Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse is the fifth title in the Broken Sword series of adventure video games, developed and published by Revolution Software, for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation Vita (via the PlayStation Network), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Android and iOS. The game was released in two episodes: the first was made available on 4 December 2013; the second was released on 17 April 2014 for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux. The Serpent's Curse was announced on 23 August 2012, along with a Kickstarter project; it was launched for the development of the game, which had been self-funded until the launch, to be completed. The game is presented in HD and returns to the series' 2D roots, with 3D characters pre-rendered and saved in 2D frames. The majority of the funding for the game was raised through Kickstarter, more than $771,000 of the requested $400,000 were raised, and together with PayPal donations, over $823,000.
Overview
Gameplay Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse is a 2D adventure game played from a third-person perspective. Via a point and click or touch user interface, the player guides protagonists George Stobbart and Nicole "Nico" Collard. One of the new gameplay elements explored is the manipulation and combining of knowledge, so the player has to connect threads of knowledge in order to draw logical conclusions, allowing them to proceed. While death scenes were removed from The Shadow of the Templars director's cut (2009), in The Serpent's Curse, the player character's death is possible if the player makes a wrong decision or doesn't complete an action quickly enough; however, unlike in the original two Broken Sword games, where the player then started off from the last save point, they restart from right before the death scene, like in the 3D titles.
The player has the option to choose between the classic and modern inventory, the former being in the fashion of the first two games, and the latter in the fashion of their 2009 and 2010 remakes. The player also has the option of switching the hint system or hotspot highlights on or off.
Plot Several months after the events of Broken Sword: The Angel of Death, George Stobbart, now working as an insurance assessor, attends the opening of an exhibition in Paris by gallery owner Henri Dubois. Moments after reuniting with Nicole Collard, covering the exhibition, a pizza courier steals a painting called "La Maledicció", killing Henri as he leaves. Discovering the police detective handling the case, Inspector Auguste Navet, is incompetent, George decides to investigate the crime himself. He soon discovers that the theft was an inside job, and that Henri had security handled by a company belonging to Russian businessman Roman Medovsky. Meanwhile, Nicole is met by an elderly Spanish man named Tiago Marqués, who claims ownership of the stolen painting after reading about her story on the theft. In an interview with him, she learns the painting once belonged to Tiago's family until the Spanish Civil War, when his father, Xavier, died trying to stop its theft by fascists led by an unknown Swiss businessman.
Curious about his story, Nicole returns to the gallery to check Henri's paperwork, where she learns that the purported owner of La Maledicció is Medovsky. After she and George compare notes, they suspect Medovsky arranged the theft, after Tiago shows them a medallion and a family photo to prove his ownership of the painting. Travelling to his London home on the pretense of processing his insurance claim, they discover that Medovsky recently received a substanional offer for the painting by someone named Gehnen, that his driver Shears was the thief, and an art restorer named Wilfred Hobbs aided in the crime and had become intrigued about the painting's symbolism. Returning to Paris to attend a crime recreation by Navet, George speaks with a Dominican priest named Father Simeon, who was present during Henri's killing and who claims the stolen painting is evil. During their conversation, Simeon reveals the painting is linked to the Gnostics - a branch of Christianity persecuted in France by the Vatican Church in the 13th century - via a symbol of theirs on the canvas called the Ouroboros.
After being shown a sketch by George, which he took from Hobbs during their research into the painting, Simeon is deeply disturbed, claiming the painting is connected to something called the "Tabula Veritatis". Shortly after he leaves the recreation, George and Nicole meet Richard Langham, an Interpol agent investigating the theft, who warns them not to pursue Medovsky. Checking the painting's provenance in Henri's office, George discovers it was faked by Hobbs. Moments later, he discovers Simeon fatally shot in the gallery; after he dies, George finds a manuscript revealing the Tabula is deeply significant to the Gnostics. While evading the police, George learns from Nicole that Tiago has gone missing, following a fight in her neighbour's apartment where he was staying. Seeking answers, the pair confront Henri's widow Bijou regarding the forged provenance. Guilt-ridden, Bijou confesses that she, Hobbs and Henri agreed to help Medovsky - he intended to commit insurance fraud by staging the theft, while selling the painting to Gehnen. Bijou makes clear Hobbs retains the painting, but had become deeply worried after Henri's death.
