Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy Review: Legacy of a Legend

25 years after his video game debut, Belgian comic book artist Benoît Sokal remains an underrated figure in the industry—a creator with supreme imaginative prowess and a penchant for romanticized but political storytelling. It’s been four years since Sokal passed away, but his characters and the mystical worlds they inhabit remain in my thoughts. While Sokal is best known in the games industry as the creator of the Syberia series of adventure games, it is a now-forgotten adventure game titled Amerzone that introduced his the shared universe of Amerzone to the rest of the world. Now, 25 years later, the new bloods at Microids are releasing Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy, the from-the-ground-up remake of the cult game. For people who grew up with the original, Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy is a tribute to the legacy Sokal left behind.

Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy is a faithful remake as far as the story is concerned and follows the general outline of the original. Players assume the avatar of an unnamed rookie journalist on his way to interview a disgraced scientist and explorer Alexandre Valembois about his expeditions to the mysterious South American island country of Amerzone. Living out the rest of his days as a recluse full of regrets, Valembois tasks the player with traveling to the Amerzone and returning the last egg of the majestic White Birds he stole from the natives. Valembois soon passes away, leaving his dreams and the hopes of the natives in the players’ hands as they journey to the fabled country now under cruel rule by a fascist dictatorship. In more ways than one, Amerzone is a fitting tribute to Sokal and his vision.

World of Wonders

You can really catch the Gabriel García Márquez and Myst inspirations from the get-go. Sokal expertly crafts the world of Amerzone in a dream-like manner. Amerzone is filled with all manner of strange creatures and stranger powers and is permeated with a strong sense of nostalgia and melancholy. The artist’s obsession with clockpunk contraptions and the call to protect natural habitats and the rights of indigenous people. The desolation of the old world at the hands of men craving power seems to be a running theme in Sokal’s works. Amerzone is a haunting tale of the corruption of power and the passing of time. In 2025, its themes and politics are as relevant, where genocidal maniacs still rule with pride, and ecological concerns are at their peak. The narrative’s linear nature and short runtime don’t detract from its ever-relevant themes.

While a faithful remake, Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy has several new additions in the form of reworked levels and a slightly expanded story. I am usually very finicky when remakes try to change the original, but I’m more than satisfied with what Microids has done here. The new snippets of storytelling and additional lore work in the game’s favor and expand upon the already engaging story and immersion.

A Mix of Old and New

The narrative of Amerzone can be enjoyed by anyone but its gameplay certainly can be not. The remake for all intents and purposes is an old-school game at heart. Yes, the game has been rebuilt from scratch on Unity but all the elements of the classic point and click gameplay are to be found here. For example, instead of being a fully explorable first-person game like the Myst remake, Amerzone is still a point-and-click game featuring a FPP. However, the environments are fully 3D and dynamic. All the interactions are fully animated as well. This curious design decision will nevertheless prove to be divisive. As for me, I like that the team stuck with the original vision, but at the same time, feel that freeform movement would have suited the game just fine as well.

Aside from the exploration, the puzzle-solving is also faithful to the original. The OG is not known for having the most intricate of puzzles, and the newly added ones also stick to this philosophy. However, Amerzone will require the player to pay attention to dialogues, diary entries, and lore notes to figure out solutions to puzzles, and some of these original puzzles haven’t aged all that well. Thankfully, the game doesn’t shy away from guiding the players should they choose to. The hint system provides a last resort should the player get stuck at any point. Moreover, there’s an option to highlight all interactable objects is present in the remake, which proves to be a godsend. If you played the original, you’d know how much of a pixel hunt it could be.

Points of contention

Amerzone: Legacy of the Explorer looks pretty decent overall. But, if you stop and look closer, a lot of the textures can come across as low-res. There are also problems with the game’s anti-aliasing, and lighting bugs can sometimes occur. These I can stand. But what I can’t stand are the lack of individual graphics settings to tweak. The game has only four presets— Steam Deck, low, medium, and high. Outside of this, only anti-aliasing and bloom can be turned off. The lack of any upscaling in 2025 is also perplexing. After testing the game at 1440p on a 3070 and at 1080p on a 4060, I found out that while the game runs decent (60+ on high in both cases), there are lots of places where the fps jumps around between 60-120. While I generally like the visuals, some parts of me feel that the new art style takes away from the dreamy, surreal atmosphere of the original a tad bit. The $40 price point doesn’t help the game either.

Real Talk

Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy is a faithful remake made with love by people who care for the game and for the legacy of Benoît Sokal. It’s certainly made for people who grew up with the original and might disappoint ones who are used to more complex adventure games. But if you like Amerzone and what it stands for, Amerzone: The Explorer’s Legacy certainly won’t disappoint. Pouring one out for Sokal. May you rest in power.

FINAL SCORE: 70/100