Steel Sky, or new Broken Swords or new adventures”.
Cecil’s comments are guaranteed to get fans of his work hot under the collar. Revolution enjoys a loyal fan base that has pushed for remakes of the studio’s classic adventure games with online petitions and community-driven projects.
Cecil said that “if we got that far”, Revolution would remake Broken Sword 3 and 4 which were 3D games) in 2D for the Wii and DS.
“It would be a case of reinterpreting them,” he said, “probably taking more liberties than we did with the first one. The first one, I didn’t want to change any of the assets, I just wanted to add to them. I don’t think I’d take that philosophy. But yeah, it would probably be a move back to 2D for those two. So that would be a major reinterpretation.”
Cecil also hinted at the possibility of a Broken Sword movie tie-in game: “We’ve been approached by quite a major movie studio, Radar Pictures (The Last Samurai, The Chronicles of Riddick), and they’re talking about doing a film. So if we do a film then we’d maybe do a game to fit in with that. There are so many possibilities, they’re all bubbling away. We’ll just react to whatever happens.”
On the chances of a brand new Beneath a Steel Sky game, Cecil said: “I think there’s a very good chance of that. Dave Gibbons (of Watchmen fame) and I have talked about it for so long now. One of the huge advantages was when the game could no longer be played, because it was originally written in DOS it pretty much disappeared.
“And then the wonderful people at ScummVM wrote their ScummVM emulator. We gave them the source code and they rewrote it. My sense was that because the game had no intrinsic value before ScummVM, because it was DOS and nobody could play it, that actually we should give it away for free.
“It’s been extraordinarily successful. Obviously people have been able to download it for free, and literally millions and millions of people have played it. That has meant that actually the brand is really well known now. It wasn’t a deliberate thing at all, but it’s just the way that it’s happened.
“So commercially it makes a lot more sense than it would ever have done a year or two years ago, before it was being given away. Dave is very busy at the moment and we’re very busy at the moment. There will be a point at which we come together and go, right, we’ve been talking about this for so long, we’re going to actually do something. That moment hasn’t come yet, but it will happen at some point I’m sure.
“Dave and I even started throwing ideas around at one point. It’s probably going to happen at some point. It is a successful brand, people are very passionate about it, it’s fun and it would be great to work with Dave again.”
Be sure to check out our exclusive Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars – Director’s Cut video preview, which contains interviews with Charles Cecil and Dave Gibbons. The game is out for Wii and DS on March 20.
