News archive

Friday, 3th July 2009

PC games worthy of revival: Gabriel Knight

Online magasine Examiner considers to what extent the announced revival of the Monkey Island franchise could mean for the Gabriel Knight series. A possible scenario for GK being revived by Activision is drawn: it speculates on the re-release of existing games and on what the release of a new chapter of the saga could look like if it happened to be an action/adventure or action/RPG/adventure game.

New game Tales of Monkey Island will be released on July 7, 2009, and a remastered edition of the original The Curse of Monkey Island game will hit the shelves in summer 2009 as well.

Sunday, 15th March 2009

Blizzard Activision discontinues the official GK board

Following the announcement made public in October 2008, Blizzard Activision proceeded to discontinue the official Sierra forums, hosted on Jive software platform by Vivendi since August 2005. The official statement is that user accounts and passwords will be migrated to a new, enhanced forum platform, and that only part of the existing boards will be ported to the new platform, which will be activated by early April 2009.

Since no news has been provited about the fate of the Gabriel Knight forums, the Gabriel Knight community moved to the Gabriel Knight Campaign forum , part of the newly constructed Sierra Forums ring.

Friday, 13th February 2009

Fan-made GK2 subtitle patch released

GK fan Laffer35 has written a set of English language subtitles for The Beast Within, based on the Spanish game subtitles. The patch allows the player to see subtitles associated to video sequences, in a similar way as in Sins of the Fathers and Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned.

The patch, still in beta for now, is available for download at http://www.sendspace.com/file/2xk5bk.

Saturday, 24th January 2009

Edge Online's interview article with Jane Jensen

Edge Online published an interview article with Jane Jensen featured in Edge Magazine, titled The Making of... The Gabriel Knight trilogy. Jane talks about the generation of the three Gabriel Knight games, expresses her opinion about them and reacts to the gloomy prospectives of the series as well as to Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code worldwide success. The article ends with some fresh info about her upcoming Gray Matter game.

Saturday, 1st November 2008

Gabriel Knight community building a new home

In answer to Activision's decision of discontinuing the Vivendi game forum platform and migrating only a few recent titles to their upcoming new board system, the Sierra community joined efforts in order to build a new home. A constellation of brand new and established message boards has been interlinked in a phpBB 3.0 based Sierra Forums gateway hosted at http://www.sierraforums.com . The page, aside from a forum of its own, links to all the major Sierra forums, which are being integrated in order to provide a multi-platform but coherent home to the community.

Gabriel Knight forums will be hosted at the GK4 campaign site , Quest for More Glory will host the QFG series, Larry Laffer the Leisure Suit Larry series, Unity Headuarters the No One Lives Forever series, Janitorial Times the Space Quest series, Sierra Help the remaining classic games and a specialised technical support forum, while Sierra Chest will be the home to the newer games published under the Sierra label. Old classic Sierra Planet will be part of the system, too.

The new forum system is already active, but will gain an official status only after the final shutdown of the Vivendi/Activision boards, whose date has not been announced yet.

Thursday, 2nd October 2008

Vivendi Gabriel Knight boards closing

Following the merger of Vivendi Games with Activision, the official Gabriel Knight forums will be discontinued by November 1st, 2008. The announcement has been made by forum moderator Angelwwolf.

Activision has made a decision. Most Sierra forums will be taken down this month or the next month. It looks like we are losing our GK forum along with all of the other classics.

In addition to that, a whole range of game servers will also be taken down. The titles that will be transferred to the AB forums are Crash, Spyro, Ice Age and Prototype, basically the Sierra franchises which AB will continue to publish. Other highly active forums may also be transferred, but they have not yet reached a decision on that.

Friday, 12th September 2008

GK3 minimizer available

Francisco Figuereido, an affectionate GK fan, has compiled a GK3 minimizer application to serve as a workaround to the ALT+TAB keystroke combination, not functioning while GK3 is launched. It can be downloaded here .

Monday, 16th June 2008

DOSBox installer for GK1 available

GK community member Collector has written and released a new installer for the CD version of the game that will automatically install and setup the game to run in DOSBox without the CD and can started by just double clicking a shortcut. The game CD is only needed to install the game. Find it here .

