Initial Reaction to Shadow of the Eternals

When Shadow of the Eternals, a follow up to Eternal Darkness, was announced by Precusor Games, I had just one thought:

“Please don’t suck.”

Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem is my favorite game of all time. As I prepared to hit play on the nine minute gameplay reveal, the only thing I could think of was “please don’t suck.”

Well, it kind of sucked.

But that’s okay, maybe we’ll learn more during the interv—no, that sucked too, though this shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise.

For those unaware, the fall from grace of both Silicon Knights and Denis Dyack has been well documented. This past October, Kotaku ran a story that paints Dyack, former president of Silicon Knights, as a malevolent dictator. According the report, Dyack had about 60% of his staff working on creating a pitch-able demo of Eternal Darkness 2, with the remaining 40% working on 2011’s X-Men Destiny, a game they were contracted to develop for Activsion. X-Men Destiny was absolutely atrocious and the Eternal Darkness 2 demo, which was nothing more than a two-level church interior, was “really bad.” If you’re unable to successfully sell a publisher on a follow-up to Eternal Darkness, then really bad might be a bit of an understatement.

Coincidentally, the “gameplay” for Shadow of the Eternals takes place in the interior of a two-level church. I use the term gameplay lightly because the video consists of cutscenes, dialogue, a few environmental interactions, and walking; not much actual gameplay if you ask me.

Perhaps the most disheartening thing about this whole Shadow of the Eternals ordeal is the interview with IGN, which absolutely reeks of fluff journalism. At one point, Dyack was asked how long he’s wanted to make a successor to Eternal Darkness. He completely dodged the question, instead talking about how much he needs our money to make this dream possible. Heck, the entire interview was more about crowd funding than the actual game.

So let’s go back to the one thing I wanted from Shadow of the Eternals: for it to not suck. It’s enticing teaser had me ready to pledge money and support the cause. A spiritual successor to my favorite game that seems to include the staples that made Eternal Darkness so great? I’ll sign up for that as soon as possible. Yet that wasn’t necessarily sold to me from the gameplay and interview. Given the history of Denis Dyack, as well as his former studio’s track record after their departure from Nintendo, there’s no reason why I should donate to their $1.5 million goal for one episode.

Oh, and one more thing. The more I think about it, there might be a reason why publishers are passing on this project. There might be a reason why we’re being asked to invest in this game.

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