By Alec Meer on October 28th, 2009 at 9:21 am.
There have been hints, rumours, perhaps even ancient prophecies – but now we know it for sure. Revolution Software’s Charles Cecil, main man on the Broken Sword games and owner of John Walker’s immortal soul, is once again working with Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons on a new game. Years and years and years and years ago, they joined forces for the near-legendary pointer-clickerer Beneath A Steel Sky (which you can get for free here). Annoyingly, Cecil wouldn’t say what it was as part of this rather exciting confession. “We have a number of ideas for premises and we honestly haven’t decided which road we’re going to go down. But I love writing and playing adventure games and that is what I’m going to stick to“, he told Eurogamer yesterday. DO YOU THINK IT COULD BE AN ADVENTURE GAME?
28/10/2009 at 09:30 Nick says:
Exciting! Beneath a Steel Sky was a great game.. a tad on the short side but still hugely enjoyable, I hope whatever they do this time will be as good if not better.
28/10/2009 at 09:36 MrGilder says:
And there was me thinking this was a OneLifeLeft exclusive a few weeks back?!?!
28/10/2009 at 13:04 TheApologist says:
They didn’t really confirm it on OLL, but yeah…having heard that interview this isn’t a surprise.
28/10/2009 at 09:36 Ragnar says:
I wish they bring in Steve Ince for this project too. Then we’d know that the game will be awesome.
28/10/2009 at 09:40 Bhazor says:
Hooray. Cecil said he was planning to get back with Gibbons in an interview for GamesTM (or is it Games (TM), god damn new games journalism) when the interviewer asked about a sequel to Steel Sky. So that helps the speculation some what.
But would it be sacrilege to say I never liked the art in Watchmen? I get the feeling all the clever bits of art like the metaphors, overlapping the dialogue of one scene with the image of another and Rorsarch’s mask etc were essentially Moore’s work. The actual doodles felt a bit hit and miss to me with overly lumpy faces and fluids which looked like porridge. But then again I’m a fan of Nemesis The Warlock. I am clearly a fool.
28/10/2009 at 09:42 Lloyd says:
It’s got to be a new Beneath a Steel Sky. They have been wanting to make a sequel for bloody ages. Expect to see the Director’s Cut of Broken Sword on iPhone first, though. A Revolution employee pretty much confirmed that they’re (or at least he) is working on it on their message boards.
New to the blog, by the way! I like. Nicey nicey. More Risen Report in my eyes kthnx.
28/10/2009 at 09:50 Risingson says:
Counting the time for a comment saying “I don’t like adventures because they don’t let me do whatever I want and that is frustrating”…
Anyway, good news. Though I think that all the Cecil games are flawed somewhat.
28/10/2009 at 09:54 Bhazor says:
I don’t like adventures because they don’t let me do whatever I want and that is frustrating. Essentially I wish we lived in a world where every adventure game ripped off The Last Express rather than Lucasarts.
28/10/2009 at 09:51 hydra9 says:
You’re not a fool, Bhazor… not for liking Kev O’Neill’s amazing artwork or Pat Mills’ writing. I do think the artwork in Watchmen was excellent, though.
As for this news: AWESOME. BASS (nice acronym) is one of my all-time favourites.
28/10/2009 at 10:02 bill says:
I found BASS rather disappointing. (poor story. odd mix of surreal humour and serious atmosphere).
But i’m happy to hear that they’ll be making another game.
28/10/2009 at 12:56 bill says:
though i just remembered that the robot sidekick, and ability to give him orders, rocked.
28/10/2009 at 10:17 Gap Gen says:
It’s going to be a football management sim. Mos def.
28/10/2009 at 10:27 RLacey says:
I just hope it gets a PC release. All of their recent stuff (admittedly remakes) hasn’t made it.
28/10/2009 at 10:30 phil says:
A pure adventure would be win, though looking at the success of Uncharted 2 and the other recent blockbuster action adventures I suspect an In Cold Blood, half way house might be an easier sell to the money men.
28/10/2009 at 10:38 SanguineAngel says:
Heh I loved BaSS. I have replayed that game more than any other adventure game. I loved the mix of humour and atmosphere. But more importantly I thought the puzzles were intuitive but suitably challenging. As much as I loved all the adventure games I ate up, BaSS was my all time favourite.
And I really enjoyed the story.
Loved the art style too. A lot!
[ramble]
Also : I love adventure games because they DON'T let me do whatever I want and I can't whizz through them straight through. I like figuring things out, shock horror. I like it when a puzzle brings me up short and I have to think about what to do next. I even like when sometime I have to sleep on it!