DOSBox is an open source x86 DOS emulator which allows DOS software to be run on non-DOS operating systems, such as Windows XP and Vista and MacOs X.

Sunday, 6th April 2008

Fan made GK2 video tour series on YouTube

IpKiss, a GK fan from Australia made a series of videos covering his trip to the GK2 locations. Each episode is shot in one of the key places from The Beast Within and directly compared with the matching part of the game.

Friday, 14th March 2008

GK2 soundtrack canon completed

After almost thirteen years since the release of The Beast Within, and twelve years after the Collector's Edition which featured a music CD with tracks from the three GK games, an unofficial complete GK2 soundtrack sees the light.

Thanks to the patient work of Hlges the GK ambient music files have been extracted from the game data packages and have been edited in order to create standalone sound track items: all time favourites like the Schloss Ritter and the St. George's Church themes are now available for the GK fans to download. The files are being hosted fot a limited amount of time, and are accessible from the GK community forum .

Hlges' main achievement though is the establishment of a GK2 canon soundtrack: in fact, the old and new files have been ordered in a track list which covers all the GK2 music from the beginning to the end in 35 tracks - a precious tool for all GK fans coping with game music.

Monday, 17th December 2007

La Aventura interviews Jane Jensen

Spanish website La Aventura es la Aventura published an interview with Jane Jensen, focusing on seldom asked questions, like abandoned literary and game projects of Jane's, the use of conspiracy theories, religion and homosexuality through her work, and the continuing fortune of the Gabriel Knight series.

Jane also explained what are the realistic chances for a GK4: its realisation still depends on the decision of Vivendi, or on the acquisition of the rights from a third party developer.

Thursday, 25th October 2007

Aeropause interviews Jane Jensen

Jane Jensen has been interviewed by Aeropause about her upcoming Gray Matter game. Publisher Anaconda Games did not allow Jane to give away any relevant new details about the game; however, when asked about the Gabriel Knight series, she stated that despite having planned a fourth GK game, right-owner Vivendi has stepped into a different direction, with no perspective for adventure game franchises.

It is the second time in a month that Jane gives a blow to fan hopes for a GK4.

Thursday, 27th September 2007

Gabriel Knight board moderator Creel dies

Carol Conley, former moderator of the official Gabriel Knight boards, has died at the age of 59. She had been hospitalised some months earlier due to kidney failure.

Creel was a long time member of the Gabriel Knight community, having been present since its beginnings; she has also moderated the Gabriel Knight boards in the years from 2001 to 2004, always distinguishing herself with her witty, sassy, but at the same time wise and strong attitude towards all the community members.

Despite her having become rather inactive since the board move in 2005, Creel was esteemed and loved by everyone who knew her: her death comes as a great loss to the whole community. May she rest in peace with her Lord.

Tuesday, 25th September 2007

Jane Jensen interviewed by The Escapist

On-line magazine The Escapist has published an interview with Jane Jensen, covering her views on puzzles, her new Gray Matter series, online multi player gaming and the future of story-driven games.

Jane also commented on the Gabriel Knight franchise, saying that she "would love to do another story with them, but it's really not the end of my life if I don't. It's been so long now.". The statement seems to hint that Jane lost any hope about Vivendi bringing the GK series back to life.

Jane Jensen's Gray Matter should be released in Q1 2008 by German publisher DTP.

Thursday, 23rd August 2007

Adventure Classic Gaming interviews Scott Bilas

Adventure site Adventure Classic Gaming has published an interview with Scott Bilas, technical lead on Gabriel Knight 3 - Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned, covering his work on GK3, his Oberon media experience an the status of adventure gaming.

The interview has been a blast for all the fans of the Gabriel Knight series, as Bilas revealed that the infamous cat hair puzzle from Gabriel Knight 3, which earned the game and Jane Jensen herself many bad reviews, had actually not been designed by Jane. In fact, Jane's puzzle for hat part of the game was killed due to time constraints, and was replaced by one designed by the game producer.

The Old Man Murray gaming site had given GK3 an award for "having killed adventure games" with the cat hair puzzle.

