Syberia Remastered – A Classic Game With Classic Headaches?

By 2002, point-and-click adventure games were hanging on by a thread. 3D action titles and shooters were on the rise, with gamers now experiencing the likes of Halo in late 2001 and Grand Theft Auto III just a month prior. LucasArts—once synonymous with the genre—was moving on, following releases like Grim Fandango, often labeled a commercial failure despite turning a small profit, and 2000’s Escape from Monkey Island, a game that found success in Europe but underperformed in the U.S. With profit margins thinning and interest in the genre seemingly waning—at least in the eyes of executives—planned follow-ups like a Full Throttle sequel and another Sam & Max game were shelved in 2003 and 2004 respectively.

What was once fresh and exciting gameplay now felt stale. That said, a few point-and-click titles still trickled out in the early 2000s, with occasional success stories—especially in Europe. One of those releases was 2002’s Syberia, created by Benoît Sokal, a talented comic artist who sadly passed away in 2021. The game was published by Microids for the PC platform before eventually being ported to a wide variety of consoles.

Following the adventures of lawyer Kate Walker, who is tasked with finalizing the sale of a factory, Syberia would prove that adventure games weren’t dead just yet, managing to sell a respectable 500,000 copies across platforms, leading to three sequels. Reviews were mostly positive, with some scores given in the upper 90s; however, outlets such as IGN were less enthusiastic, ultimately ranking the game in the lower 7s. Syberia 2 was met with similar results, though some cited improvements over the original game. However, the third time was not the charm in this case, with Syberia 3 lingering in development hell for years, partially due to a lack of funding, and not seeing the light of day— incredibly—until 2017. Released as a bit of a mess, the game received poor reviews across the board, though the series would find some redemption in 2022 with the often forgotten fourth game, Syberia: The World Before.

And now, what’s old is new again, as today we are reviewing Syberia - Remastered, coming to us once again from Microids, some 20+ years later. But should Syberia have stayed a pleasant memory? Or is it ready to capture the hearts and minds of revitalized point-and-click gamers across the world once more? Let’s find out in our full review.

Syberia is indeed back, with a visual overhaul and gameplay tweaks, but the same old story that at least some of you know and love. Just as players did in the original release, they’ll control New York lawyer Kate Walker, who is sent to the French Alps so that she can close the deal on the sale of an automaton factory. All seems normal until Kate catches wind that the newly deceased owner of the factory, Anna Voralberg, had notarized a letter informing the village that her brother Hans is alive and well, having been thought to be dead for some time. Kate will need to track down Hans in order for the sale of the property to go through, which will lead her on a train-trekking adventure with her new friend Oscar the robot. Oh, and there are mammoths involved, too.

Fans of the original Syberia will tell you that the game has a very unique vibe all its own. For a long time, the point-and-click genre was associated with slapstick humor, cartoony visuals, and over-the-top antics, but Syberia took a more grounded approach, feeling somewhat plausible. Its story has a more adult tone, touching on themes of personal growth, the destruction of industries, and even relationships. In this remaster, you’ll still get all of the original game’s story beats, though time has not been kind to all of it.

Let’s start with the most obvious of changes: Syberia Remastered’s newly touched-up visuals that drop the pre-rendered backgrounds of yesteryear in exchange for 3D environments. Look, I’ve been playing games for most of my life—I’d be lying if I told you I didn’t have some degree of reverence for the classic cinematic framing and digital painting-like aesthetic of old-school games such as Final Fantasy 7, Resident Evil, and of course, well, Syberia (2002). But that said, the overhauled graphics do look nice in spots for this release, with some great lighting, refreshed character models, and updated building architecture that bring the game up to date with what more modern gaming audiences may have come to expect. Not every change is a welcome one, however, as a strange upscaling technique seems to have been used on the original cutscenes that now makes them look, for lack of a better word, kind of bad. The move to 3D environments also comes at the cost of a rather poor camera that can often make it difficult to see paths and doorways. So yes, the old man in me may have missed the original look of the game and not every visual change is a welcome one, but Syberia: Remastered is quite pretty, with some seriously impressive weather effects to boot.

