Ring (video game)

For the Dreamcast game also known simply as Ring, see The Ring: Terror's Realm.

Ring
Developer(s)Arxel Tribe
Publisher(s)
Platform(s)Windows, Mac OS
Release
Genre(s)Adventure
Mode(s)Single-player

Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen, or simply Ring, is a 1998 point-and-click adventure video game for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS developed by Arxel Tribe and published in North America by Red Orb Entertainment and in Europe by Cryo Interactive. The game is based on Richard Wagner's four opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, and features music from various performances of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Georg Solti from 1958 to 1964,[3] chosen in collaboration with PolyGram and Decca.[4] French comic-book artist Philippe Druillet also worked on the game, providing much of the artwork.[4]

The game makes a significant departure from the source material by binding the stories behind the four parts of the cycle with a surrealist science fiction background; the main plot involves a being by the name of ISH, who is guided by the voice of Erda (played by Charlotte Rampling), and who discovers the story of the Nibelungen.

Ring received largely negative reviews in North America, but was a commercial hit, with sales above 400,000 units worldwide by October 2002. In 2003, Ring was followed by a sequel, Ring II: Twilight of the Gods, which brings the cycle to an end, following the two last parts of Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung. Ring II was met with similarly extremely negative reviews, and unlike the first game, was considered a commercial failure.

  1. ^ "Ring: The Legend of the Nibelungen". GameSpy. Archived from the original on October 20, 2013. Retrieved October 20, 2013.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference 150k was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference IGN was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b Zierler, Karen (2003). "The Ring / Arxel Tribe Interview". Games Domain. Archived from the original on February 3, 2004. Retrieved August 11, 2013.