Adaptations of Agatha Christie’s works almost always take some innovative liberties to keep them fresh and contemporary – some are the best, others are woefully wrong. Warner Bros., for example, set Murder in three acts in the 1980s and gave Belgian detective Hercule Poirot a computer that was somehow too powerful for his little gray cells to understand. Poirot, the popular ITV series starring David Suchet, often changed entire storylines. Even the 1957 Billy Wilder film Prosecution witnesswhich Christie reportedly called her favorite adaptation of any of her works, features an entirely novel character intended to add another dimension to the heroine’s personality.
The plot comes and goes, the characters change completely, and yet the charm of Christie’s mysteries continues to draw people – and creators – to countless reworkings and novel ideas. Audiences want surprises, and creators don’t want to tell a story that has already been told countless times. This is the case Agatha Christie – Death on the Nileadventure game by Microids Lyon, which was released on Steam on September 25. Of the many (many) changes the studio made to Christie’s original 1937 story, one stands out the most: this time, the action takes place in the 1970s. At first glance, jumping forward four decades sounds like a strange, even accidental choice. But for studio director David Chomard, it was a necessary change.
Something venerable, something novel
It’s not an straightforward balance to achieve, but Microids has experience in achieving it. Following two poorly received Christie adaptations by Blazing Griffin published by Microids: Hercule Poirot: The First Cases AND The London caseboth of which featured novel stories rather than adapting existing material – his in-house studio Microids Lyon tried its hand at putting Christie’s eminent fictional detective into video games. The result was 2023 Agatha Christie – Murder on the Orient Expresswhich takes place in 2023 and was warmly received by both fans of Christie’s works and adventure games, even though it took a lot of (sometimes questionable) innovative liberties.
Agatha Christie – Death on the Nile retains the most essential elements of Christie’s story of love and jealousy, but also builds a second narrative around a private detective named Jane. Her investigation runs parallel to and eventually merges with Poirot’s.
Chomard’s team extracted various bits of subtext and background details from Christie’s novel and turned them into side stories for both detectives. A burglary in Majorca, briefly mentioned in the novel, becomes a full-blown affair for Jane, who runs, shoots and fights to get the job done – everything Poirot would never do. Jewel theft is a recurring subplot in the book, and instead of starting with the ponderous club scene from the book that introduces all the main characters, Microids Lyon begins with a diminutive jewel heist for Poirot to solve. This is a useful little tutorial for the player, as well as a little nod to some of Christie’s stories (such as “The Jewel Robbery of the Grand Metropolitan”) in which Poirot deals with similar crimes.
Most of these things can happen at any time, but Chomard says the 1970s were sort of a Goldilocks zone in terms of what the band wanted to achieve. It’s historic enough to be exotic and novel to most players, which Chomard hopes will make their Death on the Nile game more memorable than another adaptation set in the 1930s.
This historical setting also meant it was easier for the team to stay true to the original story. WITH Murder on the Orient Express Chomard says writing about computers, cell phones and contemporary forensics made it much more tough to stick to the original plot. Like 12 people crammed into one train compartment Murder on the Orient Express would have left plenty of DNA evidence, one well-placed CCTV camera on board the ship he was on Death on the Nilea key murder would spoil the whole mystery.
This period provided Chomard’s team with plenty of material culture around which to build puzzles and obstacles, and this made sure Agatha Christie – Death on the Nile he has plenty of them.
Solving the puzzle
Christie’s plot twist at the end of the novel, in which her detective reveals to the audience and reader exactly how the crime happened and how cleverly they solved it, simply won’t work in a video game.
“The player expects regular rewards for his progress,” says Chomard. “You can’t wait until the last few minutes to put the whole puzzle together. A good detective game must allow the player to uncover secrets and solve parts of the investigation all the time.”
The team also wanted to give the player more to do outside of interrogating suspects, as one of the recurring complaints about Blazing Griffin’s Poirot games was that they focused too much on interactive stories, with minimal effort and thought on the player’s part. Microids Lyon wanted players to feel like real detectives and spent weeks coming up with ideas for puzzle designs in a way that evokes Christie’s own writing style. One puzzle was created because the team wanted to exploit an intriguing decorative object, and the other turned out to be an escape room because the team likes escape rooms. It all harks back to the ’70s in one way or another, whether through period technology like Super 8 cameras and cassette players, or simply through the soundtrack, which uses the composer’s Minimoog Model D, ARP Odyssey 1, and other retro synthesizer instruments.
Chomard says the 1970s setting had to feel valuable, like it was the only possible choice for the game’s puzzles and drama. It doesn’t directly mention previous adaptations, but it’s straightforward to name a few that didn’t show the same commitment to justifying their producers’ innovative freedoms. 1985 CBS version 13 During dinnerfor example, it begins with Poirot guest-appearing on a talk show (for reasons never explained), while Kenneth Branagh’s film Death on the Nile (2022) makes so many arbitrary changes to Christie’s story that it’s difficult not to see a real murder victim in the plot. The critical consensus criticized Branagh for its shallow attempts to add novel life to an overly familiar story – perhaps this justifies Microids Lyon’s desire to be different on a larger scale.
Time will tell if this approach pays off, but reception on Steam has been mostly positive so far, with players praising the fresh take on a time-worn classic and a different take on Christie’s familiar hero. If you’re looking for a crime thriller with a psychedelic twist and an impeccable atmosphere, Death on the Nile seems like the perfect weekend escape.
