Welcome brethren of advancing years to this ancient house of reminiscences. Developer Trilobytes’ seminal CD-ROM adventure The 7th Guest is being revived once more; evil toymaker Henry Stauf throwing open his doors to a new generation of unwitting visitors in a remake bound for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC on 4th June. A Switch version is also in the works, arriving “later”.
The 7th Guest, if you’re unfamiliar with this now three-decade-old release, was something of a genuine, honest-to-goodness killer app when it launched in 1993 – the game that, along with Myst, helped kickstart the CD-ROM revolution. At the time, its lavish pre-rendered environments (enabling you to glide around Stauf’s wonderfully spooky mansion) were a sensation, as was the inclusion of digitised real-world performers, all camping it up something silly in FMV. The game itself was a bit rubbish, true – a loose collection of half-hearted puzzles (and that infuriating microscope one) saved by those visuals and some cracking music – but it remains a fond part of my formative years.
As for The 7th Guest’s newly announced remake, it’s being developed by Vertigo Games, and appears to be an adaptation the studio’s excellent The 7th Guest VR from 2023. That game was a proper ground-up remake in itself, reimagining Stauf Mansion in new-fangled, fully explorable (and wonderfully moody) 3D. Its new cast, all hitting exactly the right level of macabre camp, was once again rendered in FMV. But! Through some kind of volumetric witchcraft, composited into scenes in a way that meant you could walk around them and see them from all sides. It also had some cracking puzzles, making clever use of VR’s 1:1 movement. About the only thing that irked me was the decision to cut original composer The Fat Man’s spine-tingling The Dolls of Doom, but you can’t win ’em all, eh?
Anyway, Vertigo has been a bit vague about the exact nature of The 7th Guest Remake and its relationship with the studio’s earlier VR game, but – based on the footage shown in its announcement trailer – I’m assuming it’ll essentially be the same wonderfully upgraded experience, but with concessions made to accommodate standard controls and flat screens.
Whatever it is, The 7th Guest Remake launches for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam on 4th June, with a Switch version and Epic Games Store release to follow. It’s very reasonably priced, too, at $19.99 USD. Better yet, you’ll get it for free on Steam or PS5 if you already own the Steam VR or PSVR 2 version. It works the other way round as well: pick up the remake and you’ll get the VR version on the same platform. Consider me intrigued.
