Our collective video gaming memory is a weird thing. Some games from decades past are committed to The Pantheon, where they will be spoken about and remembered for all time. Others, meanwhile, can be some of the biggest releases of their time, only to disappear and never be heard from again.
Little Big Adventure is one of those games. Released in 1994, it was a huge deal! It graced magazine covers, earned rave reviews and was notable not just for its incredible isometric visuals, but for its unique art style and puzzle design as well. It sold a ton of copies around the world, but one market it did not do well in was the United States. Which, given the America-centric nature of games writing and criticism, mostly explains the game’s omission from The Pantheon.
It’s lovely to hear, then, that a small team—currently at work on attempts to reboot the franchise—have decided to completely remake both the original game and its sequel in Unreal Engine 5. They’re not doing it solely out of the goodness of their heart, however; they’re doing it to drum up enough interest in the series to help a publisher agree to pay for development on their reboot project.
Everybody wins! We’re getting remakes of two of the coolest adventure games ever made, and if they do well, then we’ll get a new Little Big Adventure game to go along with them.
Each game will benefit from a graphical and technical overhaul with Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 5. This means that we will faithfully rebuild both games from scratch. In order to improve the experience, we will also rework Twinsen’s controls and adding new features. The option to use the original game controls will of course remain available for those who wish to play as in the original games. This work will also be the occasion to remaster the original music of the composer Philippe Vachey, to guarantee you the best possible experience.
The first game will have a demo released during the next Steam Neo Fest (June 19-26), with the team’s announcement blog suggesting both games will be out by 2024, the 30th anniversary of the series.
There’s more at the project’s official site.
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