It’s 2026 and we’re back with some exciting updates about the Legends of Adventure: The Story of Sierra On-Line documentary!
Rough Cut Complete
We're happy to report that we have officially completed a rough cut of the film!
Coming in at a whopping 4 Hours, 12 Minutes, and 38 seconds runtime, the rough cut allows us to see the overall shape of the film, determine what’s working and what’s not, and tells us what holes need filling. This is important progress and means we're still on track for release in 2026.
It’s a big accomplishment – and one that would not have been possible without your support – but this is where the hard work really begins.
We’re now steadily working through the cut piece-by-piece with editor Adam Schoales and his team, polishing, refining, and cutting to make this the best possible version of the Sierra story.
Fear not! For any backers worried that something really good will get left on the cutting room floor, remember that we hit our Mini-Doc stretch goal during the campaign. If you're a project backer, much of that extra interview material will more than likely find its way into your hands eventually!
As we cut and streamline the film, we have begun adding elements from the treasure trove of archival materials – photographs, videos, documents, etc. – that we’ve been collecting throughout the production process.
From personal photographs from key Sierra figures to contemporary news reports originally broadcast on CNN, along with never-seen-in-public promotional footage and b-roll, the archive materials we’ve been able to collect for the film are truly incredible. We’re hoping to include as much of it as we can in the finished documentary.
We’re also now at the stage of the edit where other post-production elements such as music and titles start to be added to the cut.
Composer Jess Forrest (Castle If) has created an amazing suite of music for the film and will continue to develop the compositions as we get closer to a final cut. We can't wait for you to hear it!
The team at Filmograph, the Emmy-nominated title design studio behind the openings of the Mission: Impossible series among many other fantastic projects, is hard at work designing a main title treatment for the doc, along with lower thirds (to identify all of our wonderful interview subjects) and date and location bugs to situate viewers as we move from place to place.
We’re also working with the fine folks at EndCrawl to put together the film’s all-important end credits, in which all of our backers will be featured and thanked.
For future updates, we’re planning to do deep dives into all of these elements – archive, music, and titles – to give our backers an inside look at the finishing of the film.
A Wild Doom Guy Appears…
And the exciting news doesn’t stop there. We are pleased to finally reveal one of our long teased mystery interview subjects…
id Software co-founder John Romero posing with his copy of On-Line Systems' Wizard and the Princess (1980)
In late 2025 we sat down for an interview with the legendary John Romero, co-founder of id Software and one of the fathers of the first-person shooter genre, at his home in Ireland.
As most Sierra fans know, the history of the first-person shooter genre is inexorably tied to that of the adventure game, with many citing the arrival of the former as the death knell of the latter. Ken Williams famously even offered to buy id Software in the early ‘90s, making it one of the great “what if?” moments in video game history.
While it may surprise some to learn this, the co-creator of games like DOOM and Quake also happens to be a huge fan of Sierra On-Line and is a veritable encyclopedia of computer games history. His perspective on Sierra as a company, its games, and the industry as a whole during this incredible time period are a wonderful addition to the doc.
We also spoke to him about some of id Software's iconic first-person shooter games, but for the full story on those you'll have to read his fantastic book DOOM GUY or watch the forthcoming documentary of the same name!
We are very grateful to both John and Brenda Romero for making his participation possible.
Game On Kickstarter
And speaking of the Romeros, since documentaries about games and game designers are still few and far between, we want to make sure to highlight great projects whenever they come along.
One such project is Game On, a new feature documentary about pioneering game designer Brenda Romero and the people she’s inspired. Fellow filmmaker and game creator Theresa Loong recently launched a crowdfunding campaign for the doc on Kickstarter, with the funds going towards finishing the edit, mixing sound, and help with distribution and awareness.
We’ve officially backed the project – please join us and consider pledging today (click the image below) if you want to see more feature documentaries made about the world of video games!
It's been a busy past few months, so we’re excited to share another meaningful update about the journey of Legends of Adventure: The Story of Sierra On-Line with you and reveal what's coming next.
We're still targeting a 2026 release for the documentary – and as you'll read below we've made a lot of progress towards that goal!
