Ken and Roberta Williams, the founders of pioneering game studio Sierra Online, are working on a new game for the first time in twenty years. It is a graphical remake of the landmark text adventure Colossal Cave.
Colossal Cave 3D is not a reboot of an old Sierra game, as some followers expected when the project was first announced. It does come from roughly the same period: the original game was developed by Will Crowther and Don Woods and released in 1976, only a few years before Sierra was founded in 1979. The new version keeps similar adventure elements, sending players through 143 underground locations filled with treasures and strange encounters, but this time the world is fully graphical.
Ken Williams said the team had completely rebuilt Colossal Cave for longtime fans and for a new generation of players, with a fully immersive 3D and VR environment meant to make cave exploration feel more realistic and family-friendly.
Roberta Williams explained that the project grew out of lockdown. While working on memories around Sierra, Ken decided to learn Unity and make a game, and Roberta suggested paying tribute to the title that had inspired their company and changed their lives.
The deeper they went into the original game, the more they recognised why it had been so popular. Roberta described it as an adventure game with action, humour, charming characters, scary moments, a scoring system and a surprising amount of challenge.
