The Last Express
A Hitchcockian thriller set aboard the Orient Express on the eve of World War I, Jordan and Smoking Car Productions’ 1997 real-time-rewinding adventure game The Last Express has become a cult classic.
About The Last Express
Update: The Last Express is now available for download from dotEmu.com and gog.com.
The Last Express never made the jump to next-gen videogame consoles like its predecessor, Prince of Persia — but though its 1990s PC graphics and technology may be antiquated, its story, characters, and design have stood the test of time and have won the loyalty of an exceptionally passionate and committed fan base. Last Express is different from any other game I’ve done. It’s an achievement I’m especially proud of, and one that’s close to my heart.
Published by Brøderbund in 1997 (and in Japan by Softbank) on three CD-ROM disks, Last Express was an immersive adventure game that put the player on board the Orient Express in July 1914, crossing Europe on the eve of World War I. It pushed the boundaries of interactive narrative in ways that no other game has done before or since.
In the Smoking Car
For me, making this game was a life-changing experience. It was my first time starting and running a company. In four years, Smoking Car Productions grew to 60 people; babies were born, friendships were forged. We spent our last nickel on the game, and closed our doors shortly after it shipped, so it probably wasn’t the smartest career move for most of us; but it was an adventure that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
PC/Mac copies of Last Express are scarce even on Amazon and eBay; but if you have a PC, you can download the full version from dotEmu.com or gog.com for under $6.
Production Notes
To create the art nouveau-inspired animation for Last Express, we developed — and patented — a digital rotoscoping process to transform live-action footage into hand-drawn animation. Since then, a similar technique has been used in TV commercials and feature films such as Philip K. Dick’s A Scanner Darkly.
To make our portrayal of the 1914 Orient Express as historically accurate as possible, the Smoking Car team tracked down the original pre-war blueprints, train timetables, and even the last remaining sleeping car, derelict and abandoned in an Athens trainyard. 3D modeler-artist Donald Grahame took hundreds of measurements and photographs to ”restore” the virtual train to its original luxurious state, down to the hand-turned screws and embossed leather panels on the compartment doors.
Artistically and technically, it was an immensely ambitious undertaking, perhaps bordering on lunacy. It may be “the greatest game never played” — but I think we pulled it off.
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Heard of it, never played it yet. Soon…
I’m one of the few who played it, great game. Definitely a classic, I think I still have a copy somewhere. It had great atmosphere and graphics, and good acting. I also liked the way that events would occur simultaneously and you could miss something if you weren’t in the right place at the right time. Well done!
I accidentally stumbled upon a copy at Target sometime in mid to late 1998. I still have the disks somewhere. Funny how much the rewinding play mechanic carried over into the newer Prince of Persia games…
I make everyone I can play the game with me. I’ve not encountered a single person – even people who profess ‘not to play video games’ – who doesn’t enjoy this.
It has some unanswered questions though – Like the ring, the castle, etc.
So Jordan Mechner really should make a sequel…
(I’m french, so please forgive the faults in the following…)
You couldn’t imagine how pleased I am with the launch of Jordan’s blog. The Last Express stands amongst my very all-time favorites, and since the day I bought it, it took a really unique place in my heart.
Before and after, I was delighted too with other Jordan’s works : the incredible maze in the first Prince of Persia, or the very last minutes of Sands of Time striked me in a thrilled enjoyable way…
In this blog, Jordan talks about reviews spreading the web about The Last Express. I must admit I wrote one six years ago, where I could share the warm felling I felt about this unique game. Here’s the link of this review, if anyone wants to read it (all in French) : http://www.grospixels.com/site/lastxpres.php
Thanks Jordan for all the pleasure you give us through your works… and I’m really aware to discover the very first pictures of the upcoming movie !
Merci, HappyGrumble, c’est tres gentil!
Absolutely the most intriguing game I’ve ever played! I remember being floored when I first realized that conversations and character interactions were taking place in the various train cars whether I was present for them or not! Totally immersive gaming experience, and I loved the strange mix of static and rotoscoped animation. Thank you for this, Jordan Mechner!
The Last Express is the BEST game I have ever played. Mr. Mechner, thank you for this truly intelligent masterpiece. I’ve never been a gamer, but The Last Express still has me hooked. It is the one game I go back to time and time again and I still find joy playing it. I am yet to find a more beautifully made game or comparable storyline with beautifully crafted characters. I continually search the web for mentions of a sequel… over a decade later there is still nothing that compares. I would take the sequel in any form (novel, movie, game, comic strip). I just can’t get these characters out of my mind and I’m dying to know what happened to them. There are so many unanswered questions in this game that any sort of sequel is just begging to be made. Thank you again for your sacrifices making this game. I am truly amazed that it was never fully appreciated as the epic it was.
If you are interested in some games that are closer that good to the Last Express, I would recomend you Gabriel Knight series and the first Broken Sword. And The Longest Journey is also one of the best. These are also very very good games… those that I like the most together with The Last Express
And naturally, “Fahrenheit” (aka Indigo Prophecy) and the brand-new “Heavy Rain” should also go to that list.