Thursday, 23rd August 2007

Adventure's Planet interviews Jane Jensen

The Old Man Murray gaming site had given GK3 an award for "having killed adventure games" with the cat hair puzzle.

Sunday, 8th July 2007

Gabriel Knight 4 campaign interviews Robert Holmes

The Gabriel Knight 4 campaign published the full text of an interview Ingrid Heyn, coordinator of the Gabriel Knight 4 Campaign project, conducted with composer Robert Holmes on 26th June 2006. Part of the information was already unveiled in an article by Ingrid Heyn which appeared last fall on Adventure Classic Gaming. In the interview, Robert Holmes provides new insights on his composing methods, on the genealogy of the Gabriel Knight themes, and carefully answers some questions concerning the plans for Gabriel Knight 4.

The Gabriel Knight 4 campaign started on 31st December 2005 and is running ever since with great support from the GK fan base.

Monday, 28th May 2007

GK3 Scene Viewer released

Brad Farris, author of many GK3 tools, has released a Scene Viewer , which enables to view the game scenes (the rooms, and all the other locations) externally from GK3, accessing directly to the .brn files.

The extension of the set of tools dedicated to GK3 data will be welcomed by anyone taking part in the GK3 reskinning project, and will show useful for all those who like to tweak with in-game data.

Monday, 7th May 2007

Actor Nicholas Worth dies

Actor Nicholas Worth, known to GK fans for his portrayal of Herr Kommissar Leber in GK2 -The Beast Within, passed away at the age of 69 due to heart failure.

Worth, born in 1937 in St. Louis, Missouri, started acting in 1966 and participated to many important films and tv series, usually in villain roles; he's though most known to the wide public thanks to his roles in the Voyager and Deep Space Nine Star Trek series. He had also worked as voice-over actor in the computer game industry.

Wednesday, 2nd May 2007

AdventureCon 2007 cancelled

AdventureCon announced the cancellation of its repeatedly rescheduled AdventureCon 2007 event, apparently for lack of response from adventure game companies. As stated on the official site , a 2008 edition is now in the works.

AdventureCon, who has more than once changed a number of details of the event, including dates, hosting city and ticket price, claims that out of 50 companies contacted for participation, only 5 provided a response, which was positive only for 3 of them. This has led the organisation to the decision of canceling the 2007 event, in favour of a more accurately planned edition in 2008.

AdventureCon 2007 was supposed to star, among others, Scott Adams, Al Lowe, Chris Jones, and Gabriel Knight designer Jane Jensen.

Monday, 30th April 2007

Croatian Wikipedia covers Gabriel Knight

An article covering the Gabriel Knight series has appeared in the Croatian section of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. It features a summary of the three games and an up-to-date brief history of the series which mentions also the Gabriel Knight 4 campaign.

Wikipedia is currently covering Gabriel Knight in English, French, Italian, German, Finnish, Russian, Chinese and now Croatian.

Saturday, 14th April 2007

Jane Jensen's participation to AdventureCon announced

Updating an announcement made on April 12th, 2007, AdventureCon announced that its first Adventure Gamer's Convention, formerly scheduled on August 28th and 29th 2007 in Las Vegas, has been postponed to September 26th and 27th 2007 and has been moved to Atlantic City.

The first announcement reported also that the event will see the participation of giants of adventure gaming history, like the Leisure Suit Larry creator Al Lowe, and the grand dame of interactive fiction, Gabriel Knight game designer Jane Jensen.

According to the organisation, ticket prices have dropped from the original $69 to $49 for a full two-day pass, and $29 for a one day pass. More information can be found at www.adventurecon.org .

Sunday, 11th March 2007

GK3 .bsp files converter released

After having released in June a similar tool, dedicated to GK3 *.mod files, BradDaBug doubles with a BSP-OBJ converter. The command line program, hosted at http://fwheel.net/gk3/gk3mod2obj/bsp2obj.html , can be used to convert the rooms and outdoor areas found in GK3 (like the hotel rooms, lobby, etc) into .obj files, which can then be opened in almost any 3D modeling tool.

The *.bsp-*.obj converter can find many applications, the most interesting of which remains its use for the purposes of the GK3 reskinning project .

