Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars Reforged now has a confirmed release date on PS5. This 4K remaster of the classic 1996 adventure title arrives next month, on the 19th September, and promises some impressive-sounding enhancements.

For starters, we've got that aforementioned 4K resolution, which is likely going to seem surreal if you ever played the original game on PS1. "In 4K there is now scope for so much more detail, which makes the backgrounds feel really crisp and visually exciting, and enhances the gameplay experience as players can better see what is relevant for solving puzzles," writes Charles Cecil of developer Revolution Software, on the PlayStation Blog.

In addition, character animation sprites have been redrawn, resulting in a much smoother visual experience. It sounds like a colossal undertaking, as Cecil comments: "Each sprite has taken our talented team of animators up to an hour to draw – often needing to improve animations which looked fine in low resolution, but didn’t look so good when viewed in high resolution. But it’s been absolutely worth it – it is wonderful to see super smooth animations, with subtle facial animation and expressions which look to the quality of a great adult animation."

And then there's the the user interface, which has been given a bit of an overhaul. Cecil says that playtester feedback led the team to refine the point-and-click stuff to a large extent, to the point where it should now seem much more intuitive for players who may not be too familiar with the genre.

The original Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is often considered to be one of the greatest point-and-click adventures ever made — and so it's nice to see that this revival is being treated with such care. Here's hoping that the remaster lives up to expectations when it drops roughly one month from now.

Are you looking forward to the return of Broken Sword? Have you played the original? Start mashing items together in the comments section below.

Have you played the original Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars? (665 votes)

  1. Yes, it's brilliant74%
  2. Yeah, it's good12%
  3. Yep, but it's overrated  0.9%
  4. Nah, but I'll check out this remaster12%
  5. No, I have zero interest in Broken Sword1%

[source blog.playstation.com]