While fans may ultimately be torn on some of the new visual choices, such as Kate’s updated character model, they can take comfort in knowing that the game more or less sounds as they remember it. Voice acting is available in a variety of different languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, Polish, and of course, the only one of those that I understand—English. The script, from what I could tell, did not appear altered in any significant way, with the game’s orchestral soundtrack also returning, setting a lovely backdrop throughout your adventure. Players may choose between two different difficulty options: A story mode offers a bit more of a guided experience, while the Adventure mode provides less guidance. Outside of that, there’s just a basic set of visual and audio options to be tweaked to your liking, but really nothing else of note.

While the original Syberia, at least the PC version, was all about pointing and clicking, this remastered edition offers two different control options, including the ability to take full control of Kate with a controller. It’s a good thing this is an option, because shockingly, Kate isn’t all that responsive to where you click on the screen with your mouse cursor. Frustration set in for me as she became hung up on environments, unresponsive to my commands as I furiously mashed in my left mouse button. This was particularly annoying, as I am not personally a fan of playing games like this with a controller—it just never seems to end all that well. But in Syberia Remastered, doing so did ultimately become my preferred method of playing, though even using a controller comes with its downsides. Kate still feels sluggish to move about, slow even when running, and the environments don’t really lend themselves well to giving a player full control, as a myriad of invisible walls exist. All of this is to say, there was no truly comfortable way to play the game. Granted, console players may already be used to the more clunky control scheme, but for me, I wish the actual pointing and clicking between locations had been improved upon. At the least, menu designs were functional here, as it was easy to answer Kate’s phone, choose items, or parse through the many notes that she will collect.

Not everything is as you remember it in terms of puzzle design either. While the game’s original puzzles are indeed still present, some changes have been made that could divide players. On one hand, it's nice that fans already familiar with the game will get a somewhat new take on solving the game’s many conundrums, but purists may scoff at these updates, which in my opinion don’t really improve upon the original design all that much. I don’t want to give away solutions, but many of the tweaks that have been made only serve to add a few more steps to the equation, in a game that never had the strongest puzzle design to start with and has no shortage of backtracking between locations. This means that while Syberia Remastered isn’t a tough game, it is often a tedious one, having you run back and forth endlessly in what feels like padding. It turns out that not every aspect of the original release has aged well, and while there was an opportunity to improve upon pacing, this version of the game only serves to make things feel even slower.

Now granted, this isn’t being advertised as a complete remake—I get it—so maybe this version of the game could simply be viewed as an alternate way to play the original which of course, still exists. But I can’t escape the feeling that a game many consider a classic deserved a bit more effort. Syberia Remastered is sluggish with poor pacing; it is arguably clunkier than ever, with no shortage of backtracking and puzzles that are more of a chore than they are brain-bending. The dialogue has not aged particularly well either, with stiff, less-than-enthusiastic deliveries. And yet, for its many flaws—and there are many—there’s still a compelling story underneath it all, but one that is today perhaps best enjoyed through a nostalgic run-through of the original game.

Syberia will always be remembered for its great atmosphere, interesting characters, vibrant artistry, and unique approach to the point-and-click genre, but this remaster just feels unnecessary and offers nothing meaningful or all that exciting over the original. It has no shortage of technical hiccups either, whether it was long, drawn-out loading screens or bugs where I could quite literally do nothing and was forced to restart from the last checkpoint. The Steam Deck version of the game you ask? Well, it runs very unevenly and is dependent on the scene. Expect framerates that fluctuate between the 30s to as low as the 20s even on performance mode in more open areas, with some improvement when exploring smaller, more condensed sections. All told, I found it to be a painful way to play, though at the least it does have touch screen controls available with the trackpad able to move about the game’s unruly camera. I think I've gone on long enough—Syberia Remastered isn’t great, it’s not even good, but it's not necessarily the worst thing you’ll play this year either, thus earning the table lamp of mediocrity.

TABLE LAMP: MEDIOCRE