Broken Sword - On this day

By the second half of the 1990s, most games in the point & click adventure genre were imbued with a humorous tone. The British Revolution Software team wanted to prove that this humor can also exist in a game with a serious theme, such as a title that deals with secret societies, conspiracy theories, and the like. The Broken Sword series was created on that idea, but also the game of the same name, which came out on this day 25 years ago.

Full title Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars, this title introduced us to an American tourist in Paris, George Stobbart, and French journalist Nico Collard. The two of them find themselves on the trail of a great conspiracy that leads them to the mysterious Templars.

George and Nico were a very charming duo, made to attract both American and European audiences. Hand-drawn graphics helped that charm, just like animation in the style of older cartoons.

Broken Sword was innovative in several segments in its time. First, in his system of dialogue, he displayed icons instead of sentences that the characters should say. Secondly, it also had segments in which playful characters could die, which was not exactly standard practice in PnC adventures.

Shadow of the Templars originally appeared on PC, and its publisher was reluctant to move the game to the PlayStation console believing that a 2D adventure would not sell well there. However, Sony Computer Entertainment had a different opinion, and by the end of 1996, they had brought the game to the console. Interestingly, it was supposed to be called Circle of Blood in the US market, but at the request of author Charles Cecil, the name remained on the original Broken Sword.

Broken Sword was greeted with excellent reviews, and although sales were slow, by 2001, one million copies of this game had been sold, of which the results were roughly divided, and an equal number of copies were sold on PC and PlayStation.

Broken Sword later developed into a series with a total of five games, the last of which came out in 2013, and the last edition was received in 2019 on the Nintendo Switch console. The Shadow of the Templars got its remaster in 2009 for the Nintendo Wii and DS, and later for iOS and PC.