Syberia is a point-and-click adventure game designed by the Belgian comic artist Benoît Sokal, developed and published by Microids. It is the first instalement in the Syberia series.
Syberia is set in the same world as Sokal's 1999 video game Amerzone. It follows Kate Walker, an American lawyer tasked with overseeing the major sale of a company and her subsequent journey across Europe and Russia to find the brother of the recently deceased owner. Alongside the main plot, the story also consists of a subplot involving Kate's personal life.
The game was a commercial success, with sales above 500,000 units worldwide by 2005. It was acclaimed by critics for its intelligent script and use of graphic design that encompassed elements of art nouveau and clockpunk fiction. Its success spawned a franchise that incorporates several sequels and comic book adaptations.
Plot[]
The game begins when American lawyer Kate Walker is sent by her law firm "Marson and Lormont" to a French village of Valadilène to oversee the corporate takeover of Volarbergs spring-automaton toy factory for their client - Universal Toy Company. When Kate arrives, she finds out that the recently deceased owner, Anna Voralberg, before her death had informed the village notary that her younger brother Hans Voralberg is alive, despite his faked burial at the age of 18. Realising that Hans is now the owner of the factory, Kate learns she must get his approval in order to allow the takeover to proceed. Investigating the Voralberg estate, she learns that Hans not only exists, but was also injured in a cave outside the village during his youth, while attempting to retrieve a prehistoric doll of a man riding a mammoth. The resulting accident stunted his development, leaving him mentally handicapped and causing him to develop an obsession to find mammoths. Despite proving extremely creative with making automatons, his father disapproved of his obsession, and disowned him as a direct result.
Learning that Hans lives somewhere further east across the continent, Kate discovers that the only way to reach him is via a specially designed clockwork locomotive, built by Anna at her brother's request, and manning it with a special automaton named Oscar. Before leaving, Kate is tasked with retrieving items important to Hans, that Oscar requires before he can allow them to depart – the mammoth doll and an interesting device with two dolls at the top depicting Anna and Hans which the brother made so he can send her messages althoug he does not know how to write or read. After acquiring them, the pair eventually begin their journey eastwards, stopping at Barrockstadt, a failing university. While Kate seeks a means for them to continue, she explores the establishment and soon learns more about Hans's interests in a mysterious tribe of people known as the Youkol, who lived with and domesticated mammoths that reside on the titular island of Syberia (inspired by the real-life location of Wrangel Island in Siberia, the last place on earth where mammoths survived).
Upon moving on, Kate's journey brings her to Komkolzgrad, a dusty Communist-era industrial mining complex run by the eccentric and somewhat crazy Serguei Borodine. Finding that he stole Oscar's hands in order for his automaton organist to work, she agrees to help him bring Helena Romanski, a washed-up opera singer who he is obsessed with, back to the complex to sing for him in order to get back the hands. Helping out a drunk test pilot named Boris to fix one of Hans inventions – a flying machine – Kate gains his assistance in operating an airship that takes her to the Aralbad spa, only to discover that Helena has become disillusioned in believing she is too old to sing, prompting Kate to help her recover.
Returning to the mining complex with Kate, Helena performs for Borodine, only to be imprisoned by him in his desire to keep her at his side as his personal opera singer. Refusing to allow this to happen, Kate rescues Helena, recovers Oscar's hands, and attempts to leave with both via the train. Although Borodine attempts to stop them, Kate makes use of some dynamite to thwart his efforts and allowing the train to continue onwards, once again reaching Aralbad. Upon arriving, Kate finds Hans waiting at the spa, delighted that she has brought him the train and Oscar. Hans signs the factory release papers without reading them and gives them back to Kate. Her mission is over. But before Kate boards a plane that will bring her back to New York, she quickly changes her mind and rushes to rejoin Hans on the train, offering to help him realise his dream, abandoning her job and her unfaithful fiancé back home.
Development[]
The game was produced entirely in Montreal by 35 people under the direction of Benoît Sokal on a budget of €2 million using Virtools Development Environment 2.1. Its budget was the highest of any Microïds game by that time. Benoît Sokal indicated in an interview that at one time the development team were considering to create one single game for the Syberia story, but decided not to, as it was so large.
Sokal's earlier game, Amerzone, is located in the same fictional universe and Syberia contains some references to it.
Languages[]
Syberia supports 8 languages:
- English
- German
- French
- Spanish
- Italian
- Russian
- Polish
- Japanese
Additional material[]
- Syberia: Esthétique du jeu (eng. Syberia: Game Aesthetics)
- Tout l'art de Syberia (eng. All the art of Syberia)
- Syberia - two books series
Official sites[]
Syberia Covers[]
