So hey, Sierra is back?

My loyal army of Sierra enthusiasts, don't quite get your hopes up yet for that Quest for Glory reboot. All that's been put out there is a Sierra website. It seems likely they'll be at Gamescom, according to this here Gamespot article.

As an old Sierra loyalist, I'm trying not to get my hopes up, but what would you want to see out of a revived Sierra? I'll update this post if and when new information is released. I'm sort of cringing at this idea that they might just pump out iOS and Android games. Maybe the Two Guys from Andromeda's SpaceVenture or the Coles' Hero U will fall under this arm, but it seems really unlikely, given that both were successfully Kickstarted.

Weird! Reviving an old brand like that doesn't seem like a very Activisiony thing to do.

Did someone buy the name from activision? Or is this merely a separate brand?

@arbitrarywater: At this point, your guess is as good as mine. I have to think that selling a brand like Sierra, as niche as it would be in this day and age, would have gotten some coverage somewhere, so I assume it's still owned by Activision?

I wanna see the No One Lives Forever games on GOG...

@beachthunder: I forgot they published those. Good call.

That's crazy. Sierra was one of my favorite developer/publishers in the 90s. Not hot on the new logo, but I'm excited to see what this is all about. I wonder if the Williams are at all involved in this. (likely not, but that would be amazing.)

Also, I'm calling it now: Phantasmagoria 3 confirmed! Something something "gritty Incredible Toon Machine reboot" as well!

Their teaser website has an Activision copyright at the bottom.

The website says: SIERRA is a trademark of Activision Publishing, Inc

As the original publishers of Half-Life, they're obviously making Half-Life 3. For mobile storefronts everywhere!

Not to sound like a dick, but ill care when they put out a new quality product. Them coming back means absolutely nothing to me until they prove the name again.

Finally, Phantasmagoria 3! The game we've always wanted!

Obviously "Sierra" will be the name of the new Activision-only digital distribution service, designed to go head to head with Origin.

So has 3D Ultra Mini Golf Deluxe 2 been announced yet?

What's even weirder is that Sierra was more closely aligned with Vivendi Games (which bought them when things went south for Sierra back in the early 2000s) at the time of the great Activision-Blizzard-Vivendi (then the majority shareholder at 63%) merger. So I guess when Vivendi sold their stake in the company Activision still maintained the rights to Sierra. Which makes sense because Activision still has High Moon Studios, Inc. which, unless these rumors of Sierra are true, and with the closing of Radical Entertainment Inc. is all that remains of Vivendi Games.

Speaking of which there's a great book to be written about Vivendi's ill-fated expansionist plan during the 1990s to early 2000s.

Don't you even joke about that, Adrienne!

All I know is, if I hear the Quest for Glory theme play during the next couple of weeks, you all will have to find a new moderator, because I'll be dead of a heart attack.

Torin's Passage was my Sierra game of choice growing up. Not sure how much I would enjoy it now.

Grab your grey pocket tees boys and girls, Curtis Craig is back!

Without knowing who is in this new Sierra, I'm more concerned than optimistic

they're finally gonna finish that warcraft adventure game.

@sparky_buzzsaw: just thinking about it fills me with complicatedly pleasant feelings. like i don't want it at all but i can't help imagining it being the best thing ever.

action rpg where elsa and toro totally wreck everybody everywhere

cooking game feat. baba yaga with bonehead cracking wise and criticizing you constantly

I knew they would do this eventually. Now that COD is starting to wind down, the obvious move is to bring back the ImagiNation Network. Basically free Lambourghinis for everyone.

I must be the only person alive who remembers Sierra for their Home Architect software. It was the Sims of its time.

Good times. Good times.

Now let us hope Lucasarts somehow lives again. (Or Disney actually does stuff with its corpse)

Also when I was growing up I really only knew Sierra because they published Half-Life.

