Eternal Darkness Successor Shadow of the Eternals Back in Development!
David Gelmini
|
If you’re a nostalgic gamer who got hours of fun out of the Nintendo Gamecube back in the day, then this news will certainly have you jumping for joy.
Released on the little purple box back in 2002, Eternal Darkness, while certainly not the first M-rated game on a Nintendo console, was the first one which they published themselves, which is a pretty big deal because it seemed to indicate that the company would be trying to move away from their kid-friendly image. And while the amount of M-rated games published by the Big N remains low, there’s not denying that Eternal Darkness was a damn near masterpiece.
Inspired by the works of Lovecraft and Poe, the game even featured a Sanity meter in addition the usual health meter, so you literally felt as though you were going insane as you played. As if the flesh-eating zombies and monstrous ancient gods weren’t bad enough.
Sadly, things did not go too well for Canadian developer Silicon Knights in the years that followed. They helped develop the revamped version of Metal Gear Solid, known as The Twin Snakes, which proved to be a hit, but things went downhill from there. After the mediocre Too Human, they would go on to develop X-Men: Destiny, which not only was a terrible game, but was made using Unreal Engine 3, which it turns out, they were not fully authorized to use. The legal proceedings that followed resulted in Silicon Knights being ordered to destroy all unsold copies of both Too Human and X-Men: Destiny (if you have a copy of either of those games, hold on to them as they’re now collector’s items), and with no source of profit and no other games in development, they closed their doors shortly afterwards.
However, founder Denis Dyack, who also co-directed Eternal Darkness, has refused to give up and call it a day. He’s been trying over and over again to get a successor to Eternal Darkness, called Shadow of the Eternals, off the ground with no success so far. As Nintendo no longer have any interest in the series, he turned to Kickstarter, although the campaign failed. So he launched another, which also (big surprise) failed. He even founded a new studio to develop it, called Precursor Games, but as the money wasn’t coming in, they too closed their doors.
So here were are in 2016, fourteen years after Eternal Darkness hit shelves, and Shadow of the Eternals isn’t getting any nearer. Or is it?
Dyack now has a YouTube channel called “Quantum Tunnel,” where he talks about all things gaming and other stuff that’s going on in the big wide world. And what was his latest video about, you ask? It’s (you ready for this?) a gameplay demo from Shadow of the Eternals! Along with the text below, which seems to strongly indicate that the game is indeed very much alive:
A psychological horror game, Shadow of the Eternals is the spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, being developed by the original creators of the popular and critically acclaimed classic. Featuring an eclectic cast of heroes and villains, Shadow of the Eternals will span thousands of years of history. Players’ perception of reality will be shattered as they try to balance the mechanics of combat, magick, and exploration as they progress through the adventure.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdgEksdFNZs&w=560&h=315]
This was followed by a podcast video in which Dyack states that the game is still in development. Have a look below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I5kjM-QBXQ&w=560&h=315]
So, does this mean that we’ll finally be seeing the long-awaited successor to the classic horror game from yesteryear? Or is Dyack simply looking for some fast publicity to get more views for his videos? Only time will tell, I guess. But I know that I want this to be true more than anything. It seems fitting that I end this article with an image featuring a quote from Edgar Allan Poe, which is displayed at the start of Eternal Darkness and perfectly sums up the uncertainly about its successor ever seeing the light of day:
Categorized:Horror Gaming News
