A double surprise announcement for Broken Sword fans coming from Revolution Software today.

The first announcement is the long awaited sixth instalment in the Broken Sword series. Titled Broken Sword — Parzival’s Stone, our intrepid adventurers George and Nico are back together again after a decade, this time in search of the Holy Grail.

In the announcement trailer, embedded below, we see early pre-alpha footage of the next chapter of the Broken Sword saga. The game is reported to be running on the Unity engine, with a graphical style described by Charles Cecil as "Super 2D". While the graphics are 3D, they hope to make it look more akin to the earlier 2D games through the textures and interface used.

Also from that video we get some hints about where our protagonists will be travelling to; the Yorkshire Moors, Berlin, Paris, and Montségur in southwestern France. Montségur has historical links to the Cathars and it was supposedly the location of the Holy Grail in the 13th century poem Parzival by German knight-poet Wolfram von Eschenbach.

The second announcement shown in the trailer is a 4K remaster of the first in the series, Broken Sword — The Shadow of the Templars: Reforged. This remaster is set to upscale the art assets from the original 1996 game to more modern standards.

According to a Polygon interview with Charles Cecil, AI has played a pivotal role in the recreation of these graphics at a 4K resolution. Charles believes that without AI the remaster wouldn't be possible financially for Revolution given the scale of the work involved. When used as a tool however, he posits the bulk of the artwork can be created by AI leaving the artists to provide a human touch to complete the work.

Further to the video, some screenshots have also been released by Revolution:

Both games are set to release on PC, mobile, and consoles. Reforged is expected to launch in early 2024, while no date has been given for Parzival's Stone yet.

Of course expect more details to emerge over the coming months. In the meantime, Revolution are urging fans to sign up to their newsletter to keep up to date.

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