Tintin Reporter: The Cigars of the Pharaoh now has a release date.
As reported by Gematsu, Tintin Reporter: The Cigars of the Pharaoh will be releasing on November 7, 2023, on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows via Steam. It will release on the Nintendo Switch in 2024.
The game is being produced by Pendulo Studios and published by Microids. Pendulo is known for making graphic adventure games, and have actually been around since the 1990s. Their credits include the video games Alfred Hitchcock – Vertigo, and Black Sad: Under the Skin, based on the Black Sad series of graphic novels.
While Tintin Reporter: The Cigars of the Pharaoh seems to have borrowed the aesthetic of the 2011 Steven Spielberg animated film The Adventures of Tintin, this game seems to be unrelated and is using the Tintin license wholly separately. So, don’t expect to hear familiar voices from the likes of Andy Serkis or Jamie Bell (whose voice has considerably changed at this point anyway.)
The title should also be familiar to longtime Tintin fans. Cigars of the Pharaoh was the 4th comic album made by the Belgian cartoonist Hergé. It was originally published all the way back in 1934, but was republished with Hergé’s ligne claire style coloring in 1955, with several story elements having also been changed. It is the latter version that the English speaking world became familiar with, after Methuen published an English translation in 1971.
The story itself involves Tintin and Snowy meeting Egyptologist Dr. Sarcophagus. Tintin soon joins Dr. Sarcophagus in an adventure to find the tomb of Pharaoh Kih-Oskh, and that’s as far as we’ll go on spoilers here.
This adventure takes Tintin from Egypt to Arabia, and India. Unfortunately, the age of the story definitely shows in its depiction of non-Western cultures, even after Hergé’s revisions, and the English translation coming 40 years after the original.
So it will be interesting to see what changes Pendulo Studios makes to the story. We can tell you now, whatever changes are made, the title itself suggests that Pendulo cannot make this game kid-friendly. The story of the source material pretty much makes it impossible to make it suitable for children, though it could at least make it to a teen rating.
Outside of that, Pendulo’s games are well regarded critically, but they have yet to find that hit to make them one that gamers look out for. Will their third licensed game be the charm? We won’t take long to find out.
