Fans of the old school style of adventure gaming surely reserve a special place in their gaming hearts for the King’s Quest series, the granddaddy of the adventure game genre. Since we were first introduced to not-yet-King Graham in King’s Quest I, we have come to know many of his family members quite well over the years.

The original series appears to have run its course, with 1994’s King’s Quest VII being the last true adventure title in the series. The next King’s Quest game – Mask of Eternity – appeared in 1998, taking a drastic departure from its adventure gaming roots by incorporating a 3D third person action component.

Developer Sierra underwent a major restructuring of the company during 1999 but eventually a ninth King’s Quest title was announced in 2001, but this of course never met the light of day and was canned by 2002.

Enter The Silver Lining, a fan project by Phoenix Online Studios (POS) with humble beginnings stretching as far back as 2000. The project was originally given the working title King’s Quest IX: Every Cloak Has A Silver Lining, continuing the trend of idiomatic puns used in previous KQ games.

After a bumpy start, the project began to take shape, only to be met in 2005 with a cease-and-desist order from Vivendi Games who owned the King’s Quest IP at the time, effectively halting production. A letter writing campaign undertaken by supporters of the project, and a portfolio of the work completed so far was enough to change Vivendi’s mind, who allowed the project to continue, albeit without the King’s Quest title.  

 The Silver Lining team diligently continued their devoted work and were all but set to release a final product when in February 2010, Activision – who had acquired the King’s Quest IP rights – issued their own cease-and-desist order. Developers and fans alike were mortified as the project once again seemed to be dead.

The decade long struggle to deliver this highly anticipated fan-made game received some happy news over the Weekend of 26 June 2010, as Activision decided that they would allow the game to be released. With this news in hand, POS wasted no time in announcing that we can expect the first episode of chapter one of The Silver Lining to be released to the adventure gaming world for free on 10 July 2010.

The original project ambitiously called for a nine chapter game, but that has since been revised. Currently, the development team plans to release chapters one and two, each consisting of five episodes. The storyline created for the nine chapters has been revised and the developers assure the world that chapters one and two will comprise of a fully realised and self-contained story, so we won’t be left hanging for another ten years

According to official statements made by the developers on their forums, there is no set release schedule for the remaining episodes as of yet, but as the episodes are each about 90% complete, we can expect them to arrive at intervals of about 1‑3 months. We can also expect regular news updates from the development team now that a release is in full swing.

To whet your whistle for The Silver Lining have a look at the announcement trailer below:

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