Recently Completed Interviews
We are pleased to announce that our most recent round of interviews included conversations with:
Josh Mandel,a designer and producer at Sierra On-Line and the voice of King Graham, who helped craft the tone and humour of some of the company's most beloved games. Josh spoke from the heart about his experience at Sierra, calling it "the best four years of his life."
Mark Seibert, a composer, director, and producer at Sierra, who helped establish the sound that set Sierra's adventures apart. His vantage point revealed how Sierra stayed on the cutting edge of multimedia storytelling, and we're so happy to have interviewed him!
Laine Nooney, an Associate Professor of Media Industries at NYU and one of the foremost scholars on the history of the early computer and games industries in the United States. Laine has researched and written about Sierra On-Line extensively, and will help the viewer understand why Sierra mattered, how it succeeded, and why it still resonates so strongly today.
Marcus Mera, theco-producer of Ken and Roberta Williams' recently released remake of Colossal Cave, which brought them out of retirement. As a fan and collector of Sierra On-Line games himself, he gives us a window into why the Williams' returned to gaming after decades away from the industry.
Each interview subject brought thoughtful perspectives and their own unique personal experiences to the story, and we are grateful for their participation.
Post-Production Progress
A behind-the-scenes shot of our editor's desk – where the magic happens!
We are now deep into post-production and have nearly completed an assembly cut of the film. This is the first rough version of the film where every scene, interview, and story beat is placed in order from start to finish.
For the first time, we are able to watch the story unfold from beginning to end. It's been an incredible experience seeing the tale of Sierra On-Line – as well as years of work by our team – finally take shape on screen. This has been a long journey and though there is much more work to be done, we're so thrilled to see it starting to come together.
Next Steps: Final Interviews
A very dedicated collector recently showed us some classic On-Line Systems computer games in person
With the assembly cut nearly completed, we're still working to schedule a few very exciting final interview subjects and we're working diligently to make these conversations happen. We're excited to reveal who these people are when we're able to confirm their participation!
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Thank you again for your continued support, enthusiasm, and patience as we work to tell the story of Sierra On-Line and the remarkable people behind it. We look forward to sharing more soon, including an exclusive backer-only look behind the scenes as the film continues to take shape. Be sure to follow us on Blueskyand Instagram for day-to-day updates on the doc and more!
We're here today with some sad news about a member of the adventure game community and how you can help.
By now many of you have probably heard the news that Roberta Vaughan, a beloved member of the community and community manager / publicist within the adventure gaming scene, is facing a serious medicial crisis.
If you've spent any time around the adventure game community in recent years, you've probably crossed paths with Roberta online in groups like The Classic Gamers Guild or in person at events like last year's Adventure Game Fan Fair, where she memorably cosplayed as Laura Bow.
To help Roberta's family deal with medical and other expenses during this time, Sierra alumni Josh Mandel started up a GoFundMe page which you can click through to below:
Unsurprisingly, Roberta was an early backer and supporter of this project. It is our hope that we can repay that small kindness by helping to spread the word in her time of need.
We're here today with a very special update marking one year since Legends of Adventure: The Story of Sierra On-Line was successfully 100% funded on BackerKit!
With the generous support of our backers, we went on to exceed our original goal and our own expectations. It was an important day for the team because it was the day we officially knew that we were going to get to tell this incredible story and do it in a way that was worthy of the subject matter. So thank you again for making this possible!
Documentary Progress Report
It's been a year full of progress on the project – almost two dozen amazing interviews, over 40 hours of footage, hundreds of pieces of archival material sourced, and almost a month spent on the road by our team – and there's so much more to come.
Interviews continue (more on that in the "Backer Only" section below) and we're now deep in post-production with work on a first assembly cut well underway, as well as the film's score and main title design.
We're excited to share more news on this front in the coming months, but for now we want to give you a sneak peek at one of the highlights of our last production road trip...
Inside the Williams' Oakhurst Home
As mentioned in our last update, the previous production leg brought the LOA team to Oakhurst, California – home of Sierra On-Line's headquarters from the early 1980s until 1993. The majority of the Sierra team lived in and around the area during this time, including co-founders Ken and Roberta Williams.
After some early successes at Sierra and around the time that development on the original King's Quest began, Ken and Roberta decided to build a home in Oakhurst. With six bedrooms, five and a half bathrooms, two kitchens, a bar and game room, and indoor volleyball court, the palatial house was unlike anything else in the region and a tribute to what they'd built at Sierra so far.
