Gabriel Knight 20th Anniversary Interview

Interview with Jane Jensen ; from Pinkerton Road, Producer for 'Gabriel Knight 20th Anniversary Questions'

Here is an interview on the 20th Anniversary edition of Gabriel Knight which will be releasing in the near future on multiple platforms.

Twenty years is a long time, especially within the gaming industry. How and when was the decision made to create this anniversary edition of Gabriel Knight?

I first started talking to Activision about doing something with GK around the time of our Pinkerton Road kickstarter in 2012. The idea of doing a 20th anniversary edition of GK1, and having it be one of Pinkerton Road's first titles, was just perfect. To be able to redo the game that was my first real solo hit in the gaming industry was the chance of a lifetime.

From there I would like to ask what sort of updates or redesigns are being made? That of course being in terms of the visual and gameplay experience?

For the most part, I wanted the game to be true to the classic. I knew fans would be aware of every change we made and would miss even silly little lines. But we had a chance to add in a few new puzzles and scenes that could enhance the feeling of being immersed in New Orleans-specifically some exterior shots in the French Quarter. Also, I wanted to make it a little scarier, if possible, so there were a few new things added around that, adding in a few new creepy characters and changing a few puzzles to be scary instead of humorous. We kept almost all the original dialogue, but as soon as I started playing it I felt it would be overwhelming for a more modern audience. They wouldn't have the patience to listen to 25 questions with each person, so we added in the highlighting of the important topics, and also instead of having every single verb on every item, we cut the ones that didn't yield an interesting response. So yes, we tried to cut down on the amount of un-productive point-and-click. We also had to divide the content up more evenly per day instead of allowing the player to do so many things on day 1, which actually helps the story flow and is less spoilery.

Just to briefly touch on the audio aspect, being remastered will there be a large difference in how everything will sound to those familiar with the game?

The music is all redone with Robert's newest audio gear so it sounds like full orchestration, etc. The voices are all new as well, but so far everyone has thought the game sounds a lot like the original. The voice-over was done by BA Sound. They won awards for the voices in The Walking Dead and also worked with us on the Moebius voices and the quality is excellent.



The industry has changed quite a bit over the years, what's the goal with capturing this new and larger audience that's available?

We plan to release on iPad and android as well as Steam and GOG. I would love to see a new generation playing Gabriel Knight and hopefully that would enable us to make new GK games.

For those new to the series could we get a quick and exciting summary of what one could expect when playing Gabriel Knight?

Gabriel is a down-on-his-luck novelist who is investigating a series of murders in New Orleans that appear to be connected to voodoo. So you will work with his police pal, Mosely, visit crime scenes, investigate voodoo locations in New Orleans, and basically stick your neck out and get into mortal danger. And then things really get exciting! This is a paranormal mystery series similar to an X-Files or Supernatural with a bad boy rogue main character and his too-smart sidekick assistant, Grace.

Of course there are other entries in the Gabriel Knight series, could we perhaps see those remastered in the future or even a new one at some point down the road?

My biggest interest right now is working on a brand new GK game, but I'm not opposed to remastering GK2 and GK3. I think GK2 would be very challenging, though, because it would be so different than the original FMV version.

As with all interviews I do, hope I covered the game as best as I could in these questions. I look forward to reviewing Gabriel Knight when it eventually does release, add any final comments below.

Thank you for the coverage, and I look forward to hearing what you think of the final game! Jane

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