Broken Sword - Parzival's Stone is a new entry in the classic point-and-click adventure series

23.08.2023 - 18:45 / eurogamer.net / New / Stone

It's been 27 years since Revolution Software's Broken Sword series introduced the world to protagonists George Stobbart and Nicole Collard, but the adventurous twosome still aren't ready for retirement just yet; they're returning for a new adventure, Broken Sword — Parzival's Stone, and a remake of their first outing, Shadow of the Templars, coming early next year.

Parzival's Stone will be the sixth entry in the Broken Sword series — following on from Shadow of the Templars, The Smoking Mirror, The Sleeping Dragon, The Angel of Death, and 2013's The Serpent's Cruse — and will once again be helmed by series originator Charles Cecil.

It sees George and Nico getting caught up in terrifying conspiracy featuring Nazi treasure hunters, brutal mediaeval histories, and Quantum Physics, where ruthless technology entrepreneurs, corrupt government agencies, and billion-dollar global energy corporations are all battling for possession of a manuscript pointing to the secret location of the mythical thousand-year-old Grail, just perhaps not the one we're used to hearing about.

Parzival's Stone promises an «innovative, immersive» twist on the classic point-and-click forumla, with the whole thing being presented in a «super 2D» graphic style that applies hand-drawn backgrounds to 3D geometry for a more cinematic experience. You can get a promising glimpse of that — plus the new Shadow of the Templars: Reforged remaster — in the trailer above.

So far, Revolution isn't talking release dates for Parzival's Stone — only saying it'll be coming to PC, console, and mobile — but it'll be arriving sometime after the Reforged remake of the studio's original Broken Sword game, Shadow of the Templars.

First released in 1996 (and given a Director's Cut remaster in 2009), Shadow of the Templars starts in dramatic fashion as American tourist George Stobbart is caught up in a bombing on the streets of Paris in what proves to be a series of assassinations perpetrated by a man dressed as a clown. Eventually he joins forces with photo-journalist Nicole Collard, and the adventure gathers pace as a global conspiracy relating to the Knights Templar is unearthed.

It's a true classic of the point-and-click genre, deftly weaving historical fact and fiction into a thoroughly engrossing, occassionally thrilling whole, all served up with a low-key charm and relatively grounded tone that made for a wonderful counterpoint to the zanier adventures of the time. Revolution's new Reforged version promises to bring all that back with a broad range of upgrades, including «beautiful» re-drawn 4K backgrounds, re-animated sprites, enhanced audio, and refinements to «many other aspects of the original game».

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