What are the Quest for Glory or Space Quest folks doing these days? That stupid Leisure Suit Larry made a new shit game recently, it's high time we get a reboot of some Quest games! Not King's Quest though, screw that series... I still remember how disappointed I was as a kid after getting KQ5 (on CD!) and then beating it the same day without any kind of walk through. Felt so cheated. Luckily Roberta Williams did manage to redeem herself (to me at least) with Phantasmagoria.

I actually picked up and have been playing Jane Jensen's new-ish game Gray Matter. It was a few bucks during a GOG sale. It's ok, kinda slow and pretty easy. Story is a little too predictable... I'm hoping things get a lot darker in the second half of the game, as she tends to do. For a few bucks it's worth a look. Wonder if she's still working on that Gabriel Knight 1 remake, a risky move especially with new voice acting.

@beachthunder: from my understanding no one knows who currently owns the rights to No One Lives Forever...

Why? It won't even be the Sierra we grew up with. So it's not like this is a good thing.

It would just be a bunch of people in a company owned by Activision using the name Sierra. It's meaningless haha.

Just being honest, here. I think this is an odd thing.

They're doing this so they can give Tim Cain all the money and resources so he can go back and work on Arcanum again so that it becomes not just the potential best game ever, but the actual best game ever.

Bah, you are all wrong. This is obviously No One Lives Forever 3! (I wish...)

I bet it's just the branding of the Activision version of EA's ORIGIN store.

Polygon is reporting on this as if Activision is rebooting a Sierra property rather than the company itself

Does Activision even have any games apart from CoD any more? Isn't it just CoD and licensed Spider-Man games? I'm not trying to be down on them, I just literally don't know what they even sell these days.

I never really played on of Sierra's games. I did watch the Phantasmagoria Er that Dave and Vinny did on the site, and that was amazing, so I suppose I have reason to be excited.

Oh lawdy! I grew up on the sierras! Dat king quest, dat glory, dat space, dat torrin!

I wish that Sierra logo teaser played the old sierra theme song. It is eternally burned into my memory.

So So cool with all this talk of US Gold I was thinking about which old publishers could come back.

HD Remakes of No One Lives Forever 1 and 2.

Can we get a new Caesar game? That was Sierra, right?

Hey guys, Mr Sierra here.

I just want to let you know that we're releasing a new No One Lives Forever! We heard your cries, and we're answering!

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@alexw00d: Well there is a little game called Destiny due out in a month...

Wait a minute...there is an army of Sierra fans out there?

@extomar: Sierra published tons of awesome games back in the day. Outside of the point and click adventures everyone remembers them for, they had the Siege series - Earthsiege. Starsiege. Tribes. They published Half Life and Counter Strike. Homeworld.

And let's not forget 50 Cent Bulletproof!

As a dude who basically grew up on Sierra games, this is certainly some news.

I don't like necro-studios. If a studio is closes, shuts its doors, pink slips 99% of the people, then it is closed and the name should be merely considered that - just a name. I don't care if they hire everyone back again, once a studio is closed...it is over. I would rather see a great studio, that sadly fails, just close. If all those people want to do it again start a new studio and make less mistakes.

If nothing else I give, Peter Molyneux a great deal of respect for how he does things. When Bullfrog closed he didn't sit around to try to re-start Bullfrog again; he said we're starting fresh with Lionhead Studios and made new IP. And, when Lionhead went under he did try to re-start that either, he made 22 Cans that again changed focus.

That's how you do it - If you make good games you make good games and people will follow you.

Yeh thats pretty much it.

It suprises me though that they dont distribute the way blizzard does or something though.

@monkeyking1969: Lionhead didn't go under. Molyneux quit.

He quit because it SHOULD go under. ;-)

I hope they resurrect the Quest and Aces games.

Yeah it isn't so much I don't doubt there are fans of classic Sierra games but I doubt there is an "army" because some of those very same games came to typify the worst the genre.

I'm not sure what a resurrected Sierra would mean or do at this point. There is morbid curiosity on what a Phantasmagoria 3 would be but imagining what King's Quest 9 (...did they ever actually finish that??) would look like today is like imaging what Pitfall would be like today.