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 are now 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 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. 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.
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.
Last Express is out of print now. Both its publishers (Brøderbund and Interplay) have gone out of business, and PC/Mac copies are scarce even on Amazon and eBay; but you can play it on GameTap.
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, most recently 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.
Links:
Last Express reviews and awards (PDF)
The Escapist 2009 article about The Last Express
The Escapist 2006 article about Last Express
Tomi Pierce’s Newsweek article about the making of The Last Express
Lead programmer Mark Moran’s elegy for Smoking Car Productions
Mirror of original Last Express official game website
Behind the Scenes – The Making of The Last Express (video on YouTube)
Watch the Last Express linear remix on Vimeo
Unofficial Last Express facebook group
Blog
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.
??????? ???????? ?? ???? ????????????? ???? The Last Express. ??? ????? ?????? ?????, ??????? ??? ??????????? ??????. ? ???? ??? ??? ???, ??? ??? ???? ??????? ? 1997 ????, ? ??? ??????. ????? ??? ???????? ????? ?????, ? ????? ???????, ????? ?? ????? ????????? ? ???? ??????!
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!
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
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