Returning to London to confront Hobbs at his studio, the pair find him dead. Finding he made a copy of La Maledicció, which his killer stole, the pair discover the original, along with discovering he had located a Gnostic site at a castle in Catalonia, Spain. Moments after discovering this, the pair narrowly escape the studio after it catches fire, witnessing Langham leaving the scene. George suspects him to be involved with Gehnen, and that he killed Simeon and Hobbs because of the painting's secrets. Travelling to the castle in Catalonia, the pair reunite Tiago, who reveals it to be his family's former home. Working alongside him and his daughter Eva, George and Nicole examine the painting to decipher its secrets, finding clues that point to Montserrat, where the Gnostics hid the Tabula. Langham ambushes the group after tracking them down, kidnapping Tiago, while revealing that Gehnen was his grandfather - he led the raid on the Marqués' home, in order to find the Tabula and use it to raise Lucifer (the devil) by destroying Jehovah (God), seeking to free mankind; Tiago reveals it will cause chaos instead.
Aided by Eve, George and Nicole locate the artifact in a hidden Gnostic shrine, learning Gehnen died in his search for it, unaware Tiago's medallion was the key to retrieving it. Upon leaving the shrine, Langham steals the Tabula from them, fatally wounding Tiago and abducting Eve. Before he dies, Tiago reveals the Tabula can only by used at a site in Iraq denoted as "Eden". Attempting to pursue Langham, the group find themselves trapped by Medovsky, seeking to reclaim La Maledicció. Finding Shears suffering a crisis of conscience - where he confesses Henri's death was unintentional - Nicole convinces him to make his own choices. Shears kills Medovsky, before offering to help the pair pursue Langham. On the way to Iraq, George receives a cryptic message from Tiago in a dream, revealing that his medallion is the key to stopping Lucifer's arrival. Upon reaching the center of Eden, George reflects a beam of pure light with the medallion towards Langham during their ritual, killing him and collapsing Eden. With the world saved, George and Nicole hand the medallion and the Tabula to Eva, who vows to rebuild the Gnostic chapel in her family's home.
Development Origin
When writing the first two Broken Sword titles in the 1990s, Revolution Software's games were published by Virgin Interactive, who wanted to ensure that the games were of quality, putting Revolution under no pressure and giving them much creative freedom and little time restriction (more so with the first game, The Shadow of the Templars). Towards the end of the 1990s, however, adventure games, largely 2D and PC-exclusive, were declining in popularity during the rise of visceral, 3D platformers and were viewed as "commercially unfeasible". Cecil credited the decline to PlayStation, which introduced a new audience of University age interested in visceral, 3D games. As a result, publishers would rather pitch titles such as 3D shooters to retailers. This "drove away the audience that wanted more cerebral games like adventures, so sales for the genre dropped even further and it became a self-fulfilling prophecy", according to Charles Cecil, Revolution's CEO and Broken Sword creator.
This meant the Broken Sword sequels The Sleeping Dragon (2003) and The Angel of Death (2006) could be commissioned by publishers only by switching to 3D. When Revolution signed a contract, the publisher took control of the schedule, in which Revolution's creative process was limited by tight milestones that would compromise the game and guide the design to appeal to retailers rather than audiences. In this publishing model, the publisher took the financial risk, benefiting from the game's success, while the developer didn't – after the publisher and the retailers took their cuts of the revenue, a modest 7 percent was assigned to the developer; despite the Broken Sword series earning "hundreds of millions", Revolution was, to quote Cecil, "developing very successful games at a loss".
However, when Apple contacted Revolution in 2009 to produce their games for the iOS, Revolution self-published Broken Sword – The Shadow of the Templars: Director's Cut and Broken Sword – The Smoking Mirror: Remastered on the iPhone/iPad Store, and later on for PC and Mac on GoG.com, Steam and iTunes Store and for Android on Google Play; in the self-publishing model, Revolution was commissioned 70% of the revenue rather than 7%, meaning that the company was in a far stronger financial position than before. The commercial performance of the Broken Sword I and II reimaginations were also considerably stronger than the series' 3D entries, particularly on handheld platforms: the two remakes were purchased 500 thousand times, with downloads totaling five million through promotions, on the iOS in 2011 alone. Cecil credited Apple and digital distribution to saving indie developers such as Revolution, and reviving the adventure genre. This enabled the studio to partially self-fund their next title, The Serpent's Curse – 500 thousand dollars, earned with the success of the self-published releases, were spent on the game. Revolution then had to choose between making a shorter, more linear game with $500,000 with the length of the shortest Broken Sword, The Smoking Mirror, or try to raise money through crowd-funding to make an overall better game.
A few months before the announcement it was largely believed in the game press that Revolution was working on a fifth instalment in the Broken Sword series. Cecil didn't confirm the speculations though, but did confirm that they were working on a new high-definition title, which would return to Revolution's 2D roots which was planned to be announced in July 2012.
Announcement, fundraising and release