Also consider “Black Dahlia”, an 8CD extravaganza with disappointing puzzles but a great storyline and quality acting (for the most part).
played the game the year it was released and loved it!
hello.
my name is bahram 26 years old. civil eng from iran. i realy love your games. i have complete last express in 98 it was exelent. one of best games in the world. i love u. all iranian gamers love u for your prince of persia series.. thank u. have a good life. your persian fan bahram.
I just found out you blog. Now I have the chance to say a big THANK YOU for The Last Express. I’m one of the few lucky ones that could purchase the game 11 years ago, and it’s been since then always in my top 3 favorite games of all time. It’s the game I replayed most and each time I find things I didn’t hear or see before
Cheers, and keep the good work!
The Last Express changed the way I looked at computer games when I first played it back in 2001- well past the game’s release, but nevertheless astounding.
What always fascinates me about the game is the script. Jordan Mechner and Tomi Pierce’s knowledge of the pre-war period, and the dialogue in the game, are both remarkable. Will there be plans for a film adaptation?
I have played/finished The Last Express more than 40 times in those 11 years (got the original game on Christmas 1997, if I remember correctly, hopefully it was available here in the Czech Republic, I played demo before, which was great – I love the slideshow at the end, its use with the music is beautifully touching) and the game deeply influenced me in many ways (history, languages, inspiration…). I still play TLE time from time and enjoy it.
I go on telling people about this gem and give copy to those who play comp game and they like it. Recently a friend of mine bought me The Last Express: The Official Strategy Guide, which is very enjoyable even for big fans who know the game very well. The info on every character and the interview with you and Toni Pierce are very interesting. I also love the soundtrack by Elia Cmiral and Sonata in A Major by César Franck (not to mention how great it is, that you used the great recording of Josef Suk on violin…).
So many words, and I could go on and on, but it still cannot express how much the game means for me (and it is great to hear that I am not alone). Although I enjoyed lots of great adventure games (Atlantis, Broken Sword, Dust, Spycraft, Gabriel Knight), for me The Last Express is still above them and unique in its atmosphere, great story and characters, music and… everything.
And it is also great to see on this website sketch and rotoscope photos of the game. If you could put here some more material in the future, it will be appreciated.
THANK YOU and be well.
Happy Christmas!
Veronika
P.S. The only thing I could not manage is getting to Mahmud Makhta´s compartment, though I read it is possible. But anyway I found the Easter Eggs very cute (I posted them on IMDB forum).
This is a brilliant game.
I recently found an old copy of this and was able to play through half of it until a CD Cache error (on Mac OS 9) rendered game play impossible. I can not tell you how frustrating it is to not be able to play this game through to the end. Nevertheless, I am glad that I was able to catch a glimpse of your work.
The Art Nouveau style is well done. Even without shadows under the animated characters, it is amazing how good this production looks.
Thank you for your work. I hope to see something else like this in the future from you with regards to the depth of story telling, and art direction.
I first got a glimpse of Last Express back in ’97, played the demo and planned on buying the game next time I saw it. After awhile, the game started vanishing off of store shelves, and I never got a chance to play it till 2007 (when I bought it off ebay). I have finished “the Last Express” many times since then. It’s not perfect, nothing is, but it is the most magical, immersive game I have ever played. The characters were developed in such a way that I really cared about what happened to them, or what was going to happen to them.
Percy has it right about a sequel. The first game begged for more, and watching the end left so many unanswered questions- but it wasn’t forced, it flowed naturaly… and thats where I believe there is amazing potential for a continuation of the storyline.
But above all, I thank you Jordan for designing a truly amazing experience. It is unfortunate that “the last express” was not properly appreciated at it’s time.
To quote my review on Facebook’s ‘LivingSocial: Video Games’:
“The best adventure game I’ve ever played! Perfect balance between mystery, practical puzzles, action, and story sequences. Additionally this game puts you in the “virtual world” of the last Orient Express by allowing you to move around freely, and independently of the time and the events taking place on the train. The acting is great, and all characters speak authentic native languages, with a total of more than a dozen languages spoken in the game. You can get so immersed in the adventure, that you totally forget it’s just a game. Only the ending will remind you that all of this is not real, with the help of a little overblown finale.”
Loved it when I played it years ago, and love it still, with all my heart! This is what a real adventure game looks and feels like! Thank you, Jordan.
