Adaptations of Agatha Christie’s stories routinely take liberties to feel contemporary — sometimes to good effect, sometimes less so. Warner Bros., for example, relocated Murder in Three Acts to the 1980s and outfitted Hercule Poirot with a computer, an odd twist that seemed to fluster his famed little grey cells. ITV’s long-running Poirot series with David Suchet frequently reorganized or rewrote entire plots. Even Billy Wilder’s 1957 film Witness for the Prosecution, which Christie reportedly admired as one of her finer screen adaptations, introduced a wholly new character to deepen the lead’s portrayal.
Plots are reshaped, characters are reconfigured, and yet Christie’s mysteries continue to draw creators back for fresh retellings. Audiences crave novelty, and storytellers want to avoid rehashing the familiar. That impulse is evident in Agatha Christie – Death on the Nile, an adventure game developed by Microids Lyon and released on Steam on Sept. 25. Among the many departures from Christie’s 1937 original, one choice is especially striking: the game is set in the 1970s. Jumping ahead four decades might at first glance feel peculiar, but for studio director David Chomard it was a deliberate, necessary decision.
“There have already been dozens of adaptations in film, theatre, comics, and video games,” Chomard told Polygon. “We wanted to preserve the core storyline, so shifting the timeframe was a way to avoid the sense of it being just another retelling.”
Something old, something new
Image: Microids
Striking the right balance between fidelity and innovation is difficult, but Microids has experience in this terrain. After publishing two poorly received Christie-linked titles from Blazing Griffin — Hercule Poirot: The First Cases and The London Case, both featuring original stories rather than faithful adaptations — Microids’ in-house studio in Lyon took a different tack. Their 2023 release, Agatha Christie – Murder on the Orient Express, transplanted Poirot into 2023 and, despite some controversial choices, found a receptive audience among mystery fans and adventure gamers.
Death on the Nile retains the essential threads of Christie’s tale of passion and jealousy while weaving in a parallel narrative centered on a private investigator named Jane. Her investigation runs alongside Poirot’s and eventually intersects with it.
Chomard’s team mined subtext and fleeting background details from Christie’s novel and expanded them into standalone cases for both protagonists. A fleeting reference to a burglary in Mallorca becomes a fleshed-out mission for Jane, who handles the physical, action-oriented work Poirot would never attempt. Jewelry theft, which recurs in the novel, is repurposed as an opening sequence in the game — a brisk jewel robbery that doubles as both a tutorial and an homage to Christie’s short stories like “The Jewel Robbery at the Grand Metropolitan.”
Image: Microids
Most of these narrative beats could play out in any era, but Chomard explains that the 1970s offered the right mix of atmosphere and practical design advantages. The decade feels distant enough to be visually and culturally fresh for many players, which helps differentiate this version of Death on the Nile from the countless adaptations set in the 1930s.
The period also simplified remaining faithful to Christie’s plotting. Setting Murder on the Orient Express in 2023 meant contending with computers, smartphones, and modern forensics — elements that complicate or even undermine classic mystery constraints. A single CCTV camera or trace DNA could unravel the carefully constructed puzzle on a ship where Death on the Nile’s central murder occurs. The ‘70s setting allows the designers to preserve the story’s mechanics without resorting to contrivances.
It also supplied tangible period artifacts for puzzles and obstacles: cassette players, Super 8 cameras, and other era-specific tech that inform both gameplay and mood.
Solving the puzzle
Image: Microids
“The foundations of a compelling mystery are timeless, but a strong detective novel or film does not automatically translate to a satisfying detective game,” Chomard observes.
Christie’s classic denouement — the final, theatrical reveal where the sleuth assembles suspects and explains the mechanics of the crime — doesn’t suit interactive play. Players expect continual feedback and smaller revelations as they progress, not a single climactic exposition at the very end.
“A good detective game must let players uncover clues and solve discrete elements of the investigation along the way,” Chomard says. “You can’t defer every payoff until the finale.”
Microids Lyon also wanted to broaden the gameplay beyond interviews. One criticism leveled at Blazing Griffin’s Poirot titles was that they felt closer to interactive narratives with limited investigative engagement. To counter that, Microids Lyon devoted substantial time to puzzle design, drawing inspiration from Christie’s own writing methods. Some puzzles grew from the desire to feature an eye-catching prop; others evolved into escape-room–style sequences because the team enjoyed that format. Many mechanics are explicitly tied to the ’70s — the soundtrack leans on vintage synths like the Minimoog Model D and ARP Odyssey, and gadgets such as Super 8 cameras and cassette players are woven into challenges.
Chomard insists the decade shift shouldn’t feel cosmetic; it had to make sense for the puzzles and the drama. Not every past adaptation justified its departures — CBS’s 1985 TV movie 13 at Dinner inexplicably opens with Poirot on a talk show, while Kenneth Branagh’s 2022 Death on the Nile made sweeping changes that many critics felt gutted the original plot. That backlash helps explain why Microids Lyon aimed for a bolder, more thoughtful reinvention.
Whether their choices resonate with players will become clearer over time, but early reception on Steam trends positive: reviewers commend the fresh perspective on a familiar tale and the game’s distinctive, psychedelic atmosphere. If you’re after a whodunit with retro flair and immaculate presentation, Death on the Nile looks like an inviting weekend mystery.
Source: Polygon