Saturday, 10th February 2007

GK2 to be officially re-released on the Italian market

Adventure Game Shop has unveiled the details of its re-release of the Italian edition of The Beast Within in its dedicated product page . The game will be fully Windows-XP compatible, and will be sold in a new package, on a single DVD instead of 6 CDs; the package will contain also a completely new graphic novel dedicated to the world of Gabriel Knight.

According to Vivendi Universal the re-release is legitimate, becoming thus the first re-edition of a Gabriel Knight game since the time of the GK Mysteries Limited Edition package. Still, only Italian GK fans will be blessed with it, because the game release is in Italian language and will not be available outside Italy.

Tag line: Quando calano le tenebre, la caccia ha inizio.

Monday, 29th January 2007

Jane Jensen unveils GK details in Gray Matter interview with Gamespot

In an interview Gamespot conducted with Jane Jensen, covering her announced Gray Matter game, the queen of adventure briefly commented on her best known creature - the Gabriel Knight series. She repeated that the destiny of the GK franchise is entirely in hand of Vivendi, but added that she has actually two different stories ready for GK4.

She also commented on the recurring rumours about GK being turned into a film: I've been contacted many times by people interested in doing a film, and I have passed them along to Vivendi. Unfortunately, nothing ever materialised. I'm not sure why, perhaps the queries never developed into legitimate opportunities.

Jane's new work, Gray Matter, is due to release in Q1 2008.

Saturday, 30th December 2006

Sins of the Fathers gets Italian localisation!

Thirteen years after its release, Sins of the Fathers is for the first time localised in Italian. A team of volunteers lead by Endroz (known in the GK world for having developed the GK1 Windows XP installer, the GK2 de-interlace patch and the GK2 full DVD/HD installer) has just crowned years of effort and has released a package with the Italian localisation of the whole text content of GK1: dialogue subtitles, descriptions, menus and all of the in-game documents, including Jane Jensen's poetry; an Italian localisation of the GK1 graphic novel will join the package soon.

The large Italian Gabriel Knight fan base had long awaited GK1 (Gabriel Knight: Le colpe dei padri), since GK2 and GK3 had already been released in Italian back in 1996 and 2000, subsequently after their international release. Despite the interest in GK1, no official localisation had ever been made available by the Italian Sierra distributor.

This, along with the high quality of the translation, is allowing the unofficial package, released by Endroz on his homepage Project Gabriel Knight 2000 , to swiftly become widely recognised as the long-awaited Italian edition of Sins of the Fathers.

The Italian GK fan base has already been blessed this December by the announcement of the re-release of GK2 in DVD, Windows XP compatible format.

Thursday, 23rd November 2006

"Pause" turned into a graphic novel

Adventure Companion , web site owned and maintained by Simo Sakari Aaltonen, published a graphic novel made by Simo himself which turns Pause, the short story Jane Jensen wrote in 1995 as a teaser for the at the time upcoming Gabriel Knight 2, into a graphic novel.

The particularity of the graphic novel is that it narrates Pause as if it was actually a Gabriel Knight adventure game and the single slides composing the novel were mere screen shots of it: this way narration unfolds itself as if it was driven by an invisible player and shows game progression, text interface and occasional GUI. The graphics are beautiful pixilated ambiences recreated on the basis of Schloss Ritter as seen in the GK games, but treated with a colour palette and a pixel size similar to that of games from the late '80s; Gabriel and Gerde themselves are very plain pixel shapes.

This new version of Pause has been kindly allowed by Jane Jensen, although she is firm in her disapproval of all attempts to create fan-made Gabriel Knight games.

Saturday, 2nd September 2006

Adventure Classic Gaming featuring Robert Holmes

Adventure Classic Gaming , the portal dedicated to classic adventure games, published today an article titled The Music and the Mystery of Robert Holmes. The article, written by Ingrid Heyn, coordinator of the Gabriel Knight 4 Campaign project, is based on an interview with Robert conducted by the campaign crew on 26th June 2006 and reveals some previously unknown aspects of the creative process that lead to the realisation of the Gabriel Knight games.

Robert Holmes is the lead composer for all the three Gabriel Knight games, author of the Wagner lost opera, and producer for Sins of the Fathers; he is as well the husband of the game designer Jane Jensen.