Dear Jordan! It’s so nice to find your website! I think that your Karateka was actually the first PC (well, it actually was Apple-II – one of the very few available in the then still Soviet Moscow in late 80ies) game I ever played, and I played all Princes of Persia ever since. They are the ones I have the fondest memories of. It was, however, only last year that I discovered GameTap with The Last Express on it. I was literally shaking after completing the game. It’s so poignant, no words can describe it. It is really the best game ever made – as it surpasses anything else not only in the original real-time gameplay, but also in emotional depth. The level of detail and style are unbelievable, and more – they capture the very Zeitgeist of the epoch, the grandeur before the gory fall. Franck’s Sonata is now my favorite piece of music – it is SO appropriate here! The changing map at the end of the game – what an image! The border lines ripping across the living body of Europe and across the living bodies of millions of people, all beginning with the flight of that out-of-a-Russian-legend Fire-bird! No other game could have reached so deeply, as no other game developer dared to touch matters so painful and so real, affecting you not only because you identify with the main hero, but because of something much larger. It is, I think, the only game that shocks you so much because you know how much pain and bloodshed and loss was to follow – in a way, it makes history real for you. No other game has ever even tried to try that. And it rang a very special bell for me, as I, being a Russian native speaker and a linguist, was able to understand every word they all say (except for Serbian, and then still I was able to get some bits, like “Tailerov priyatel”!) – and so admired the beautiful supply of accents (British detective vs. American Cath (he’s now my LiveJournal avatar), perfect “German-English” of Herr Schmidt and Fraulein Wolf, excellent “Russian-English” of Dolnikov – I used to speak that way myself once! – etc. etc. etc.). I am sure that nothing, not even the visual beauty of the modern games, can ever hope to surpass or even equal the level of artistry achieved in The Last Express – as you made sure everything fits together, the visual style, the language, the story, the feelings, the ending (no happy ends there, of course), the gameplay (you always have the feeling you’re going to lose something important – and ultimately you do lose everything, even after you’ve done everything you could, that’s fitting the story – and history – so well), and the emotional reach (for those, of course, who know history
). The Last Express will forever remain the best game I ever played – it’s head and shoulders above everything else, and reaches way deeper. For it is the only game that is more than just a game. Thank you so much for it!
Thank you very much for all you did for us the fans, for all the happy hours you so generously given us.
All the best in all your endeavours, and looking forward to watching the movie,
Ilya (originally from Moscow, Russia, now in Toronto)
Our friend Ilya Sverdlov and others on this page have already talked about everything why this game is what it is. Now I don’t know what to add… because it’s all so true. Moreover of all these things, there is also the best kiss in a computer game ever. So sad, so lovely, so true.
Ahh! If only any other game was done as brilliantly as this one. What I love about this game is that it’s a proper mix of open-endedness and adventure…
I write in German, because my english is bad. I hope you understand it ^^.
Ich habe “The Last Express” 1997 gekauft und spiele es heute noch. Ich hab es bestimmt schon 50 mal durchgespielt. Die brilliante Grafik ist einfach ein Hochegnuss. Man fühlt sich als wenn man wirklich dabei wäre. Wenn man weiss wann man was zu tun hat, dann kann man auch mal “5 Minuten die Beine hochlegen” und die tolle atmospähre genießen. Vor allem bei dem Konzert (das im Spiel um 15:00 begonnen hat ^^ [Cesar Franck's Violin? Sonata]).
Schade das das Spiel ein offenes Ende hat, und keine Fortsetzung kommt.
Ein großes Lob an die Music producer im Spiel.
Ich habe selten so eine feselnde Story in einem Spiel gesehn (gespielt).
Ach mir fällt noch was ein. Auch die Sprecher für die deutschsprachige Version sind wirklich gut ausgewählt. Bei manchen Szenen sogar besser (ausdrucksvoller)als in der englischen Version.
A huge thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to post here, for your wonderful and moving comments. I’ve passed them on to members of the Smoking Car team who also have really appreciated them. It means a lot to us. Und Sebastian: ja, ich verstehe!
I stumbled on this site by chance and I read with much involvement all the comments about one of the best games ever released, comments which I totally share. My heart-felt congratulations, Mr. Mechner.
When they say that videogames are useless and do not teach anything, well, they didn’t play The Last Express for sure!
I hope that someday there will be a sequel, I am too much curious to know, what Mr. Cath has done since then
Thank you for everything!
Hello Jordan!
I played a pirated version (sorry, I could not find a single copy… noone on Brazil ever heard about that game…), and I deleted it later, now I regret it (even finding the pirated version was hell hard :/)
I would be thankfull if you managed to release it to either GOG.com or Steam… Adventure game lovers would love it, specially with both places releasing adventure games from Lucas Arts (I bought The Dig on Steam and I don’t regret it).
Please, please, please, bother the Interplay guys to re-release it! Better yet if this time finally someone make marketing for it, or release on gog and steam that do the marketing for you (ie: place your game in front page).
I too think the time is right for a rerelease, with nostalgia-driven markets like WiiWare in the spotlight. Hunting down underappreciated games is actually a gamer niche of sorts. Also, I just want to play it again. A few years ago I lent it to my Spanish teacher and never saw the discs again.
Hi Jordan!
I just wanted to say that i played (and finished) The Last Express for the first time today and adored it. Its just a shame that almost no one knows this piece of art, its now easily one of my all time favourite games. I just hope The Last Express rereleases in places like Steam and GOG, because i really want to buy it (sorry i played a copy, cant find the game anywhere).
Thanks for making this fantastic game.
I only managed to play this game last year while working on a documentary about the evolution of the adventure genre. I didn’t get to finish it then, and wasn’t able to give it a bigger slot in the final draft of the piece because I didn’t have the technical means at that time for capturing a gameplay video from it(seeing as how it was mostly made up of videos itself causing color corruption on the recording every time something moved).
It did get a brief mention as being a unique and presently overlooked game. I especially liked the attention to detail in recreating the train cars, I remember seeing a Making Of video about it on youtube.
It was a nice game, and it will be featured on another show next week. The funny part is, I got the idea for the show when I started writing the second paragraph of this post.
hello ,
Jordan Mechner ,
your creat all game , i liked it !
