There are plenty of game collections that promise to bring together the very best of a developer’s work. The Immortal John Triptych takes a slightly different approach, throwing Renaissance paintings, pirates, holy wars, God Almighty, the Devil and a completely unnecessary trumpet fanfare into one gloriously ridiculous package.
Now available on Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch, The Immortal John Triptych brings together three of Joe Richardson’s wonderfully strange narrative adventures in what is being positioned as the ultimate version of the trilogy.
Published by Akupara Games and developed by Joe Richardson, this is a collection for anyone who likes their point-and-click adventures clever, beautiful and completely unafraid to be silly.
At A Glance
- Game: The Immortal John Triptych
- Release Date: Available now
- Formats: Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch
- Price: £20.99
- Developer: Joe Richardson
- Publisher: Akupara Games
- Genre: Narrative adventure
Three Adventures, One Very Strange World
The collection brings together Four Last Things, The Procession to Calvary and Death of the Reprobate, three interconnected adventures that can stand alone while sharing characters, themes and a world unlike anything else in gaming.
Built using hundreds of Renaissance, Rococo and Romantic paintings, The Immortal John Triptych creates a strange and surprisingly cohesive world where high art meets low humour.
Players can expect traditional adventure game puzzling as they explore, speak with bizarre characters, collect items and solve problems. Along the way, there will be pirates to pilfer from, cardinals to conspire with, miracles to perform and plenty of opportunities for everything to spiral into complete nonsense.
Remastered With A Few Important Extras
This isn’t just a straightforward bundle either.
The Immortal John Triptych includes a unified UI overhaul, quality-of-life improvements, full controller support and never-before-seen deleted and bonus scenes.
There’s also an expanded soundtrack from Eduardo Antonello, featuring new recordings and music created using real medieval and Renaissance instruments.
And then there are the additions that really matter. Four Last Things gets manual saves. The Procession to Calvary gets backflips. And the entire collection includes a button capable of triggering a superfluous trumpeted fanfare whenever you feel like celebrating.
Highbrow Art Meets Lowbrow Nonsense
The Joe Richardson trilogy has always been happy to mix big ideas with complete absurdity.
Sin, death, judgement, heaven and hell all make appearances, but so do gleefully silly jokes and situations that would feel perfectly at home alongside the work of Monty Python.
That clash between the profound and the ridiculous is what makes The Immortal John Triptych so distinctive. It’s a collection that can look like a museum masterpiece one moment and then immediately make a joke that would probably get you thrown out of the museum the next.
Embrace The Ridiculous
With three full adventures, remastered features and a world assembled from centuries of incredible artwork, The Immortal John Triptych is certainly not a collection that will quietly blend into the background.
Sometimes gaming needs grand heroes and epic battles. Other times, it needs Renaissance paintings, incompetent magicians and a button that plays a trumpet whenever you’re feeling particularly pleased with yourself.
If you’re going for the latter, you’ll find that The Immortal John Triptych is available now on Xbox (Xbox Store – £20.99), PlayStation and Nintendo Switch.
