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Everyone has a movie that is their guilty pleasure, and for me, it's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.
Much has been written about Kevin Costner's infamous accent, the wholesale historical inaccuracies and the fact that the movie inflicted a record-breaking top-of-the-chart run for Bryan Adams on both sides of the Atlantic, but none of those things mattered to the 11-year-old me back in 1991.
Like countless others worldwide, I was swept away by the swashbuckling flick, which went on to gross more than $390 million at the global box office, coming second only to James Cameron's Terminator 2: Judgment Day in the pantheon of the year's biggest movies (you can read more about how it was made here).
As a family-focused flick, the Kevin Reynolds-directed update of the classic English folk tale was accompanied by a vast swathe of merchandise, including books, clothing, action figures (many of which were actually recycled Star Wars toys) and, of course, video games.
In 2026, the concept of video game tie-ins for movies has become the exception rather than the rule, but back in the '90s, any self-respecting box office smash had its own interactive equivalent, and Prince of Thieves was no exception.
Thanks to publisher Virgin Interactive, we got two versions of the game: one for the NES, programmed by Sculptured Software, and a Game Boy port of the NES edition, handled by UK-based Bits Studios.
"Their Initial Attempt Was Firmly Rejected"
The NES version of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves is the 'lead' version, and was developed by the Utah-based Sculptured Software, which would, in time, become Acclaim Studios Salt Lake City. While it was originally founded in 1985, the studio would find fame during the 16-bit era via the excellent Super Star Wars trilogy and home ports of titles like DOOM, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, and Mortal Kombat 3.
Peter Ward served as a programmer on the game, and recalls that the concept of producing a game based on the famous hero from English folklore actually pre-dated the arrival of the movie.
"We were already in development of a Robin Hood game," he tells Time Extension. "It was just a prototype [Sculptured] was shopping around and didn't have too much of a storyline. Timing just worked out, and we were able to align the story to the movie. It didn't have some elements, like the 1-on-1 sword fights, or the large top-down combat scenes. And of course, many locations did not exist, such as the catacombs, prison and whatever else we needed from the movie."
For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, the game takes the form of a top-down action RPG interspersed with side-scrolling combat scenes, horseback sequences and vast, multi-character battles, the latter of which zoom out the action and involve fighting off hordes of enemies alongside your party members. While Ward isn't completely certain, he cites Zelda II as a possible influence for this approach, as that game mixed multiple perspectives on the action.
One thing Ward is sure about, however, is the edict from Virgin that the game follow the narrative of the movie to the letter – which it does, to a reasonably impressive degree. "We were given a copy of the script, which I still have in my possession," he says proudly. "We tried to follow the storyline as closely as possible. We now had a story to tell, instead of the generic 'rob-rich, give-poor' narrative. I do believe that the movie script provided a lot of focus and direction for the game design."
Shortly after the game was picked up by Virgin and attached to Costner's Hollywood production, Dungeons & Dragons game designer and editor Michael Breault was brought on board, eventually getting a 'design and text' credit on the final product. "I got involved in Prince of Thieves because I'd done some work for Sculptured Software before, writing and editing on Day-Dreamin' Davy [released on the NES in 1992, after Prince of Thieves] and they knew I'd done a lot of work on RPGs," he tells Time Extension.
Breault – who, during a five-year stint at former D&D owner TSR, wrote, edited, and developed over 90 games, modules, and hardback books – was effectively drafted in to save the project from cancellation. "A producer named Hal Rushton called me up and asked if I'd be willing to re-design and do the writing for the game," he explains. "Their initial attempt was firmly rejected by either Virgin Interactive or Nintendo as completely sucking."
It's at this point that Breault lays the blame squarely at Ward's door. "It turns out Sculptured had no one who'd had any experience with RPGs in their studio, and they let the primary – maybe sole – programmer do both the game design and programming," he says. "Turns out he'd never even played an RPG of any sort, tabletop or digital, ever. There was a lot of really dumb stuff in the game, and it got soundly rejected. So Sculptured called me and said that if I couldn't redesign it, they were going to have to cancel the project. Virgin had the license for a game based on the movie, so they might have found another developer if Sculptured bowed out. But the game would have really been delayed from the movie's release, which would have really hurt sales." (As it happened, the game did end up missing the movie's launch, but we'll get to that shortly.)
