Something to look forward to: With Hollywood plundering the video game industry for more big-screen adaptations, it appears that the spotlight has turned to older titles. Point-and-click classic Broken Sword, which first arrived in the mid-1990s, is next in line, and it's being made by the studio behind the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movies.
Created by Charles Cecil, Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars became a much-loved entry in the point-and-click genre when it launched in 1996. It joined the likes of Secret of Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky, and Grim Fandango as all-time classics.
The story follows American tourist George Stobbart, whose Paris vacation is derailed when a clown plants a bomb in a café. Teaming up with French journalist Nico Collard, George investigates the attack and uncovers a conspiracy involving the Knights Templar, ancient secrets, assassins, and a trail that stretches across Europe and the Middle East.
Four more Broken Sword games were released after the original, with the final, episodic Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse arriving in 2013.
There have also been several remastered versions of the games. A successful Kickstarter for a "Reforged" version of the second entry, The Smoking Mirror, concluded last year. It raised almost $1 million, though the goal was just $68,000.
Revolution Software is also working on a brand-new entry called Broken Sword – Parzival's Stone. It has a Steam listing, but the planned release date has yet to be announced.
Variety reports that the movie is being penned by Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales screenwriter Evan Spiliotopoulos. Story Kitchen is producing the project alongside Revolution Software's Cecil and his partner, Noirin Carmody.
Story Kitchen is no stranger to game adaptations. In addition to Sonic the Hedgehog, it's behind Amazon's upcoming Life Is Strange series.
"Very few franchises of this era have stayed relevant, premium, and loyal to the intelligence of their audience. 'Broken Sword' has done all three," Story Kitchen co-founders Dmitri M. Johnson and Michael Lawrence Goldberg said in a joint statement. "Our work here isn't to adapt a game into a film. It's to move a world that has been building for three decades into the next medium it deserves, working hand-in-hand with the people who built it."
No word yet on when we might see Broken Sword in the theaters.
Following the commercial, if not critical, success of Mortal Kombat 2 and the excitement around Zach Cregger's upcoming Resident Evil reboot, it appears that Hollywood is now trawling through gaming history for potential adaptations. Perhaps The Dig, originally conceived by Steven Spielberg in the 1980s as a potential film and television project but deemed too expensive, will finally become a film. And I'd pay good money to see Beneath a Steel Sky on the big screen.