* POP 1 (1989)
* POP 2
* POP 3D
* The Last Express
* POP The Sands Of Time
* POP WARRIOR WITHIN
* POP The Two THRONES
Also 10.0 / 10.0
I just finished this for the first time and — my God. I haven’t seen interactive storytelling this compelling and involving and just plain excellent ever before. It’s better than most historical fiction I’ve read. It’d make a fantastic movie, if the general American public weren’t so woefully historically uneducated.
Last Express really, really needs to be rereleased, perhaps on the Wii platform as someone’s mentioned. Who holds the rights? Do you still have the original models and rotoscoping (so as to bump up the frame count, my only, tiny, complaint)
Bravo to the Smoking Car team. This is a masterpiece and deserves much wider play than it got. I’m going to go buy a hat so I can take it off to you.
I assume the mystery of the ring was meant to be explained in sequels, but, Mr. Mechner, perhaps you could fill us in?
The Last Express is such a great game, I have nothing but praise for it. I installed it on my Vista x64 machine this past Thanksgiving weekend and played through the game over the course of a few days with my girlfriend. She loved it too, and now we’re desperately trying to find adventure games we can play together because we had so much fun! Thanks for creating such an epic experience! The Last Express still holds up in 2009!
Hello Michael Shumake, I bought this game a few years ago and played it on my Windows XP Toshiba laptop. I now have Vista HP and want to load it to play (hopefully without all the stops I had on my low RAM Toshiba) but I CAN’T.
How did you load onto your Vista? Is there a downloadable fix?
Thanks for any help!
OOPS meant Windows 7 – and I see now that I could have scrolled down a bit more for the answer.
This is by far the best video game I’ve ever played and most likely will EVER play (and I’m quite a gamer). It was also my first video game, so I’m really proud of that too (I remember my dad picking it up at Target or something for a really cheap price).
I’ve always wanted to see a remake of the game but I can’t possibly imagine an improvement over this one since it is already perfect.
And I would kill for a movie, can you imagine Leo DiCaprio as Robert Cath? Maybe even Kate Winslet as Anna Wolff? Or heck, just shoot it with the original cast!
Thanks you Jordan and the whole team for creating this EPIC game!
PS: I play it every 1 or 2 years but now I can’y get the instalation to run on Windows 7 (64bit), any suggestions?)
I was also unable to get it to install on Windows 7 x64, but I found that I was able just to copy the installed game folder from an older machine over to my new computer and it worked perfectly.
Thanks, I’ll try that
Worked like a charm, thanks agains
and in the case that no older machine is at hand:
1. create a new folder
2. insert CD 1
3. copy all files in DATA to the new folder
4. copy expressw.exe, MFC42.DLL, MSVCRT.DLL from the WINDOWS folder to the new folder
(“flat” copy, all files must be in the same directory)
5. run expressw.exe
Thank you so much, Necroyeti, that got the game running on Win 7 x64, I was despondent at not being able to play my favorite game.
My copy of this game goes to the grave with me. Won’t sell for love or money.
I also have the Prima guide, that’s pretty neat to read through. Played the game many times and still missed things the guide pointed out.
Thank you, Jordan Mechner and crew!
Thanks, this worked… but can one save the game this way?
How about open sourcing the whole project?
I’m completely serious. I don’t know how much money it currently generates, although I’m pretty sure it’s not much. There may also be some licensed technologies in use, which would have to be replaced to bring it “up to date”, but that’s completely normal.
Open sourcing would let much wider audience experience the game, and would also make it possible to do slightly better blending etc which would not change the game as such, but would bring it a bit more up to date.
Dear Jordan Mechner, I just found this website searching how to contact you about The Last Express.
As a long time gamer, I think that The Last Express is the greatest adventure ever made and one of the best game out there…too bad almost nobody played it (I live in Italy…I had to order the game in Canada years ago).
I searched for The Last Express web site after all these years (I play the game one time every year) after seeing the ‘old’ adventure genre rebirth on other platform, like the iPhone.
Have you ever thought of porting The Last Express on the iPhone?
I think it could do very well…similar adventures ‘remake’ project had been very succeful on the iPhone AppStore (Myst, Monkey Island…)….personally I would LOVE TLE on the iPhone.
Did you ever consider it?
Some adjustment obviously has to be made, but imho nothing really major…art and music could be untouched, the tap screen could be very well adapted to the game.
In any case I would like to thank you for what I consider the best experience I ever had on videogaming.
I would seriously buy an iPhone just to play The Last Express on it, I think its a REALLY good idea
I think it’s a great idea too! We can see many old games now on the iPhone or the iPod, for example Revolution Software is porting Broken Sowrd – Shadow of the Templars on iPhone and iPod. It’s a good way to relaunch the game and to allow young generations to know it. It’s a great game and I’m sure a lot of people would still like it.
Like many of the others here, I would like to offer my thanks for what was without a doubt the most enjoyable and most profound gaming experience I’ve ever had. Not only have I played through the game at least twice a year since it came out, I’ve even bought copies to give away to my friends on a number of occasions to help expose others to such an experience.
