Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is a 1996 point-and-click adventure game, and the first in the Broken Sword series, co-written and directed by Charles Cecil, and developed by Revolution Software. The player assumes the role of George Stobbart (voiced by Rolf Saxon), an American tourist in Paris, as he attempts to unravel a deep conspiracy involving a sinister cult and a hidden treasure, seeing him travel to various locations around Europe and the Middle East. The game's storyline was conceived to feature a serious tone and heavily influenced by research on Knights Templar by Cecil, but was also interlaced with humor and graphics in the style of classic animated films.