Eternal Darkness Sequels Planned

[MSUStud911]

Our friends over at 1up (http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3152021) bring us news that Silicon Knights does in fact have sequels in mind for the very excellent Gamecube game, Eternal Darkness.

Denis Dyack is certainly ambitious. Not long after a slew of negative E3 impressions for the first installment in his Too Human trilogy on Xbox 360, Dyack's already taken to his IGN blog (http://blogs.ign.com/silicon-knights/2006/07/06/24044/#comments) and confirmed Silicon Knights "absolutely yes" has sequels in mind for their cult Eternal Darkness horror adventure game, originally in development for Nintendo 64 before releasing on GameCube early in its lifespan.

"Although this [Eternal Darkness 1] is just one story we had in mind for the Eternal Darkness universe, there are even more manipulations, great ancients, and numerous other stories to tell..."
Eternal Darkness is in my Top 10 games of all time. I am more than excited at the prospect of next-gen ED sequels.

[Goronmon]

I love ED. Though there were many great qualities, my favorite parts were where something really fucked up would happen, and then it would flash back to "normal" as if you had been halucinating. Great times.

[CapnBob]

I'll buy it. I loved the first one.

[MSUStud911]

I added a link to his IGN Blog in the quote text. It has more details.

Woo!

[EvilBob46]

ED was an excellent game.

However, I've heard a lot of bad stuff about Too Human and its E3 performance. EGM did a cover story on the game in one issue, and a couple of months later, gave the game a preview rating of "Terrible" after getting more hands-on time with it a while later at E3. A magazine getting a cover story on a game, talking about how much potential it has and later ripping it apart after actually playing the game in-depth? Not a good omen.

I'm also concerned about the fact that Silicon Knights create a huge blog about the game, but never directly address the negative comments about the game that have appeared thus far, missing an opportunity to restore peoples' confidence in the title.

[Food Nipple]

I have to say, I played through most of Eternal Darkness and was unimpressed. I had 2 major gripes: 1) The sanity stuff. There were a lot of cool effects, but you lost if you went completely insane. You died if your sanity meter dropped to zero, and the cooler stuff only happens as you go crazier. The game rewards you for losing but don't have too much fun because then you die. The mechanics are set up so that a player playing "well" misses the whole point of the game.
2) The story sucked.
Spoiler:
Whatever character you play as in each chapter dies at the end of the level. Often, they didn't seem to accomplish anything important before they died; this begs the question: What is the point of surviving through the level if my character is just going to die anyways? By the time I played the 5th or 6th character, I felt this was pretty pointless.

[Kamalot]

I LOVED Eternal Darkness. It contained some of the best writing in a game to date.

[Heretic Machine]

Eternal Darkness is the very peak of what the Survival Horror genre has given us thus far. The fact that it is heavily inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft is no surprise when you consider this. Can't wait to see some sequels!

[Wyrm]

I bought ED last week for 5 bucks at the gamestore because I remember renting it a long ass time ago and never finishing it because it just scared the shit out of me. I'd like to think I'm ready to tackle it now.

[Raziel]

Loved this game! I was so sad when it was over, the story was enthralling. Sequel should be sweet!

[mos]

I specifically bought my Gamecube for ED, this is great news.

And, Food Nipple, you didn't die if your sanity dropped to zero. At that point any further damage to your sanity meter was translated to the health bar, instead.

[jpublic]

ED was what that Call of Cthulu game *should* have been. It's the besy of Silent Hill and Resident Evil combined into one fantastic experience. ED was the first game where I actually bothered to go through the 'finish it multiple times to get the really special ending' scenario.

My only concern is that they get so caught up in 'modernizing' the game for any sequels that they lose the things that made ED such a marvelous game.

Edit: Food Nipple, you missed the point of the story entirely. It was supposed to be a 2000 year war - each charcter was a sacrifice, a pawn if you will, in that war.

[pseudopseudo]

I'll definitely be picking up a sequel... and come to think of it, I might pick up the original again to play it through while waiting for it to come out.

Am I alone in thinking that the spell-casting was one of the coolest features in the game? I mean yeah, the sanity meter kicked ass, but I was really WOWED by the spell-casting.

[Manzy]

Haha, what a fucking coincidence, I bought this game about three days ago and just saw the one insanity scene where the game ends and it has the sequel coming soon. Actually, not a coincidence, God just likes pulling cool shit like that on me.

[ProfPuppet]

I just had a gleegasm over this.

