Jane Jensen, the legendary game designer and writer who brought us classic point-and-click trilogy Gabriel Knight and made sure King’s Quest 6 was a brilliant adventure, is back with the forthcoming remake of the original Gabriel Knight and the brand new Moebius.

Here’s what she had to tell us about the return of the Schattenjaeger:

Hello Jane and thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. So, uhm, first thing first… How on earth did you manage to get the rights to remaking the original Gabriel Knight?

Yeah, really! Well, originally Activision contacted me back around the time of our Kickstarter. It took quite a while for everything to get lined up to finalize the license and bring the game into Pinkerton Road, but thankfully we were able to do that. We had a lot of support from people in-house at Activision.



It seems that quite a bit of work has gone into Gabriel Knight’s 20th Anniversary Edition already. How long have you been working on it? How far has it progressed?

The project has been going on for a while. A lot of the artwork and music is done. We’re putting it all together now programming-wise.

And what exactly is your role in this production?

I’m creative director on the game, and designer, and now Pinkerton Road is publishing it as well.



You’ve chosen to cooperate with one of the most talented indie adventure teams around; what made you work with Phoenix Online Studios in the first place? How has your cooperation been so far?

When I first met Phoenix Online, well before Cognition, they were interested in pitching a GK4 with me to Activision. So we worked on a short demo for that. We never got anywhere with it then. So when I had the chance to do the Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers remake and was looking for a team, it was a natural fit to get them involved. I’ve been working with Phoenix for the past year and a half on Moebius. That project has been going great and I am happy working with them.

New graphics aside, what else should we expect from this new edition? I know you already stated it will adhere closely to the original, but will there be any extra content or, say, reworked puzzles?

Yes, there will be some new content–a few new scenes and puzzles and a new cutscene. We’ll be revealing more about that as we get closer to launch.

Will the new graphics and remastered soundtrack actually help with the game’s atmosphere?

I believe so. I wanted to inject more “creep factor” and more real New Orleans flavor into the game in a way we couldn’t fully pull off with the graphics resolution we had in 1993. And of course, the soundtrack was pretty simplistic at the time. There are always going to be fans who are so nostalgic about the original that they see and feel more in it than was actually there. But, objectively, we can absolutely make it better now.



Provided the 20th anniversary of Gabriel Knight is successful, would you consider remaking the rest of the series or would you rather work on a new installment?

If I could have my choice, I would do a GK4 next which would be all new. But that’s really dependent on how this GK1 game does and if Activision is open to jumping to number 4.

Finally, what are your thoughts on the (mainly indie-driven) adventure renaissance we are living through? Did you ever believe that character and plot based games would simply go away?

It’s hard for me to imagine any genre just going away. It’s like in books–tastes change in something like romance or mystery but there’s never a time when just no one wants a mystery. I think it’s a matter of finding the right audience and producing a game that is in tune with the times.