There's been a bit of a renaissance in point-and-click adventure games of late - big in the 90s, these story-driven, puzzle-centric titles were our bread and butter growing up, between the near-infinite replays of the first few Tomb Raider games. Whether it's the remakes of the old LucasArts games, from Dia de Muertos-inspired Grim Fandango, to the time-travelling Day of the Tentacle, or old favourites getting sequels, many years after the originals - King's Quest, Broken Sword and Syberia to name but a few - the genre seems to be making something of a comeback, after several years out in the cold. And it's Syberia, the mammoth-hunting, robot-loving, snow-capped adventure that's the latest to the party.
Needs more mammoths.
Originally released way back in 2002, Syberia followed the tale of American lawyer, Kate Walker, whose most recent case involved the seemingly simple sale of a toy factory following the death of its owner. However, upon discovering that the now deceased owner's brother is still alive, Kate sets off on a quest to track him down, and inform him of his newfound inheritance. But finding Hans is harder than she anticipated, as for most of his life, he's been out trying to track down the illusive mammoths - and in order to find Hans, she'll need to follow his trail. A sequel arrived a few years later, picking up where its predecessor left off, where Kate, having finally found Hans, decides to join him on his quest to find the aforementioned legendary mammoths, on a long-winded journey on board a clockwork train, winding through the snow-covered landscapes.
Fast-forward twelve years, and Syberia 3 opens as series protagonist Kate Walker finds herself adrift on a makeshift craft, close to death, somewhere in the vast Syberian snow plains. Fortunately, she gets discovered by a caravan of the Youkol people, the same Inuit-like race from the previous game, who take her in. To help repay their kindness, and because they're united by a 'common enemy', Kate decides to join the nomadic tribe in one of their more unusual ancient traditions. The journey to accompany "the snow ostriches to the holy steppes [sic]", where they reproduce, will see Kate travel across lands both enchanting and desolate, experiencing both wonderful and dangerous adventures with her pursuers hot on her heels.
What do you mean my stalkers are outside?!
To be honest, much of the story remains a mystery at the moment, and how this ties in with her previous adventures in the series - the search for the legendary mammoths, crazy inventor Hans' automatons, and Kate's past as a lawyer in New York - remains to be seen, although according to Associate Writer & Games Designer Lucas Lagravette, "Syberia I and II made up Kate Walker's first journey; Syberia III is a whole new journey". Written by the same Benoit Sokal as the previous two games, with his original pen and pencil sketches now being rendered into a fully three-dimensional world, he's staying relatively schtum about the specifics, saying that "I don't actually want to show you what you're going to see at all", preferring players to experience it themselves later this year.
From the trailer, we see Kate talking with what we assume is the matriarch of the Youkol tribe, exploring dank underground caverns and wandering through a sinister ruined stone archway as crows caw overhead. It also seems that, at some point in the story, Ms Walker will spend some time in a lunatic asylum of sorts - we see her, dressed in white, being handcuffed into some kind of chair, before waking in a dilapidated old medical room, complaining of a headache. The words of our friend Lucas Lagravette add fuel to the mental asylum fire too, when he talks about the different characters Kate will encounter on her adventure; "characters that are always striking, with very strong personalities, from an old alcoholic sailor to a lunatic old lad in an asylum" - a lunatic that looks suspiciously similar to the guy who restrained her to the chair… and so the plot thickens.
And here is the potential crazy guy himself. We think.
"Solving puzzles and riddles" which were the foundation of the original Syberia games promise to return too, although likewise, concrete examples are pretty scant. Assuming they follow a similar pattern to previous games, there'll be a lot of traditional point-and-click style puzzles, which require you to amass an inventory of anything and everything not nailed down, and then use those in somewhat unusual ways in order to progress. In the trailer, we see Kate rifling through what we can only assume is some psychiatrist's desk drawer, searching for something amongst the pill bottles and ink blot cards. Syberia's famous 'automaton' mechanical objects meant that previous games often saw you having to reconstruct, mend and tinker with various steampunk-y contraptions too, playing into some of the series' more clever puzzles, and we're expecting Syberia III will be fairly similar, whether it's the long-winded refuelling of a wind up train via a mechanical snake, jump-starting a factory production line to make a pair of robotic legs or playing with light to project a mammoth onto the wall of a monastery to reveal a hidden bookcase.
Syberia is one of those games we have particularly fond memories of - especially of the time we gained a furry little seal pup/dog beast out in the snowy wilderness, and spent our time feeding it fishy sweets. We're hoping there'll be more to see on Syberia III in the coming months, what with huge industry trade shows E3 and Gamescom on the horizon - so stay tuned! Syberia III will be chugging it's way onto the Playstation 4, Xbox One, PC and Mac later this year, on the suitably wintery 1st December - as long-term Syberia fans, we can't wait! Why not check out the latest trailer below, which chats to some of the folks behind the game:
