Sales rapidly took off and several well-known magazines talked about it being the “best adventure game of the year”. When players booted up the first Syberia in 2002, with their CRT monitors and brand-new GeForce 3 graphics cards, they were totally amazed and wholeheartedly joined Kate on her adventure. Kate Walker, a city lawyer, also discovers herself, as she turns into an explorer and frees herself of a stifling job and family. What should have been nothing more than a formality for the protagonist turns into a long journey, which takes her through breathtaking scenery, as she meets eccentric characters and uncovers unimaginable secrets. So, she boards a clockwork train driven by a quirky automaton and sets off to solve this mysterious case. That is until it comes to light that an heir who was previously believed to be deceased, Hans Voralberg, is alive and living somewhere in Siberia! Keen to press ahead with the sale, Kate’s employer urges her to go in search of Hans. When she arrives, the last member of the family that owns the factory has just died, but, as she had already granted her approval, the acquisition can still go ahead. She is sent on an assignment to the village of Valadilène, in the French Alps, to oversee the sale of a failing automaton factory to an American multinational. He also created the character Kate Walker, a young corporate lawyer from New York. 2002: the odyssey of Kate Walkerīuilding on their first experience, Benoît Sokal and Microids continued their collaboration and, this time, the Belgian artist decided to take his audience on a journey into the East, an area that had long fascinated him, particularly after reading the graphic novel Corto Maltese in Siberia. The award-winning game Amerzone sold more than one million copies and its success encouraged the team to create a second video game. The audience was won over by the immersive visuals, the depth of the narrative and the accessibility of the mechanics, all early signatures of Benoît Sokal’s work. The contemplative and poetic atmosphere of the game stood out from the big games of the time: Metal Gear Solid, Banjo Kazooie, F-Zero X, and Half-Life. His publishing house agreed to help him transpose his graphical world onto an interactive CD-ROM.įollowing five years of development, Amerzone was finally published by Microids in March 1999, making a big impression on both players and critics. He wanted to explore these new possibilities and immerse his audience in stories like never before. The burgeoning use of 3D, in the movie Jurassic Park and the game Myst, for example, were further fuel for the pictorial storyteller’s imagination. This was also a time of major advances in computer technology, which fired the artist’s curiosity and led him to become a pioneer in digital comic coloring. ![]() Years later, in the mid-1990s, Benoît was an accomplished artist with a growing number of creations to his name, in the comedy genre with Canardo, as well as a more realistic style with Sanguine, for example. They were a hit in book stores and, at barely more than 20 years old, Benoît Sokal was catapulted to the forefront of the comic book scene. It was so popular that Casterman devoted entire comic book albums to his character. With his disillusioned manner, proclivity for liquor and unlikely encounters, Canardo stood out from the other strips in the magazine and caught the attention of readers. ![]() The author used this opportunity for creative expression to illustrate and tell the amusing story of Inspector Canardo, an anthropomorphic bird leading an investigation in a colorful world. Not long after, the publisher Casterman came to the school to scout promising artists for his new magazine À suivre, and decided to hire Benoît Sokal to produce several strips. There, he honed his innate talent, which was soon noticed by his peers. He enrolled at Brussels’ renowned art school Institut Saint-Luc, which was attended by comic book legends such as André Franquin ( Spirou & Fantasio, Gaston ) and Philippe Francq ( Largo Winch ). ![]() While the rest of his family was more interested in science, at a fairly young age, he became fascinated with sketching and storytelling. Benoît Sokal grew up near Brussels, one of the most creative centers of the Franco-Belgian comic book industry. Before he left us in May 2021 at the age of 66, Benoît was the conductor of each episode, and the many memorable characters and environments in Syberia were born from his fertile imagination.Īs you may already know, it all began in the comic book world. Before going any further, we must talk about Benoît Sokal, without whom the story would never have begun.
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