Saturday, 26th August 2006

First Gray Matter fan site sees the light

Two days after the Leipzig Games Convention in which Gray Matter was presented, the first fan site appeared on the internet: it is Nico Sels' Cort-X - The Unofficial Gray Matter web site . The site features a constantly updated News section, a hotspot on the game, a FAQ list about the upcoming release and links to related sites.

The site has runs also a feature which can turn out to be valuable for Jane Jensen fans who do not want to discuss Gray Matter in the VU Gabriel Knight boards (where it would be off-topic): it has in fact its own message board, an added value even more precious considering the fact that there is no official web site for Gray Matter yet.

Nico Sels is also the administrator of Sidney - The Unofficial Gabriel Knight 3 Homepage .

Thursday, 24th August 2006

Gray Matter presented in Leipzig

The press release by dtp did not lie. In fact, at the Leipzig Games Convention Jane Jensen was not only present, but she already unveiled some characteristics of the upcoming Gray Matter series. Some first concept art has been shown, as long as a full story-board for the video which will work as game introduction.

The game engine is currently under development, but it has been announced as a classic 2 1/2D in the style of Syberia (3D characters on 2D pre-rendered backgrounds). The player will be able to control both of the two main characters in a fashion similar to that of GK2 and GK3; in addiction, each character will have a special ability which will allow him/her to solve puzzles encountered during the game progress in his/her very own fashion.

All the published concept art and the video of the Gray Matter presentation are currently available for download at Adventure Europe (for registered members only; registration however is free).

Wednesday, 16th August 2006

The return of Jane Jensen

Adventure Europe published on its web site a news that will doubtlessly rock the world of adventure gaming: Jane Jensen is back, and with her the long-awaited game Gray Matter, a.k.a. Project Jane Jensen. The announcement was made by Anaconda Games , a German company focused on adventure gaming. Press release follows.

dtp/ANACONDA press release for August 16, 2006

ANACONDA presents Jane Jensen, queen of adventure gaming, at Games Convention: world premiere of new adventure game “Gray Matter” Hamburg, Germany: August 16, 2006 – ANACONDA is bringing a star developer to the Leipzig Games Convention: Queen of adventure gaming, Jane Jensen, author of the immensely popular “Gabriel Knight” trilogy, will exclusively announce and present her adventure game project “Gray Matter” at a press conference. ANACONDA will publish “Gray Matter” worldwide in the 4th quarter of 2007. Following the press conference, Jane Jensen will give autographs at the ANACONDA Theatre (hall 5, booth G02) – a one time chance for adventure fans to grace their Jane Jensen games with the game designer’s signature and meet the queen of adventure games in person. The signing will start at 12:30h.Claas Wolter, ANACONDA/dtp PR Manager is sure gamers will jump at the chance: “Adventure gaming fans should not miss this one-time opportunity – this is Jane Jensen’s first visit to Germany in many, many years – and “Gray Matter” is her first adventure game since 1999.

Tuesday, 18th July 2006

Chinese Wikipedia covers Gabriel Knight

An apparently rather detailed article covering the Gabriel Knight series has appeared in the Chinese section of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia.

Wikipedia is currently covering Gabriel Knight in English, French, Italian, German, Finnish, Russian and now Chinese.

Friday, 7th July 2006

Adventure Lantern covers the Gabriel Knight 4 campaign

Adventure Lantern , the popular internet magazine dedicated to adventure gaming, has brought Gabriel Knight back in the spotlight by conducing an interview with Ingrid Heyn, project coordinator of the Gabriel Knight 4 Campaign.

In the interview, published within the July 2006 issue, the GK4 campaign coordinator discusses the aim of the project, its status and the expectancies over a fourth installment of the GK series; she also spills the beans on the next article due to appear on the campaign web site, which will reveal well-researched facts about the Rennes-le-Château mystery (covered in the GK3 game), still unknown to the widest audience.

According to internal sources, this is the first of a series of articles Adventure Lantern is meaning to dedicate to the Gabriel Knight series, its past and its future.

