Voodoo, mon amour: Jane Jensen remaking first Gabriel Knight

That’s one pretty bookstore.

What can you tell me about… voodoo? Personally, I can tell you quite a lot about voodoo as I played Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers when it first came out in 1993, and it actually treated the subject with a fair amount of respect. Now that it’s being remade by Jane Jensen’s Pinkerton Road studio, you’ll have the opportunity to ask a whole host of characters that very question.

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers tracks struggling novelist/bookstore owner/shameless flirt Gabriel Knight as he investigates a series of voodoo-themed murders in New Orleans, ostensibly to battle his writer’s block. Naturally, it turns out that these are a lot more than a few random killings and may in fact be linked to both the horrific recurring nightmares he’s suffering, and his shadowy family history. Which is about all I can say about the plot without spoiling things.

I can, however, say that it managed to mix mostly logical puzzles with a genuinely interesting mystery (based, as with all of the Gabriel Knight titles, on real-life lore and legend) and some fantastic characters, making it my absolute favourite of the old Sierra adventures.

This new version appears to be a total remake, although Jane Jensen assures us that “100% of the original Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is here.” The visuals will be updated from 640×480 pixel art to 2048×1536 3D graphics, the soundtrack will be remastered by Robert Holmes (the composer for the original game), and there’ll be all-new voice recording. The latter of which actually worries me, considering the original game involved Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, Leah Remini, Michael Dorn, and Efrem Zimbalist Jr., amongst others. Will they all be back? I hope so. It’s just not Gabriel Knight without Tim Curry.

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers 20th Anniversary Edition, as it’s known, has been in development for over a year at Pinkerton Road and is due out in mid-2014 on PC, Mac, iOS, and Android… which surely makes it a 21st anniversary edition since the original came out in 1993, but oh well.

You can have a look at the website (which spoils a few plot points, naturally) here, where you can also have a listen to the remastered main theme. Screenshots below.