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The The Poisoned Pawn paused Pandora Directive reopened in 25th Anniversary remaster

There's good news and, if not necessarily bad news, then at least some not-so-good news from the world of Tex Murphy today, as Big Finish Games has formally announced it will no longer be involved in the long-awaited The Poisoned Pawn but will instead focus its energy on updating The Pandora Directive for modern audiences to commemorate the game's 25th anniversary. 

The Poisoned Pawn has had a long and ever-evolving history. What began as a fan-made updated remake of Overseer by the indie team at Chaotic Fusion was eventually expanded into a full-fledged pseudo-sequel with the involvement of series creators Chris Jones and Aaron Conners, continuing the saga of Tex Murphy while looking back on the beloved gumshoe's earlier cases. But a lack of any new updates in the last three years cast serious doubt on the game's future, and it turns out those fears were not unfounded. According to the statement released today by Big Finish, "conflicts over design choices ultimately led to disagreements among the team members, resulting in a significant drop in momentum and motivation." With progress eventually slowing to a halt, Big Finish decided to "move on" and "hand the reins back to Chaotic Fusion." 

So does this mean the end of The Poisoned Pawn? In its expanded canonical form it does, but the original fan team still has the blessing of Big Finish and "full autonomy to complete the game on their own terms should they decide to continue." After all, they claim, "it would be a shame for all the amazing work to go to waste." We couldn't agree more, of course, and we'll continue to keep our eye on the developer's website in hopes of seeing the project revived once again, perhaps returning to the original vision intended. 

Fortunately, when one door closes another door opens, and in this case that door will hopefully lead to a remastered rerelease of The Pandora Directive. Throughout much of the past year, in secret the team at Big Finish has been "painstakingly collecting, capturing, and digitizing all the source materials from the archives using some of the best equipment in the industry." With this advanced hardware at their disposal, their goal has been to "ensure each level from the game is recreated to match the original game’s layout and structure, but with much more attention to detail and polish." The new version will feature video reprocessed in high definition and re-edited with input from original director Adrian Carr, as well as remastered voice-overs and musical score. Along with a modernized interface, there will be some gameplay fine-tuning to "preserve and enhance things that worked well, and cut back/fix things that didn’t work so well," but such liberties will be kept to a minimum in order to best maintain "an experience that mirrors the original game."

Click image for hi-res spaceship interior from the remastered version of The Pandora Directive


While 2021 marks the 25th anniversary of The Pandora Directive, we won't actually be seeing the new game this year. In fact, Big Finish is making no promises at all in this "current stage of early concept and development." With a significant financial commitment anticipated to bring the project to fruition, the team will continue working behind the scenes even as its seeks to "gauge the popularity of this endeavor." So if you're excited about the possibility of seeing Tex Murphy back, looking and sounding better than ever before, be sure to make your enthusiasm known and help spread the word while keeping your eye on the series website for regular updates. 

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