One thing I’ve never figured out though… when you first have a conversation with August Schmidt in the dining car, Robert knows his name even though Schmidt doesn’t introduce himself. Did I miss something? =) Of course, that’s entirely possible… even now after over a decade of playing the game, I’m still finding little bits of dialog that I’ve never encountered before.
You are right, you can go there without knowing his name or you can go there after conducter tells you “Herr Schmidt is waiting for you in restaurant car…” Each possibility has the same conversation with you ending it with saying Schmidt’s name.
)
Never thought about that
How do I fight the guy with the knife when I go back to compartment #1 and he is in the room? Do I just out duck him? Nothing work, except dodging, then dying… Anyone? Thanks
You dodge three times, and then you’ll see the icon change to a hand and you can grab the knife from him.
Love the game, broke one disk, fortunately the last one so I can still play most of it. I think I need to buy a new copy. It’s definitly your “Titanic” since, like James Cameron, you mostly make action and you branched out into dramatic – it even came out in 1997 too – what an interesting year for historical fiction entertainment from the immediately Pre-WWI era.
Interplay was one of the publishers of the game, and Interplay is one of the publishers most active on GOG.com. I think chances of the title appearing there are good! And when it does, it’s an instant buy for me.
This was truly a great game, I’ve been a fan of most games by the companies for a good number of years. I was one of the twenty or so people who actually went out to the store excitedly and bought it as soon as it came out, and not once it started dissapearing…
I’ve been working on building a horror game similar to this style.
It is titled “Taut” Although it will feature full freehanded artwork,
and a storyboard system similar to “Clocktower” by Human Entertainment
OMG! A Last Express movie might finally be coming out! http://www.movieweb.com/news/NEc87jcjx91Vei
I, for one, am not excited about the movie; because it will give away the game for EVERYONE.
Hi, Jordan!
I’m 27 now and it’s the most impressive game I’ve played in my entire life! It is a part of me, a part of my soul. Firstly the whole thing is perfect. The music, the graphics, the story – all details in ideal harmony. I’m Russian, so I can say that the Russian characters at least are completely credible (in other games they always speak with an accent and are nothing but stereotypes). Secondly the intense drama and the absense of happy ending (war separating Cath and Anna) – something that you don’t usually see in games. The ending makes a bridge to real life, kind of saying: the events that followed are not entertaining, they are damn serious. So the game suddenly gets extra depth in the very end (although it is also deep enough throughout).
Last weekend I played the game with my brother, who is 2 years younger than the game.
And it worked exactly the same way! It provoked a (positive) shock, then a lot of thinking, “what if” questions and sighs of admiration for all the details and all the work invested into it’s creation. So now there is one more guy getting goosebumps from the magnificent violin solo and having an emotional cocktail when he goes on his next train journey 
He is one of us! So the very best wishes from him!
You and your team created a masterpiece of a global scale, not just an unusual game. Thank you so much!
The TLE is my favourite game. I hope with a movie in pre-production, that it gets remade and enlarged, hopefully by a decent studio, for the PS3 and other next gen consuls.
The Last Express is still my all time favourite game. It has a magic that no other game has. And that wonderful music!
I would love to see a similar game made, set during WWll and again almost entirely on a train. Maybe with someone just like Robert Cath having to hide from the Gestapo.
A good storyline and lots of interesting characters are essential to any adventure game, and TLE more than meets those requirements.
The best game i’ve ever played. The grafik is not good but the storry is extremely good that nothing other is important.
Buy it if you can get it from everywhere. If not – thats bad
————
Das beste spiel das ich jemals gespielt habe. Die grafik ist nicht die wucht aber die die Geschichte ist so extreme gut, das es das aufwiegt.
Kaufts euch wenn ihr es bekommen könnt. Wenn nicht – schlecht!
I got this game when it came out in ’97. I was seventeen, and it made a HUGE impression on me. I’ve been fascinated with that era ever since! It remains one of my all time favorite games. Brilliant atmosphere, beautiful animation style that, in my opinion, still looks lovely some thirteen years later, and a wonderful story. I would love to see a film of this, or a sequel, or even a new version of the original game! Thanks for creating a defining icon of my youth!
Same feeling
How many times did I play this game……..It’s for long time in the future too
Really wonderful game
from Japan
Jordan, this was probably the first game I played that really drew me in. I was a kid back then and no game has ever replicated the experience. I love adventures and played them all, and while many others have a special nostalgic place in my heart, none was as good and deep as this game.
I know great things are usually unique, and that it is unpolite to ask for two gifts, but I really wish that someday you would take this game back and do something with it. I know the game never got the recognition it deserved, but I also know that there are thousands of other fans of the game out there hoping for the same. Not only people who played it back then, but also a new generation of fans who keep discovering this gem many years after its release.
The game itself left the player wondering about a sequel(it was clearly set out to be a franchise), and your release of the red serpent script only worsened the situation.
There are way too many good franchises abandoned to die by its creators. Hope you are not as mean as people like Jane Jensen!
Cheers from Brazil, and thanks a lot for the entertainment brought by your games, most specially this one. Even if you never do anything about it!
Sergio
Well said!
I join the voices of those asking for another (similar game). Maybe have the next one in the Titanic?
I first played in 1998 and it was and still is my favorite game of all time.