I presented this narrative to Ward, who admits that his young age may have been a factor in the game's somewhat troubled development. "This was my first RPG game," he says. "But I was also making my first side-scroller and first combat game with Prince of Thieves. It wasn't my greatest work as it was very early in my career, and I was probably just happy it was released. Before that, I had a few completed games which never made it on the shelves. I still feel I was an experienced game developer, capable of tackling any project."
Ward is happy to concede that, before the movie licence became attached to the project, it was "bad" and "really just a prototype." Virgin stepping in and Breault becoming involved meant "keeping existing gameplay elements and adding story and mini-games to spice it up," says Ward. "It's not one of my best games by far, but all games suffered from crunch back then. We did what we were able to, and I never displayed any lack of effort."
Nonetheless, Breault's involvement did help get Prince of Thieves over the finish line. "I recall being told by Hal Rushton at Sculptured that Virgin was very happy with the revision of the game and that it got a rating of 93 from Nintendo, which I was told was the highest rating any Virgin game had ever gotten from them," he explains.
While Prince of Thieves followed the film's story closely, one aspect of the game that isn't quite as faithful to the movie is the character portraits, which are shown during many plot-driving conversation sequences. This is because Virgin didn't have permission to use the likeness of the original actors, so we get off-brand variants instead. "This was all related to licensing costs to get character likenesses," explains Ward.
This meant that we got a video game that wasn't able to leverage the star power of the movie's lead actor, who (lest we forget) was one of Hollywood's most bankable stars at the time thanks to a run of hit films that included The Untouchables, Bull Durham, No Way Out, Field of Dreams and Dances With Wolves. This even extended to the game's cover, which shows Costner in silhouette, and the advertising; one magazine promotional image showcases entirely bespoke artwork.
Lance Thornblad, an artist at Sculptured Software who worked on the character portraits, reveals another potential reason for Costner's no-show. "At one point, I was informed that Kevin Costner was uncomfortable with having his face in a violent game," he says.
This might sound absurd when you look at the crude nature of the visuals compared to the ultra-realistic gore we see in modern video games (and in the movie itself – Costner happily shoots a flaming arrow into someone's face at one point), but it's worth noting that back in 1991, console gaming was still viewed as the almost exclusive domain of children. It's perhaps understandable, then, that Costner might be reluctant to be associated with a product that encouraged kids to actively engage in violence.
"It Didn't Really Feel Like I Had Any Ownership"
After Sculptured Software had finished its work on the NES game, the UK-based Bits Studios, founded by Foo Katan, was contracted to port that version to Nintendo's handheld Game Boy console, which would eventually see release in 1993 on both sides of the Atlantic.
At this point, the company had ported Taito's Chase H.Q. to the portable, and had converted Audiogenic's Loopz to the NES. It would later gain a solid reputation on Game Boy for both ports and original licensed titles thanks to R-Type, Terminator 2 and Alien 3. Later Bits Studios titles include Wolverine: Adamantium Rage (SNES), The Itchy & Scratchy Game (SNES, Game Gear), Die Hard: Vendetta (GC, PS2, Xbox) and Rogue Ops (GC, PS2, Xbox).
Freelancer Jon Baker was hired by Bits to handle the graphical conversion for the Game Boy release. "For me it was very easy," he says. "The NES could only use 4 colours for each 16x16 pixel block. All I had to do was convert those colours to a greyscale Game Boy palette. I did do little bits of rework, I think, on some character sprites and character portraits."
Baker, who says he spent around a fortnight working on the project, gives the impression that Bits Studios' role in the Prince of Thieves story was fleeting at best. "I can't say that I'm proud of the game; I recoloured and reworked other people's graphics. It didn't really feel like I had any ownership. It would have been nice to have created my own graphics for it, but it was a quick conversion job that only took two weeks at most."
"It's Almost Like You're In The Movie"
When the movie was released in June 1991, it divided opinion among the game's staff.
"We of course finished the game before the movie came out, but I vividly remember the day I saw it, and was very happy and surprised at how good a film it was," says Ward. "I thought it was well done with a strong cast and great humour." It's almost inevitable that Breault has the opposite opinion. "I had the movie script and felt it was very poorly written and conceived," he says. "As bad as the movie was – I didn't really care for it – it was a lot better than the script."
The NES and Game Boy games didn't actually follow until that November, months after the film had premiered. It was Nintendo Power's cover star for its July 1991 issue, and the fact that it then didn't hit store shelves for another four months caused some degree of consternation with readers. Ward was just happy for one of his games to make Nintendo Power's coveted front page; it would happen again with three other games he was involved in: Mortal Kombat 3, Super Star Wars and Super Empire Strikes Back.
