Broken Sword Reforged’s Charles Cecil on “one-off chance to bring the games to a third generation”

Reinvigorating a beloved classic is a daunting task, for care must be taken to avoid erasing its retro charm while also navigating the ambition fuelling its remaster. Revolution’s Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars: Reforged managed to pull it off in 2024. However, in excelling, it has created an even greater hurdle to overcome as the Broken Sword Reforged project continues. 

In October 2025, Revolution announced Broken Sword – The Smoking Mirror: Reforged was in development. Having dazzled critics with its first remaster, the pressure to succeed again, while improving on its first iteration, is tenfold. The Escapist interviewed Revolution’s Charles Cecil for some Broken Sword Reforged development insight and to discuss the franchise’s legacy. 

The Escapist recaps

• The Broken Sword Reforged project continues with Broken Sword – The Smoking Mirror: Reforged, officially announced in October 2025. 
• Charles Cecil is the co-founder and CEO of Revolution Software and worked on both the original games and is working on the remasters. 
• Having immensely enjoyed playing Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars: Reforged, despite being new to the series, I wanted to learn more about Broken Sword Reforged behind the scenes and the way the project has since evolved. 
• Cecil and I discussed both titles, with a focus on balancing ambition and respect for a loyal fandom, as well as how to learn from past mistakes to further enhance the IP. 

Marrying together the past and the present

Similar to the first remaster, Broken Sword – The Smoking Mirror: Reforged must walk a very fine line, in that it aims to revitalize an adored franchise while remaining true to its origins. For Cecil, it’s all about building on the sturdy foundations the OG titles provided. 

“The ambition and promise to fans was that the game would respect the original intention, albeit hugely enhanced,” he explained, “So if the original digital artists colored differently from the pencil layouts for whatever reason, we have used the pencil layouts as the basis.”

As Cecil himself admits, while it’s not “generally noticeable”, the importance of respecting the past takes precedence. Consequently, nothing newly created has been added to the remaster. Yet, longstanding fans will spot additions when they compare the two, so how can that be? Quite simply, Revolution has included content that was already intended for the original but which became a victim of circumstance. 

“We haven’t added any new content, although we have enabled some lines that were written and speech was recorded at the time [sic], but which, for whatever reason, never played,” Cecil revealed. 

In 1996, Revolution’s publisher, Virgin Interactive, provided funding with a caveat: the sequel needed to be finished within a year. 

As unfathomable as it is to think of game development in this way through our 2020s lens, several years between titles wasn’t the norm. Now with more freedom at its disposal, Revolution can adjust some of the skewed logic of the sequel by addressing it in its Reforged rendition. 

Enhancing a fan-favorite adventure

Franchises, be they in video games, TV, film, or books, inevitably produce fan favourites. Oftentimes, with admiration being placed on the wild card of the series as opposed to the first adventure or the most technically brilliant. Take Dragon Age as a prime example of this; many fans love Dragon Age II despite it being regarded as the least successful of the trilogy. 

Although Broken Sword – The Smoking Mirror is by no means the least successful of the franchise, initially, it received mixed reviews. Most of which were a result of how critically acclaimed Shadow of the Templars was. And yet, the sequel is widely celebrated by fans, some would argue more so than George Stobart’s first adventure. 

Momentarily placing myself in Cecil’s position, I wondered if he found The Smoking Mirror: Reforged more intimidating to work on because of this. 

“Some people prefer The Smoking Mirror, others prefer Shadow of the Templars. We have embarked on both with trepidation, absolutely determined to delight rather than offend fans,” replied Cecil, before adding, “Given the reaction that we’ve seen, I would like to think that we have achieved this.”

This caution, born from passion for the series and its fandom, is arguably how and why the Broken Sword Reforged project is going from strength to strength when other remastered titles, from other publishers, have faltered. Such a positive relationship between the publisher and its audience is one Cecil feels “incredibly privileged” to experience. 

“We are incredibly privileged to have fans who tell us that they played the early Broken Sword games with their parents and now play with their children,” he continued, “This felt like a one-off chance to bring the game to a third generation and, who knows, maybe in a few decades a fourth generation will be playing the games!”

With such dedication powering this latest installment to the Reforged franchise, Cecil’s hope to see future generations discover George and Nico’s wild adventures feels tangibly plausible.

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