I loved this game so much.
I still got my copy in my basement: box and Prima hint book in perfect condition. I’ll have to bring it out and play this again – I hope it runs on Windows 7 64-bit!
This is up there, along with Riven and Mother 3, on my list of best video games ever made. Got a “Good as New” copy over Amazon last year, been in love with it ever since.
Last Express should be re-released on the DS (and not a broken one like they did with myst) the stylus with fit the point-and-click game mechanic perfectly, plus it would introduce the game to a huge demographic.
I still have my boxed copy with the original CDs and the official Prima strategy guide. I finished the game years ago but still go back to it now and then.
I’m running Windows 7 64-bit, but I just got TLE working on Dosbox so I’m very happy!
Please push for a rerelease of this game! It is one of my favorites of all time… I was 13 years old when I played it – a copy we borrowed from our public library. I was never able to find it to purchase and so would borrow it from the library over and over again – hoping to get one from eBay now but I’d love to run it natively on Snow Leopard!
If you want to run in dosbox, you will currently need the CD version, as the dotemu.com release is missing EXPRESS.EXE (the dos executable).
I managed to get the game running in dosbox on my Archos 7.0 tablet but the speed was too slow. We will have to wait for a genius whom I will not name here to finish reverse-engineering the game engine.
Meanwhile, buy the game from dotemu.com or ebay, and soon enough you will be able to play on your android/iphone/linux machine..
cheers
On the other hand, why not work with these guys and make an official release for iphone/android? The games pretty much stink right now (excepting Angry Birds) and there isn’t much standing in the way of a crossplatform engine.
It deserves to be sold and not pirated, and all that stands in the way is some AI, a bunch of testing, and an official appstore entry.
Thinking to the future: how can such ‘interactive novels’ be realized at 1/10th the cost of TLE? To my mind, there seems to be ‘unexplored space’ to be settled by streamlining the graphics creation and focusing on the best screenplay / plots – possibly using established themes, authors and franchises as a base.
I’m writing this because TLE gave something I find lacking in all other adventures – namely the sense of a dynamic world (albeit a limited one) where things happen with or without the player needing to trigger them. The only other game i’ve played that pulled this off was Star Control 2 by Toys For Bob – now playable as the open-source Ur Quan Masters. http://sc2.sourceforge.net/
TLE appears to be unique achievement and I’d like to see that uniqueness end. Now that the technology is cheaper, this type of game can become a genre, not just an exceptional piece of gaming history. The real bottleneck seems to be people who can produce a plot that supports some degree of independent timelines and events. The marketing side can be almost-free, if the product isn’t another fart-app…
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I’m glad I found this site!! I just pulled out my copy of “The Last Express,” after not having played it for quite a while, and couldn’t get it to work on win7. Now it does!
I’ve owned it since the ’90s and have always loved it. The game is so well done! I’m sad that it wasn’t widely played — people really missed out!
My father got this game when it came out and I was a very young child. I still have great memories playing this game over the years, unfortunately my mac no longer runs classic and therefore this game. However I would still rate it to be one of the best games to ever be made and anyone who hasn’t tried it has missed something fantastic.
This game was a huge influence on me as a kid and is still one of my very favorite games — I played it fairly often on my old Dell until that gave up the ghost and I went Mac only a few years ago. Everything about it still delights me. I miss it very much! Any chance that Mac users will be able to download it? Also, since Myst has been translated to iPhone/iPad, is there a chance The Last Express could get the same treatment?
I stumbled across this page while googling and reading up on PoP…
Perhaps I knew years ago that Jordan had done both, but that thought was lost to the sands of time. (bad pun intended, sorry.
)
Anyways, seeing this page prompted me to pull down my copy of Last Express (still in its original 3 disc case, although missing the cover manual) from the shelf of favorite games over the years. I think its time to play this for the umpteenth time.
These games I love, like Colonel’s Bequest before it. It immerses you like a movie….
When I was seven years old and my parents bought their first PC. It was the time when summer holidays started and my uncle gave me some pc games, including Thief and The Last Express.
Well, I was pretty impressed by this 3CD-game, so I just tried it out and I loved it from the first minute. I don’t know how many times I played this game in these summer holidays, I stopped counting^^ First times, I always knocked on everyone’s doors just for fun and then every time got stabbed in Vienna, it took me a lot of time playing to realize that maybe it isn’t the best thing to knock on every door
By the way, I hated history lessons in school at this age, I never knew when what where happened. Thanks to this game, I knew at least all the tme when World War One started^^
I’m 18 now and still, I love to play this game and every time I play it, I discover something new
No doubt, The Last Express is the best game I’ve ever played.
Lisa (Sorry for my bad English)
I got the game from GoG and am quite impressed so far. I encountered a nasty bug though. At 3pm the second day, sometimes the concert does not start and the game gets stuck – you can go into the private car then and see Kahina floating in the air. I talked with Kronos about the Firebird before but missed his conversation with Anna at lunch (1pm) which might be related.
Oops! That shouldn’t happen. I thought we fixed all those kind of bugs back in 1997.
