Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

There are a handful of moments when a game touches the legend of the silver screen and does not remain in its shadow. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is exactly such a case. Here LucasArts did not take the path of a mere adaptation but created an entirely new story that would stand without shame as the fourth part of the film series, which did not yet exist at the time. On the eve of the Second World War, Indy and the archaeologist Sophia Hapgood set off on the trail of the fabled Atlantis before it falls into the hands of the Nazis.

The game runs on the famous SCUMM engine and uses a point & click interface with a set of verb commands, at which LucasArts was a master. What sets Fate of Atlantis apart from most other adventures is the structure of progression: after the introduction, the player chooses one of three paths to the goal. The Team path (Wits, where Sophia accompanies you), the Fists path (with an emphasis on combat and action) and the solitary path (Team, where you solve everything yourself with ingenious puzzles). This choice fundamentally changes the playthrough and gives it a replayability that the genre at that time hardly knew.

The development context is key here. LucasArts, George Lucas's studio, had direct access to the Indiana Jones licence, and the team led by Hal Barwood and Noah Falstein managed to capture the spirit of the films, the light humour and the adventurous courage. It came out in 1992 first on PC, and the version for the Amiga followed and brought, on floppy disks, a somewhat more intimate but still impressive rendering of this extensive game.

Culturally it is one of the peaks of the golden era of adventures. Fate of Atlantis is to this day considered by many players and critics to be the best game incarnation of Indiana Jones, despite later 3D attempts. It became a benchmark for how a licensed game made with love and respect for the source material should look.

The magic lies in the dialogues, in the atmosphere of travelling around the world and in the ingenious puzzles, which are never so unfair as to spoil the enjoyment of the story. Sophia as a companion brings sparkling chemistry and humour, which LucasArts commanded like no one else.

Why play: A supreme adventure of the golden era that tells a story worthy of a film and, with three distinct paths, offers a replayability the genre rarely achieved.