You released the original Shadow of the Templars Reforged on Switch last year. What made you want to reforge it again on the Switch 2 a year later?
Oh, because we have the opportunity to bring it to 4K and to use the mouse feature of the Joy-Con 2. It’s also a huge privilege to be on the Switch 2 so early!
Using the mouse feature is arguably the way that it was always intended, although I’m also extremely proud of the reviews that we’ve had with controller and also on touchscreen. We’re very lucky that the point-and-click genre adapts really, really well, from mouse and keyboard to controller, to touchscreen and swipe and touch.
So was that something that piqued your interest when you first saw the Switch 2 reveal?
Pretty much! Nintendo are brilliant, aren’t they? And they create so much excitement. And obviously, I think they were a little bit miffed that so much information leaked. But actually, looking back, it probably wasn’t a bad thing, because it just created this extraordinary level of enthusiasm and interest.
When we heard rumours that there was a mouse functionality being added to the Joy-Con 2, it was like, ‘Wow, this is extraordinary.’ You really do have a choice in how you control the game now. You can do it in pretty much any way you want.
What was that development process like for you then? When did you receive dev kits for the Switch 2?
Everybody loves Nintendo in the industry, and we’re no exception.
I lobbied Nintendo for a Switch 2 kit early. They were very courteous, but denied the existence of a Switch 2, you know, with a smile on their face. But then we heard about six months ago that we would be one of the early developers, for which we feel very grateful, and actually quite proud.
Very few Switch 2 kits have been shipped to developers. And so this is one of the very early games, which is a great privilege.
So were you looking at dev kits just before launch?
Just after. We got dev kits before Gamescom in August.
What did you make of it when you first got to go hands-on with the kit itself?
Everybody loves Nintendo in the industry, and we’re no exception. The jump to the higher resolution works very well for us. It’s just a great opportunity to bring it back in 4K and use the mouse functionality.
One of the things that we don’t like doing is releasing a game that is half-finished on the basis that we’re going to patch it later, and then the game comes out and it gets poor reviews, quite rightly, because it doesn’t work very well. So we were super keen to release the game when it was finished. But nevertheless, there were some issues [with Broken Sword: Reforged].
One of the things that you criticised quite rightly last time was the quality of the voice recording. Back in 1996, because the game had to stream from CD, we had to compress both the movies and the dialogue, so the dialogue was compressed to 11 kilohertz — a quarter of the size that it would be at full CD quality. But I remember at the time, we were way behind, and a publisher, Virgin, actually cut the samples up themselves and then compressed them, but they compressed them really unprofessionally. So what we had was a very, very poor quality base.
We toyed around with AI, but it didn’t really work very well
When we chose the best software to upscale, we found we could get rid of the hiss, but then it took the intonation out of the actors’ voices, which broke my heart. We wanted to get a balance between making sure that the intonation was there, while reducing the hiss as much as possible.
When the game came out, people said, “Oh, this is ridiculous, you’re not using the right software.” But what they didn’t appreciate was this absolute desire to keep the intonation of the actors and get the balance right. After release, a new piece of software became available. Because things are moving so fast in this field, we found that we could get much better quality. So we reprocessed all the voices in all languages, and then we reissued them all as a patch.
So, things like that, where we were unable to get the quality we wanted for release, we’re now retrospectively able to enhance. So a lot of the criticisms that were made quite rightly on release last year have actually since been addressed, and obviously go into the Switch 2 as the native version.
What’s been your preferred play style when you’ve been playing it during development? How often have you been using the Mouse Mode?
We are using the mouse absolutely. To be honest with you, we play it in every way! Which is the preferred? I still think using the controller, but the mouse works very well, and it’s lovely to be able to give people a choice.
How does it feel to see all of this gorgeous art upgraded into 4K?
The game has 30,000 frames of animation and substantial amounts of artwork. We toyed around with AI, but it didn’t really work very well. So we have a very, very talented group of animators who basically just rolled their sleeves up and got on with drawing the 30,000 frames of animation and improving.
What we wanted to do as part of that is to be absolutely true to the original intent, because we promised fans that this was going to be the same game, but enhanced. We went back to the original line art, which I had scanned at a very high resolution, and our digital artists then painted over that. It’s absolutely wonderful [to see it on Switch 2] because all of these things were always intended to be in 4K.
The Switch 2 is not quite as easy to publish for, since the cartridge sizes are much larger
But the other key thing is from an interface perspective. It’s an interface that we revolutionised and evolved 30 years ago, and it hasn’t moved since then. So, it was a real toss-up between ‘is this relevant for today’ or ‘is it just that we haven’t adapted’? In high-resolution 4K, you don’t need a blocky user interface. We looked at the reasons why people were getting stuck, and one of them was that people couldn’t find the hot spots, so we changed the way the interface works and put a little cone in, and the cone moves.