Just for the record, the bug seemed to center on something off track with Anna – she didn’t even show up at lunch (giving the “Have a nice wait” to August an interesting new meaning
. Rewinding to the morning of the second day, then not disturbing her seemed to fix the problem.
Concerning running the game on Linux or Mac: The version sold by GoG is the DOS version running in DOSBox. It is packaged using a Windows-based installer. You can install it on some Windows machine (or using Wine, on Linux at least), then transfer the unpacked files to whatever machine you want to play the game on, install DOSBox there, fix the dosboxTLE.conf file (remove the “.\” before “data” in the “MOUNT” line at the bottom of the file), then start the game via “dosbox -conf dosboxTLE.conf”.
dotEmu seems to ship the Windows version of the game (only). I don’t know if that works on Linux or the Mac.
Thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to post on this page. Your kind words about The Last Express mean a lot to me and the Smoking Car team who made the game.
Thanks, too, for your encouragement to rerelease TLE on modern platforms. As you can see from the recent releases on GOG and DotEmu, we’re working on it!
I just bought it on GOG even though I already have my original copy back from 1997.
I remember finding a copy of the Last Express at my local library as a child. I think I fell in love with Art Nouveau as a style playing the game. I love the mystery and the graphics and the fire bird story, just everything about this game. I never got to complete the story but I loved trying. For years, I was unable to locate a copy and now, you have a website!! I’d love to see this game re-released for a Mac platform — please let us know if so. It’d be great to see more Adventure/RPG games like this set in a historical period come out in the future.
Jordan, is that a picture of you in with the trainmaster’s papers?
Anyway, congratulations to you and your team on this amazing artistic achievement. And thanks for continuing to make it available for more and more people to experience. I for one only first found it on Gametap and then bought it on gog.com. And now I’m exposing it to friends of mine.
For me, I think what’s really impressive is that you have this overtly unreal art style, but yet it’s probably the most immersive experience I’ve ever had in a game.
As an aspiring game developer myself, this game makes me want to craft unique experiences for others.
Also, the dancing scene with August Schmidt is terrific!
Absolutely my favourite game of all time. Clearly a work of love. There are few games a person can actually learn history from, and that are engaging, but this was one of the first to really succeed at being fun and educational. Many of today’s history-based games strive to find a balance between historical accuracy and gameplay, but few find it as well as Last Express did.
Today I can walk around in Assassin’s Creed’s Crusade era Holy Land, or Renaissance Italy, or Grand Theft Auto’s version of the late 20th Century, or Mafia II’s 1940s New York, and these games do what they do very well, but the one game I always felt got the atmosphere right was Last Express, with its bittersweet retelling of the tale of the Firebird in the last days before the Great War. No game has ever come close to the emotions I felt while playing Jordan Mechner’s little-appreciated masterpiece of atmosphere, and of homage to the lost world of Edwardian Europe as it’s on the knife-edge of ruin.
So here’s a big ‘Thank you’ from me for keeping me entertained and enlightened for… well, decades now. For ten years Last Express stayed on my various hard drives as I went from computer to computer. Maybe Jordan’s company did not succeed financially, but in failing, it created a tour de force that many of us revere with a loyalty that we hold for no other game.
Right now I hear the faint ghost of a sound in my mind – is it the wheels of the Orient Express as it heads east towards the Balkans? Do I hear a whistle? The conductor’s voice – “Amstetten!” And that divine music! It was so good I bought the CD. I had to search eBay to find a copy, but I have it.
I wish Last Express would have found its audience. I wish it would have spawned sequels galore. But it was not to be. Sometimes things just don’t work out as they should. C’est la vie, I suppose. Still, it seems a shame. Ah well, we who love the game and keep a copy for those days when we feel like getting back on the Orient Express – we’ll always have Paris (well, as long as I can get the game to work in my new computer, that is).
Does anyone have the article on Edge magazine (#224, feb. 2011) about The Last Express? I’d love to read it!
Best game I ever played bar non. But I have always been a mac user. I had even contemplated getting a PC just so I can play this game again. Please release an iphone or mac version of this game.
The app store needs a game like this.
This game is just awesome. I remember playing it in 1999 or something when i was just 9 years old. I don’t know where I got this game from. I think my dad bought it. Problem was that I never finished this game because i always failed at the end of CD 2, I think (What a shame). That’s why I was searching the 3 CDs today and I gladly found it.
I found this website because I also had the installation problem. It works perfectly now!
I would appreciate it if there would be a OpenSource Project or a iPhone and/or Android version of this game.
The game needs more appreciation because its atmosphere a story is unique.
Greetings from a german TLE-Fan.
I played this when I was 17, I think I’ve played it once a year since then. I wish there were more games like this, so much better than mmorpgs or modern console games!
Hi Jordan!
I have just written to GOG about a spanish version of TLE, and this got me thinking that maybe you could help them to make this happen
It would make me and a lot of people very very happy 
Besides that, thank you for all the happiness you delivered to me in my youth!
(Just to keep you in context, the message to GOG):
Hi, I was wondering If you could distribute the Spanish versión of this beautiful game as well.
I signed up for this site with the sole intention of buying TLE Spanish version, just to find that you don’t have it
I wish to buy the spanish version because I want to share this beautiful game with my family, and they don’t speak english.