Home to the Williams' young family, more than a few wild company parties, and the development of some of Sierra's most beloved games, today the house remains largely the same as when it was first built, complete with stained glass referencing early Sierra titles like Mystery House, The Wizard and the Princess, and The Dark Crystal.
Take a look inside the Williams' Oakhurst home below:
So if you're planning a trip to the Yosemite area in the near future or want to relive the glory days of Sierra On-Line with a big group of friends, the owners of the property have provided us with a discount code – SIERRADOC10 – that can be used until the end of 2027 to book the house on loveyosemite.comfor 10% off.
Once again, we're incredibly grateful to all the backers for their support and for coming along with us on this wild journey. Follow us on Blueskyand Instagram for updates on the documentary and more!
It's update time once again. We're pleased to report that our second major block of shooting in February and March for Legends of Adventure: The Story of Sierra On-Line was a huge success – and we're here to give you all the juicy details about the trip.
As we outlined in our previous update, this 15-day road trip took the LOA team down the entire coast of the Western United States – over 3,300 kilometres (2,100 miles) from Seattle to San Diego and back up to San Francisco – with stops in cities, towns, and a certain national park all along the way.
The Legends of Adventure team posing at Yosemite National Park in California – with the famed Half-Dome mountain from the Sierra logo in the distance behind us – on our last day of filming of this production leg
Our main takeaways from the trip?
1) Never sleep on gas station tacos in rural California! 2) It does, in fact, rain in Los Angeles. 3) All of our interview subjects were fantastic to speak with and extremely generous with their time. 4) We're incredibly fortunate to be able to help tell the story of Sierra On-Line thanks to your support!
Documentary Progress Report
If you follow Legends of Adventure on Bluesky and/or Instagram, you probably saw a few updates from our travels, but we wanted to share some more behind-the-scenes photos from our interviews with Sierra alumni Mark Crowe, Christy Marx, Lori Cole, Corey Cole, Jim Walls, Bill Shockley, Jerry Bowerman, and Ken and Roberta Williams.
Our first interview of the trip: Jerry Bowerman, Executive Vice President of Sierra On-Line from 1993-1997
A Guy from Andromeda in the flesh – a behind-the-scenes shot of our conversation with Mark Crowe (Space Quest)
Christy Marx poses with with copies of her two games after our interview
Quest for Glory series creators Lori & Corey Cole go deep on their time at Sierra On-Line
Police Quest creator Jim Walls poses with the first game in the series after our conversation
Former Sierra programmer Bill Shockley tells us about his final days at the company
Ken and Roberta Williams with the Legends of Adventure team after another day of interviews
It was a marathon shoot with a lot of early mornings and hours on the road, but we couldn't be happier with how this leg of production went. We heard stories we'd never heard before and learned more about some of the most beloved games of all time directly from the people who made them. We can't wait to share those conversations with you.
Additionally, nearly all of our interview subjects were kind enough to provide us with photos, documents, and other materials from their time at Sierra that we have scanned and digitized for potential inclusion in the documentary. It's a treasure trove of video game history that will be integral to telling this story.
Keen-eyed backers may have noticed that there are still a few photos and names still missing from the dozen or so interviews we promised in our last update. Rest assured, those interviews did occur as planned and we're just waiting for the right moment to reveal those to the public!
Future Update Plans & Next Steps
One of the highlights of this project has been getting to visit Oakhurst, California – the small mountain town that was home to Sierra On-Line and its employees during its heyday in the '80s and '90s. Our next backer update will be entirely focused on that visit and what we saw, so stay tuned!
While we still have a few more interviews left to conduct for Legends of Adventure, we're moving into the post-production phase. With over 40 hours of footage and interviews collected so far, our editors are beginning to assemble the roughest of rough cuts which we're hoping to have completed by the summer. Our composer Jess Forrest is also beginning preliminary work on the film's score and we're in the process of lining up other important elements for the final product such as sound, animation, titles, and more.
Legends of Adventure has been the project of a lifetime for our team, we're so grateful to the backers for their support and for trusting us to tell this story in a way that it deserves to be told. Be sure to follow us on Blueskyand Instagram for updates about next steps for the documentary – and of course more fun Sierra-related content!