In the UK, where I'm based, Princes of Thieves (complete with Costner's actual face, no less) graced the cover of Mean Machines issue 20, which was published in May of 1992 – the game wouldn't arrive in Europe until December of that year, a prime example of how gamers in that region were often forced to wait to get the latest titles.
Given that Mean Machines only gave the game a single page preview, I asked the magazine's editor, Julian 'Jaz' Rignall, why it was chosen for such an honour. "The movie was massive and anything else that was cover-worthy that month was a pain in the ass to get a cover-quality image for," he admits. "One quick call to the movie’s distributor and bingo. Eezy peezy cover image."
As for the game's critical reception, it's easy to draw parallels with the way the movie was received at the time. Reviews were mixed, to say the least.
Nintendo Power posted a glowing appraisal, stating:
"Even though the actual actors and actress's likeness are not in the game, it does follow the script almost scene for scene. And while the game has plenty of great action and excitement, what really stands out is the way the story unfolds clearly and logically. It's almost like you're in the movie."
The UK's GamesMaster magazine, covering the Game Boy version, said:
"To be honest, the little picture which pops up whenever Robin is talking looks more like David Hasselhoff than Kev, but that's beside the point. Anyway, what we have here is a rather good arcade adventure based pretty closely on the top-grossing motion picture. You, as Robin, must collect a band of merry men and set off for Nottingham Forest, England (via the White Cliffs of Dover and Hadrian's Wall — if memory serves), and rid your homeland of the evil Sheriff. It's all good clean top-down object-manipulating fun and works surprisingly well on the Game Boy. No battery back-up save, unfortunately."
Electronic Gaming Monthly took a somewhat less positive view of things:
"Not much of an action game but it isn't supposed to be. As a quest game it will make you think and more games should be made this way. Graphics are OK but not exceptional. The quest is about the right length and rather straightforward. No real tough spots to stump the player."
UK Nintendo-centric publication N-Force was even less kind, saying:
"Sadly, the graphics are well below acceptable standards for such a major title - they're basic and suffer from flicker problems. The gameplay's simple but infuriatingly difficult in places which leads to it being badly imbalanced and having a very cobbled-together look."
The lack of battery back-up for save data is raised in more than one contemporary review, and, in retrospect, this omission feels like a very odd decision for an RPG. "I remember back then that saves required a more expensive cartridge," says Les Pardew, who worked as an artist at Sculptured Software.
"That was totally out of our hands," concurs Ward. "It was simply a cost decision. A battery back-up cost more, and the publisher didn't want to spend the money. It was very typical in those days, and happened on many SNES games I did."
"At Least I Didn't Use A Spoon"
Ultimately, Prince of Thieves is one of many movie-related video games that has largely been forgotten by gamers; while hits such as GoldenEye 007 continue to entertain decades after release thanks more to the quality of their gameplay than the subject matter, this Costner-based tie-in barely gets mentioned today, despite its close proximity to such a massive global box office success.
So, how do the people who made it feel about Prince of Thieves today? "I feel I took a very badly-designed RPG, tore it down to the bare bones, and rebuilt the design going mostly from my own RPG design experience and from the movie script, and I am proud of that," says Breault, who later joined Volition to work on titles such as Red Faction, Red Faction 2 and Red Faction: Guerrilla and has recently returned to the world of tabletop gaming.
"I would have liked to have had more time to work in side quests and such; because of the rejection of the initial game design, my work on the game was pretty rushed," he adds. "Sculptured brought me out to Salt Lake City for a week, and that was most of the time I had to redesign the game."
For Ward, who would later work on titles such as Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Van Helsing and Disney Infinity, it was a rewarding but ultimately challenging project to be involved with; after all, this was a piece of merchandising that needed to be on store shevles while the movie was still fresh in the memories of those who had paid to see it at the cinema. "As with all games from that era, time was our enemy," he laments. "Things always had to be done in time for approval from Nintendo, manufacturing in Japan, and a slow boat ride to the USA, all in time for Thanksgiving. Every year it was the same."
Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves isn't some forgotten classic or hidden gem you should all rush out and play; I'm fully aware of that. Even the people who created it view it in a somewhat lukewarm light, and you'll struggle to find many online today singing its praises.
But, like the movie it is based on, it reminds me of a more carefree time in my life, when I had the freedom to become utterly obsessed with a single film and all of its associated merchandise. Heck, I even bought the Bryan Adams' single – and I don't think I've admitted that to anyone in over 30 years.