Wednesday, 5th July 2006

GK3 reskinning project

The fan-run project for the improvement of the Gabriel Knight 3 graphics has been resumed. A summary of the work done so far, featuring also a comparison among screen shots from the original game and the improved one, is now hosted at http://sidney.fwheel.net/GK3RP/ .

Nico Sels, project coordinator, has ben a Beta tester for GK3 and is the webmaster of Sidney: the Unofficial GK site.

Sunday, 2nd July 2006

Resurrection of Sidney

After a pause of nearly five years Sidney: the unofficial GK site has been brought back to life, being hosted at sidney.fwheel.net .

Originally run by Christy Lein, Christian Sabyan and Nico Sels, and now restored by the last thanks to the web space provided by BradDaBug, Sidney represents an important piece in the history of the GK fan base Apart from the rich News section, it features downloads of GK3 material as well as high quality fan-made artwork.

Graphically based on the "old" interface for the Schattenjäger Information Database in GK3, Sidney has been a primary source of information during the long period which preceded the release of the third installment in the Gabriel Knight series, more precisely since early 1998, 1,5 years prior to the release of GK3; it was shut down, due to a move of the former hoster's servers (Adventuregamers.com), in late 2001.

Monday, 26th June 2006

Russian Wikipedia covers Gabriel Knight

An article covering the Gabriel Knight series has appeared in the Russian section of Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia. It features a summary of the three games and an up-to-date brief history of the series which mentions also the Gabriel Knight 4 campaign.

Wikipedia is currently covering Gabriel Knight in English, French, Italian, German, Finnish and now Russian.

Monday, 26th June 2006

A GK3 model files converter released

BradDaBug releases a tool which allows converting the *.mod files from GK3 into *.obj format, which is the standard for most 3D modeling applications. The command line program, hosted at http://fwheel.net/gk3/gk3mod2obj/ , is the latest of a series of GK3-focused tools created by ingenious Gabriel Knight fans in connection with a project for the reskinning of GK3.

Tuesday, 16th May 2006

GK4 campaign site hacked

On Tuesday, 2nd May 2006 the GK4 Campaign site has been hacked.

After an immediate restore and two more weeks online without problems, a significant amount of illegal posts was found in the guest book, all to be connected to the hacker attack suffered by the site. For security reasons the guest book and chat room have been shut down and replaced with a more secure embedded code; all the existing guest book entries however have gone lost.

On provider request the web site has been temporarily shut down in order to allow a detailed security check: it will be online again in a few days.

Friday, 30th December 2005

Gabriel Knight community starting a GK4 campaign

The GK community starts a worldwide campaign to get Gabriel Knight 4 made: its first step is the creation of a reference site hosted at www.gabrielknight4campaign.com with detailed information about the series, the related topics and the fan base

Unique features of the site are, among others, objective and well-researched articles on the historical and supernatural elements which appeared in the plots of the three Gabriel Knight games, reviews of books, films, movies and games similar in topics or style to the GK series and original fan made artwork.

The visitors are encouraged to email or snail mail Vivendi asking for the release of GK4, help the growth of the site by posting in the Gabriel Knight 4 blog and guest book or join the community in the next steps of the campaign.

Monday, 16th August 2005

Vivendi Universal Gabriel Knight community gets a new home

Since July 2005 Vivendi Universal has begun moving its game forums to a new platform (hosted at forums.vugames.com ), due to replace the "old" WebX based one. The switch has been an opportunity for the management to rearrange the layout of the forums, moving the less active ones under the long-established Sierra Classics common umbrella.

Unlike many other old licenses coming from the Sierra acquisition, the Gabriel Knight series got again a set of dedicated boards, topping many newer games as Emperor: this has been seen as a positive sign by the still fairly active community, especially in consideration of the fact that the last GK game had been released six years before and thus technically has become the oldest VU title to have a stand-alone forum.

In fact, Gabriel Knight Discussion proved immediately to be one of the most active boards in the forum system, hitting multiple times the Top Forums chart which had been previously an exclusive dominion of brand new VU releases such as F.E.A.R. and Hulk.

Older news

If you are in search of older news, try visiting The Domain of Schattenjägers .

Last update: July 3, 2009

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