King's Quest

In 2015, the young studio The Odd Gentlemen, in collaboration with publisher Sierra, revived the King's Quest brand as an episodic adventure split into five separate chapters released gradually over the course of less than a year. Rather than a direct sequel to the numbered series, it's a framing story set in the present - the aging King Graham tells his curious granddaughter Gwendolyn tales from his turbulent youth, from his first arrival in the kingdom of Daventry through knightly trials, battles with giants, and unlucky loves, to founding his own family and his final years on the throne, and the player experiences these memories as individual episodes, each with its own theme, tone, and gameplay mechanics that shift noticeably from chapter to chapter, ranging from platforming through stealth sections to classic puzzle-solving.

The game was released practically simultaneously on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, and PC, and it offers exactly the same content and the same hand-drawn graphics on all these platforms, resembling a moving, illustrated fairy-tale book with vivid colors and exaggerated character proportions. Compared to the older legacy of the series, this is more of an adventure emphasizing story, humor, and decision-making than complex, logically merciless puzzles - the player's choices often don't affect a binary ending, but rather how Graham himself remembers his past, how he adjusts it in his own favor, and how he ultimately passes it on to his granddaughter, without portraying himself as an infallible hero. Self-deprecating humor and loving nods to classic adventure-genre clichés, including references to the series' own past entries and their notoriously brutal deaths of the player's character, make the game more of a heartfelt tribute to the genre and its history than a hard mechanical comeback for it.

Why play it: This King's Quest will appeal to players who enjoy warm fairy-tale storytelling full of emotion and humor and don't mind noticeably simpler puzzles in exchange for a strong story about aging, family, loss, and memories of one's own lived life.