The first King’s Quest trailer premiered last night during The Game Awards and it showed that the series is taking a definite turn from its point-and-click roots. Played during a tribute to the series’ original creators, Ken and Roberta Williams, the trailer showed off a character looking very similar to series legend Graham, sporting an updated look but still the same color scheme as the King’s Quest staple.
This unnamed Graham look-a-like was shown going through a series of what appear to be platforming segments. A lot of jumping, running, and hints at fighting – three things that were very rare in the classic King’s Quest games. An odd looking dragon also made an appearence, presumably one that will need to be defeated either with weapons, or if it’s staying loyal to classic King’s Quest, perhaps it can be defeated by answering a series of riddles.
All in all, the game looks a lot more like an action-platformer than a point-and-click adventure, but that should not come as much of a surprise. It’s looking like this next King’s Quest will be taking many cues from the current king of mainstream point-and-click adventures (or as close they get), Telltale Games. Not only is the visually style vary similar, with its vector graphics and smooth textures, but a lot of the segments shown look like they’d utilize quick time events in the same way that Telltale does.
Granted, we know almost nothing about the game from this trailer, but if there is combat in the game I would not bet on it being much more than timed button presses. The movement shown was pretty stiff, and would not be great for fast-paced adventuring, but instead walking from place to place with mostly simulated events handling the action.
It was revealed back in August that Sierra “was back,” but as we reported, they’re not quite the same company. The Sierra you know and love from a kid is mostly gone, and will be involved with this King’s Quest in name only. Development duties for this iteration are being handled by indie studio The Odd Gentlemen.
It’s important to remember that different isn’t always bad, and if you’re a fan of classic King’s Quest, you may end up being disappointed in the amount of action injected into the series but that’s no reason to outright throw the game out the window quite yet. The series is 30 years old after all, changes are bound to happen. Either way, we’ll find out when the game releases on Xbox and PC in 2015.
Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