ED was one of those games that I loved but despaired of there ever being a sequel to. It had its problems, but it also had a lot going right for it.

[EternalGamer]

I really hope they go with the Wii for the platform. There are just too many cool ideas they could use with the motion sensors to pass the opportunity up.

[Steele Johnson]

I didn't think I'd ever see it happen. This is really good news.

[dimsumx]

One of the creepiest games I've ever played...Can't wait to see this in the future. Xbox 360 perhaps?

[Evil Avnovice]

*Please let it be Revolution, please let it be Revolution...*

In one of the game's hallucinatory effects, it teased with the mention of an imaginary follow-up. If I could only remember what it was called... :(

[Mortis]

I likes me some ED, hopefully the sequels will be of the same quality if not better.

[yellowoystercult]

In one of the game's hallucinatory effects, it teased with the mention of an imaginary follow-up. If I could only remember what it was called... :(


I think it was "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Redemption."


I know that blindly following Silicon Knights based on Eternal Darkness alone isn't the smartest idea, but unless Too Human gets abysmal reviews, I'm buying a 360 when it's released. I think Denis Dyack is one of the best forward-thinkers in the game industry. He understands what games can do, and he's moving in that direction.

Here's hoping the Eternal Darkness sequels are on Wii or the 360, so I don't have to pony up for a PS3...

[Evil Avnovice]

[QUOTE=yellowoystercult]I think it was "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Redemption."QUOTE]

Thanks! :D

[score]

EB rocked. My first ever gamecube game. Loved how all the seperate stories entwined.

Favourites were the Arabian guy setting of to find the treasure for his "true love" and the one where you're a knight delivering a message to the priest only to get infected by the scroll thing.

[Orosco]

Great news, loved the original, actually beat it the 3 times to see the extra cutscene. The music of ED is what got me listening to Dead Can Dance. Again, this is awesome news.

[Rook34]

I have to say, I played through most of Eternal Darkness and was unimpressed. I had 2 major gripes: 1) The sanity stuff. There were a lot of cool effects, but you lost if you went completely insane. You died if your sanity meter dropped to zero, and the cooler stuff only happens as you go crazier. The game rewards you for losing but don't have too much fun because then you die. The mechanics are set up so that a player playing "well" misses the whole point of the game.
2) The story sucked.
Spoiler:
Whatever character you play as in each chapter dies at the end of the level. Often, they didn't seem to accomplish anything important before they died; this begs the question: What is the point of surviving through the level if my character is just going to die anyways? By the time I played the 5th or 6th character, I felt this was pretty pointless.

Huh? What game were you playing?! I would never fix their sanity just so it was more fun. I never lost with 0 sanity. Are you sure you weren't playing Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth?

And every character dying at the end of the chapters, well that did serve a point. It drove the story on how terrible the ancients were and instilled a sense of dread and hopelessness. A great game through and through, and long overdue for a sequel.

[dr_wily]

i still have a sealed eternal waiting for me.. never got around to playing it.

I also read and noticed that too human extravaganza in EGM only to be ripped apart an issue later. Still sounds awesome with all that norse mythology and devil may cry gameplay.. so the cameras wonky.. EVERY camera is wonky!

[ProfPuppet]

My WoW characters were all named after the Old Ones from ED, IE Chatturgha, Mantorok, etc. Got quite a few 'Pargon, Pargon, Ulyaoth, Aretak, Tier, Pargon' type tells, one guy even had an ED fansite up. Was kind of neat.

[Grifter]

ED was an excellent game.

However, I've heard a lot of bad stuff about Too Human and its E3 performance. EGM did a cover story on the game in one issue, and a couple of months later, gave the game a preview rating of "Terrible" after getting more hands-on time with it a while later at E3. A magazine getting a cover story on a game, talking about how much potential it has and later ripping it apart after actually playing the game in-depth? Not a good omen.

What EGM failed to mention (being the worthless deuche bags they are) is that the build of Too Human they played at E3 was still Alpha and the only reason it was there is because Microsoft Didn't give Dennis any choice. would you tell a chef his Chicken parmasian sucks after chewing on a piece of raw chicken he was going to use in the meal? Probably not.

Unfortunately I never had the chance to play Eternal Darkness. I may see if I can borrow the Cube from a friend and give it a shot. The question is, how well has it held up over the years.

[Food Nipple]

Huh? What game were you playing?! I would never fix their sanity just so it was more fun. I never lost with 0 sanity. Are you sure you weren't playing Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth?

