2014: A Year of Adventure
So it's official: Thanks to Kickstarter and a general renewed interest, the adventure game genre is back from the dead in full force for at least one year. This could be the thing that proves there was life left in the genre, and spark longer term interest, or it could be one last hurrah for the small group of faithful. If there is any commercial viability left (and Walking Dead seems to suggest there is), then this will be the thing to prove it.
February
Gabriel Knight: Officially, we don't know anything about "Mystery Game X", except that it's episodic, and that it's going to be announced shortly before it's release, so act surprised.
March
Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded: This is shaping up to be a complete bottom-up overhaul of the original game, with redesigned puzzles, re-written dialog, new areas, etc rather than a shot-for-shot remake like the 1991 thing. This was delayed a little bit, on account of the change of developers, but they're promising it'll still be out by the end of Q1, and the dev switch seems to have been very worth it.
April
Broken Age: This is finally developing into a real game with a trailer and everything. It features a split narrative of a teenage girl in a medieval-like fantasy world and a teenage boy in a futuristic sci-fi world. What's been shown in the documentary so far looks pretty damned great, and I think the chance for disappointment here is low. Double Fine has told backers to brace for delays now, but it's unlikely this will be more than a few months simply due to the cost.
Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse: This series kind of went off the rails when it transitioned to 3D, but with the success of the "Director's Cut" remake of the original, coupled with all this Kickstarter nonsense, they're going old-school for this next one, which is promising indeed.
August
Tex Murphy 6: In terms of gameplay and design, the Tex games are probably my all time favorite adventures, and the cinematic presentation was always great too. They're looking to surpass what was done with their old games, despite their smaller budget, and from what we've seen so far, it seems like they're going to be able to pull it off. This is probably my single most anticipated game of 2013.
SpaceVenture Featuring Ace Hardway: A spiritual heir to the Space Quest series, that reuinites the Two Guys for the first time since 1991. This one has been relatively quiet, but some of that is because their updates are exclusive to higher tier backers. They're promising some gameplay footage soon. The release date has been moved back to a tentative "mid-2013" target, which I'm calling August.
October
Hero-U: For budget reasons, this is moving to more of a top-down RPG format, but the Coles promise that it is still very much a 50/50 Adventure/RPG hybrid like Quest for Glory. I think the art they've shown is pretty iffy, but if the writing is good, it could have promise.
November
Shadowgate: Like Leisure Suit Larry, this one is going to be a loose remake. Shadowgate introduced most players to the point and click interface, and it was one of the better adventures to appear on a console back in the 8-bit era, so lots of nostalgia to be had. I probably would be more excited for Deja Vu, though.
December
Jack Houston and the Necronauts: This is being made by a special effects studio specializing in stop-motion animation. It's designed to look like an old-school 1950s movie with stop-motion puppet creatures, and a pulp-sci-fi vibe. This is their first attempt at a game, which has me wary, but I love the pitch.
TBA 2013
Ace Attorney 5: This series has been off the rails since Apollo Justice, but hopefully getting back to Phoenix's story and the gameplay that made the earlier games work will do some good. It's been a long time since Trials and Tribulations, especially if you consider it was initially released on Game Boy Advance.
Beyond: Two Souls: Like all of Quantic Dream's games, this looks awesome, with great graphics and a great presentation. Hopefully this one doesn't fall apart in the third act, but it probably will.
Dreamfall Chapters: Already in early development, this is not an episodic game, as the title would suggest, but a full-blown sequel to Dreamfall and The Longest Journey. This probably strays a bit from the pure old-school adventure formula, but reportedly the game will not have any combat, which was the biggest flaw with Dreamfall, so I'm optimistic.
Fables: Telltale had a big hit with Walking Dead, so there's probably a lot of pressure on them to follow up big. I'm not really that familiar with the comic book series, so I don't have a lot of expectations going in.
Jane Jensen's Moebius: After a few months development with the Russian developer Signus Labs, this was shifted over to Phoenix Online, and independent adventure game dev responsible for The Silver Lining and Cognition. Initial tests look promising, and their track record is good, so hopefully this change is for the best, though wasting 6 months of development is worrying always.
And this bleeds into 2014, too, with Beneath a Steel Sky 2, a new Vampyre Story, and a few other interesting games. I never stopped playing adventures altogether, and they never completely went away, but I can't remember a time EVER where there were this many adventure games I was looking forward to.