What we’re trying to do is determine how we can bring this to a modern audience so that it’s much clearer what’s going on. This is what we should have done years ago, but at least we’ve done it now. We saw this as an opportunity to completely reboot Broken Sword and, to an extent, reboot the adventure [genre] as a whole, because people refer to the modern interface as the ‘Broken Sword interface’. That was 30 years ago! Surely to God, we should have realised, as should everybody else, that the opportunities that exist in 4K — the subtlety of the interface, the beauty of the graphics — are just so much more than they were 30 years ago!
You released a physical edition for the Switch 1 version of the game. Are there plans to do a similar one for Switch 2?
We would absolutely love to. The Switch 2 is not quite as easy to publish for, since the cartridge sizes are much larger. But absolutely. Clearly, there is a need, a human need for tactility. Clearly, for people who care about a particular game, it’s really nice to have a physical copy. So yeah, we did launch it both as a standalone game through Red Art Games, and then also as part of our Kickstarter that was launched last year.
What’s your opinion on Game-Key Cards?
Personally, I don’t blame people for feeling that it kind of defeats the whole point. The advantage of a Game-Key Card, of course, is that you can pass it on to somebody else, which you can’t do from a digital perspective; but then it’s not permanently yours. So we would love to do a physical version, but it wouldn’t be a Game-Key.
And how about Smoking Mirror: Reforged? Can we expect a Switch 2 release for that one, too?
We have as much time as we need to really get it right this time
Oh yes, absolutely! Everything will be released at the same time. One of the reasons that we’re so excited to be able to get ‘Broken Sword 1 Reforged’ out is because it guarantees that we will have simultaneous shipping for PC and all consoles. So yes, Switch 2 is absolutely very, very important to us.
And how is development going on it?
Well, I was kind of whinging about the fact that there were 30,000 frames of animation for Broken Sword 1. There are 45,000 frames for Broken Sword 2. We’ve got a very talented team in the UK, but for Broken Sword 1 originally, we worked with a company called Fil-Cartoons in Manila. I reached back out to some guys in Manila, and, although the animation scene has died right down, there are an awful lot of really talented animators still out there. So we’re balancing between working with people who used to work for Fil-Cartoons and wonderful European and British animators who are designing the characters. So it’s just really fun to be honest with you.
The thing about Smoking Mirror is that the US side of our publisher, Virgin Interactive, hated adventure games. Even though Broken Sword 1 had been really successful. They told us they didn’t want to do Broken Sword 2. I convinced [Virgin Interactive boss, Martin Alper] that we would be able to write it in a year. And on that basis, he greenlit it.
We did write it in a year, and I’m really proud of it, but by God! We have as much time as we need to really get it right this time, and that’s not to say that it was bad — it got great reviews and a lot of people love the game — but we have the opportunity to fix it. And so we’re rolling our sleeves up and going, ‘How do we make this better? How can we make sure this feels polished like it should have been back in 1997?’ So, it’s a fairly major overhaul, but it’s still the same game, just much more enhanced.
I have to ask about Broken Sword 6, because you’re not just reforging. How is work going on the game? Can you tell us any developments?
we’re now in a strong position and enjoying it
I can tell you that it’s going very slowly. We had it partially funded, and then, as you will remember, everything went horribly wrong about four or five years ago. We’ve got the design written, we’ve got characters designed, we’ve got quite a lot of logic designed, and we’ve kind of put it on hold. But we have the opportunity now to go back at the right time and look at all the strong elements, look at the weak elements, and really focus.
But to do that, we need to build the reserves. Revolution has no investment, which is wonderful in some ways. It’s wonderful because we don’t need to follow short-term directives by investors, but it also means that we need to write games that are successful and make us a profit, because if we don’t, we’ll go bankrupt. It’s as simple as that. And so that’s quite stressful, but it’s also much more edgy. It keeps us on our toes. So, long answer short is, Broken Sword 6 is really, really exciting, but it is something that we go back to once we can afford to. Writing these Reforged games is wonderful, but it’s also a good way of building ourselves up.
With all your experience in games, what do you make of the wider industry landscape today?
Well, I’m going to sidestep your question. I’m going to say what is interesting is that in Japan, they’re not making layoffs. And the reason is because they have much more loyalty to their staff, and to an extent, to gamers. They didn’t madly expand, and they’re not driven by short-term profitability.
I would like to think that we [Revolution Software] follow much more of the Japanese model, where we didn’t expand rapidly when there was the opportunity and there was lots of money available. So we’re now in a strong position and enjoying it. Adventure games are a niche, but they’re a sizeable niche. We didn’t take lots of investment when the opportunity arose, because we didn’t think it was appropriate. So we’re not really affected by the downturn.
We work to create games that our community, and broader, will like. So we’re kind of naive in that way, I guess.
It’s a real shame, and I think it is driven by greed. It is driven by capitalism that is greedy and wants short-term profit, and I really admire the Japanese for not falling into that trap.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Thank you to Charles for taking the time to talk to us, and to Keith from Renaissance PR for setting up our chat. Broken Sword – Shadow of the Templars: Reforged – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition is now available on the Switch eShop for €29.99/$29.99/£24.99, or for €4.99/$4.99/£4.99 as an upgrade pack.