I know there is other site that does carry the Spanish version (among others), but I’m only interested in the GOG version because it uses dosbox and I plan running it on Linux (which I’ve read is possible).
I’m very happy with your noble cause, reviving precious old games for new generations. Just please don’t forget about the rest of the world and their other languages
Thanks!
-Gabriel
Hi Jordan!
This sounds like a gimmick, but how about porting the Last Express to the iPad or any of the Android Tablets? It would be the perfect point and click adventure on that platform! I and anyone who has missed this gem of a game from so long ago can enjoy it again. Heck it could turn out into a best seller too,which it missed becoming the last time it went on sale in 1997( a serious crime in gaming history!). How about it?
Ive loved this game since I was introduced to it way back in like ’98. ive been a huge fan ever since. it would be really cool to see this game brought back to life as an app for Droid or ipod. a game that takes place in the past never gets old and what an epic way to bring it back.
I can’t count the hours upon hours I spent with this fantastic game. As a matter of fact, it was this game that made me in history – I can’t forget my fascination looking at the evolving European map from 1914 to the 1990s. How all the borders changed and how obscure territories popped up here and there..
And to this day I’m still interested in knowing what some of the characters said, you know, the one that Cath didn’t understand and thus didn’t have subtitles (serbian, turkish..) And what’s the business in Jerusalem, what was Cath’s plans after arriving in Constantinople..
Some 14 years later and this game is still tickling my curiosity, amazing..
It has been out of print for years and not available through iTunes, so this is the only way fans can enjoy this wonderful soundtrack:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5SDMKON4
I just got this game on GoG. AGAIN! (I’d get it even sooner, had I known they released it there) I already had the original 3CD version ever since it came out, but I believe one can never get enough of The Last Express!
I agree with all the wonderful comments on this page, and can’t stress enough just how great this game is. Whenever I was tasked of recommending a great adventure to somebody, The Last Express was always among the very first ones on my mind! Of course, it’s not for everybody, some people just can’t get into its graphic style, or its serious tone, or the ‘weird’ (yet quite fantastic) real-time system and non-linearity (I’ve played the game several times, and each time I’d find out something new that I’ve missed previously!), but honestly – it’s their loss! And WHAT a loss it is!
As Ilya pointed out in his comment, it’s really amazing that the game is so culturally diverse! (and wonderfully acted) It really deepens the whole experience, hearing all these different accents and also completely different (native) languages at every step of the game. Though I actually COULD actually understand the Serbian passengers, cause, hey – I’m from Serbia!
And I must say it’s always so weird hearing your own language in a foreign production! 
Anyway, as far the story goes, all I can say is… I cried. There, I admit it. I cried when I finished the game. The story moved me to such an extent that I just couldn’t help it, it was so emotional! And I was bummed out for the next several days. THAT’s how good the story is! (at least in my opinion) And any piece of art that manages to bring me to tears and makes me feel this way is a true MASTERPIECE in my book!
So I would like to personally thank mr. Mechner and the whole Smoking Car team for creating this amazing gem of a game
). And I seriously hope that those greedy corporate managers never stumble upon it and decide to do a remake, cause the game is perfect just the way it is (I think I’d just tweak the interface a bit, but apart from that…), and they would probably only completely mess it up and turn it into a full-3D first person shooter or something. And that would just be pure sacrilege!
Anyway, once again – THANK YOU Jordan, and THANK YOU Smoking Car for this wonderful game!
I loved this game and I wish more games like it were available. I’m downloading it now – can’t wait to play it again!
Dear Mr. Mechner,
I was one of the lucky few who bought this game when it came out. Few other works of art have moved me as deeply as the Last Express, and as I read the comments, my eyes began to tear up. I immediately felt the same upwelling of emotion as when I completed the game for the first time.
I loved this game when I first got it in 1997. I recently downloaded it again via GOG and my god, it’s wonderful (except for the killer bird-robot made of gold, which didn’t fit and actually kind of sucked…sorry.)
The Last Express is very dated on PC/Console platform, but with a few control tweaks this game could be played on Android & iPhone phones and would immediately be one of the best games available. Have you seen the crap games for those platforms? This would be ideal.
Please give The Last Express the second chance to shine that it so richly deserves!
Played thins years ago in Russia. Simply the best game I ever saw. A masterpiece. Thank you
Hey Jordan,
thank you for this great game, already loved it back in ’97, when I was 13 and it’s still my favourite adventure among Broken Sword. Two things that are bothering me, though:
1) Do you know who currently owns the rights for Elia’s Last Express music? I have the Intrada release, but the tracks fade into each other, stuff is missing and some tracks are incomplete. I would really like to see an expanded/complete release for this wonderful score and wondered, if that’s possible.
2) I’d also like to know what survived from this production, couldn’t find a statement about this. Or in other words: is a remastered re-release possible with higher resolution, better sound quality etc.? In theory, I mean.
Best regards from Germany,
Marcus
Thanks, Fredrik. Just updated the page with this good news.
Jennifer: I’m with you on the wish for a Mac version. Watch this space for updates.
Hello Jordan,
you didn’t reply to the People asking about an iPad version. It would fit very well to that Kind of device. Do you have plans in doing such a version?
Tanks in advance,
Jan