The 20th Anniversary Edition of the classic Sierra adventure game will get new art and voice-overs but retain the core point and click 2D gameplay.
Series creator Jane Jensen announced today that the classic adventure game Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers will be getting a remake in 2014. Pinkerton Road, Jensen’s independent studio, will be developing the game and has licensed the intellectual property from Activision. High definition graphics will be added as well as new backgrounds and puzzles to “pump up the New Orleans flavor and also the spookiness where possible,” Jensen told GameTrailers in an interview. The remake will retain the original 2D point and click gameplay and all of the original puzzles. The 20th Anniversary Edition will be released for PC, Mac, Android and iPad as a digital download in mid-2014.
All of the audio from the original game has been re-recorded, including the games’ original score. The voice acting also required new recordings, because the original audio files are not available and the compressed audio files that shipped with the game are too low in quality. The original game featured actors Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, Michael Dorn, and Leah Remini, but Jensen confirmed that original cast would not be reprising their roles.
The game follows Gabriel Knight, a bookstore owner in New Orleans’ French Quarter, as he discovers his Schattenjäger (or shadow-hunter) heritage while attempting to solve a series of ritual murders. The original Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers was released in December 1993 by Sierra On-Line. The game became a classic in the adventure game genre, and Gabriel Knight went on to star in two sequels. The sale and subsequent downsizing of Sierra On-Line in the late ’90s led to the announcement that Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned would be the last in the series. With a cliffhanger ending, fans of the series have been hoping for years that a fourth entry might someday be developed. Jensen hinted in her interview with GameTrailers that a new adventure in the series could be possible, but that the current licensing deal only covered the remake. All three games are available on GOG for $5.99 USD apiece if you are itching to join in the nostalgia.
Pinkerton Road was founded in 2012 by Jane Jensen and Robert Holmes. The independent studio focuses on story-based games. Along with the remake of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, the studio is currently developing Moebius, an original 3rd person adventure game, for release in December 2013 or January 2014.
Source: GameTrailers.com