What I don't like is when puzzles make no sense, but that's a seperate issue really.
[/ramble]
28/10/2009 at 11:08 Phlebas says:
I agree entirely, but I don’t think that was what Bhazor was getting at – The Last Express is not, after all, generally regarded as an easy game to whizz through. It’s the difference in design philosophy between (a) the classic text-adventure setup that provides you with a situation and some tools and tries to let you do whatever you want with that, even if it’s the ‘wrong thing’, and provide a sensible and hopefully entertaining response, and (b) the more linear story-driven structure where the focus is more on working out what the designer wants you to do next, which leads to chaff like Secret Files:Tunguska and Syberia 2 which generally won’t even acknowledge when you attempt something they didn’t have in mind.
28/10/2009 at 12:52 bill says:
does my post show up as Anonymous Coward? It shows up with my name here.
Or is that something to do with the weird cross-referencing between the blog posts and the forum?
28/10/2009 at 10:52 Krikey! says:
I’m a sucker for adventure games, but know this statement is unbiased: Beneath a Steel Sky = Win.
28/10/2009 at 11:12 Hmm says:
If it WON’T be an adventure game, I’ll be ridiculously disappointed.
28/10/2009 at 11:13 Heliocentric says:
The game will be a strategic level technical melee combat game, with quick time events.
28/10/2009 at 11:17 RLacey says:
Surely they’re following the LucasArts model: remaster a game, and then release some weird Tetris-platformer hybrid with nice artwork.
Must be that, then.
28/10/2009 at 11:26 Adam says:
I can’t wait for Beneath a Steel Sky (no number after it, that’d confuse people new to the series), an innovative FPS set in a grizzly sci fi world with regenerating health and a cover system, staring Robert Budweiser, in his tale to discover the alien artifacts hidden in a mythical vault, while combating hordes of zombies. Avalible on all platforms, Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii, November 2010.
28/10/2009 at 11:28 Rive says:
Consider me aroused.
28/10/2009 at 11:36 Chiller says:
Yeah, BASS is awesome and whatnot, BUT what I really wanted to say was: there’s a typo in the article’s title.
28/10/2009 at 13:16 Optimaximal says:
I reuinte daily!
28/10/2009 at 21:26 Kakksakkamaddafakka says:
Oh, dear.
Poor Alec.
28/10/2009 at 11:55 Risingson says:
About BASS, I thought at the time that it began greatly and sank at the middle of the game because design irregularity: at a sudden you advanced too quickly, and then you faced three difficult puzzles in a row. Then the ending came too soon, but predated by the most difficult puzzles of the whole game.
But it has great details, like the “BE VIGILANT” phrase, or the simply beautiful backgrounds at the beginning.
28/10/2009 at 12:56 bill says:
yeah. that’s kind of what i felt.
I also think that i was expecting something more cyber-punk / post apocalyptic, and less involving having to seduce old upper class ladies.
The robot sidekick rocked though.
28/10/2009 at 12:04 LionsPhil says:
YES. Please to be a straight, good old-fashioned pointy-clicky adventure game. Resist the temptations that have derailed Tim Schafer, resisssttt…
28/10/2009 at 12:15 LionsPhil says:
Also, yay for the SUBTITLES and their overexcitable CAPITALISATION for EMPHASIS:
It’s WHEEZING and BANGING…like an asthmatic DINOSAUR in the MATING season.
28/10/2009 at 13:04 L1ddl3monkey says:
YES I THINK IT MIGHT BE AN ADVENTURE GAME. WHY ARE WE SHOUTING?
28/10/2009 at 14:12 Gap Gen says:
To be heard over the sound of ADVENTURE
28/10/2009 at 14:48 JonFitt says:
WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THE SOUND OF WALKER USING A KIPPER ON A DOG….
Ah, it didn’t work. That’s much quieter.
28/10/2009 at 15:21 LewieP says:
Charles Cecil Eurogamer Expo session:
http://www.eurogamer.net/videos/eg-expo-2009-developer-sessions-charles-cecil-of-revolution-software
Just about to watch it now.
28/10/2009 at 16:55 Cooper says:
I just did a little happy dance.
28/10/2009 at 17:59 damian says:
Very exciting. I’m hoping to get a DS for Broken Sword DC.
Though do you remember when Cecil said that “point & click is dead..?”, then made two terrible 3D Broken Sword sequels. I so hope he goes arty-old school on our retro loving asses.
28/10/2009 at 21:42 Carra says:
The broken sword games are some of my favorites. Seeing a new game by its creator sure is great.