Tintin Reporter: Cigars of the Pharaoh, a video game adaptation of Hergé’s most famous comic, has reportedly released in an unfinished state against the desires of its developer, Pendulo Studios. It launched to negative reviews on 8 November, with many on Steam indicating serious, game-breaking bugs that render the entire adventure “virtually unplayable.”
“I made several attempts to get past the first mission,” one Steam review reads. “And each time I encountered a different game-breaking bug. From necessary chat prompts not working, to being unable to even move.”
“Don’t bother buying this game,” another Steam user wrote. “I usually try to finish games and write full review but this game won’t let me progress because of many bugs that I encountered during almost 2 hours game play. Tried restarting multiple times and nothing changed.”
Now, developer Pendulo Studios has issued a statement confirming the game was published too early, and that it does not represent the best efforts of its development team.
“Hello everyone, we want to share important information about our current release, Tintin Reporter: Cigars of the Pharaoh,” the studio said on Twitter / X. “Despite our best efforts, those who play the game at launch won’t be able to enjoy the experience as we intended it to be.”
“We are committed to fixing this situation in a promptly manner: we will deliver the necessary patches in the coming weeks while keeping all our channels at your disposal for any issue you want to report to us directly. This is our most ambitious project ever, and we’re putting our heart into it. We are devoted to paying the best tribute to the famous reporter and delighting you as a player, and we won’t stop until we reach our goal. Thank you for your support and patience.”
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The game’s publisher, Microids, has retweeted the studio’s statement but has not provided further details about the situation, and why the game was released in a state considered unacceptable by the studio. There are likely reasons – for example, the fact that the game was planned to launch digitally and physically – but these are yet to be officially confirmed.
For now, the best course of action for those looking forward to Tintin Reporter is to hold off, pending updates from Pendulo Studios. Per multiple reviews, it appears the game is currently very rough, with many quests too buggy to complete, so there’s no real point of jumping in just yet. Pendulo has committed to fixing the problems with the game, so there’s hope that at some point in the future, the real vision behind Cigars of the Pharaoh will be clearer. Stay tuned for updates.