And every character dying at the end of the chapters, well that did serve a point. It drove the story on how terrible the ancients were and instilled a sense of dread and hopelessness. A great game through and through, and long overdue for a sequel.

Ok, you're right. I was basing my comments on my playthrough from 4 years ago, you do not die when you lose all your sanity, your health drains. Nevertheless, what I considered to be fun and what you needed to do to survive (this is survival horror, right?) are set up as polar opposites.

As for the death at the end of the chapters, you hit the nail on the head, it instilled a sense of hopelessness. I knew before I took my first step that my character would die at the end of the level, and we're not talking about martyrdom here where I die to achieve some goal or save someone else. When my unavoidable death comes at the end of the chapter, my character will have achieved nothing to help in the greater war. No action I took will help the next chump in the next pointless flashback. I understood the ancients were REALLY bad guys around flashback 3, no need to drive the point home another 13 times.

I am certainly not one to avoid a game because of its quality of story, but I am a firm advocate of juding a game based upon what it tries to do. ED is a story-centric game, and most of that story was the cutscene equivlient of watching a game over screen.

[MaiXu]

OH FUCK YES! OH SWEET LORD FUCK YES!

If they can make this half as good as the original, I am there on day one! A 360 is now officially in my future.

[yellowoystercult]

(this is survival horror, right?)


Yeah? I'm not sure I agree.

Of course I'm not sure where else I'd put it... but "survival horror" makes it sound too campy, especially in light of the Resident Evil series.

And in what sense are you defining "survival" in Eternal Darkness? The struggle to survive is no stronger or weaker than in any other adventure game. In fact, you're intended to kill all the enemies--and you have the means--whereas that might not be the best route in survival horror games. The Resident Evil series (with the exclusion of RE4 - but I'm going based on the RE games that had been released by the time Eternal Darkness hit) gives you just enough to survive, making good on its "survival horror" promise.

And the camp factor is the same reason I'm content to call Half-Life a "first-person shooter" instead of a "shoot-'em-up." Doom is a shoot-'em-up; Half-Life is not. The Shining is a horror movie; Resident Evil: Apocalypse is a popcorn flick.

Which of course is not to knock either Doom or RE:Apocalypse.

[Food Nipple]

I'd say you can pretty safely call ED survival horror. The more I think about it though, I see no reason why the 'survival' part is attached to the genre at all. I'd say that a primary goal in almost any game is survival. Maybe I'll start calling games "survival platformers" or tetris a "survival puzzle game".

[Flatpicker]

ED reminded me of Heavy Metal the movie with all the backstory.
Loved it and would buy a sequal on day 1.

[Spigot]

Well, I'm super excited. I love Eternal Darkness although I haven't had a chance to play through the two other times I need to in order to get the ultimate ending.

Hmm... Maybe THAT is what I'll work on this weekend. Fatal Frame 3 or Eternal Darkness for the another two times... woo!

[Nessus]

Out of the 12 playable characters only 4 of them die at the end of their respective chapters: Anthony, Karim, Luther, and Bianchi.

[Rook34]

The ultimate ending is o.k. . It does tie everytthing up though. Almost too well. It will be hard to make a sequel. Anyone want to spoil it or shall I? I'll put it in black text though unless people say no.

[Spigot]

The ultimate ending is o.k. . It does tie everytthing up though. Almost too well. It will be hard to make a sequel. Anyone want to spoil it or shall I? I'll put it in black text though unless people say no.
Nah, don't spoil it. I might just go back downstairs and fire this game up and play it this weekend. Just what I need, ANOTHER game to distract me from Star Ocean 3...

[Rook34]

Nah, don't spoil it. I might just go back downstairs and fire this game up and play it this weekend. Just what I need, ANOTHER game to distract me from Star Ocean 3...

Nyeh, you could do better than Star Ocean anyway. :)

[Spigot]

Nyeh, you could do better than Star Ocean anyway. :)
Yeah, I'm getting that feeling, but I don't mind the game and I am addicted to the little encyclopedia in it. I just want to finish it so I can finally clear one of these innumerable JRPG's that I've barely played off of my shelf.

[Magnanimous Gnome]

Oh, I'm definitely excited about this announcement. I actually bought my Cube for Eternal Darkness, but unfortunately I didn't give the game as much attention as I should have - damn that Super Smash Bros for being way more wicked than I thought it would be.

I'll definitely buy a sequel if it's on the Wii. 360? Please no. :(

[Eggplant!]

I loved ED and Legacy of Kain. I have high hopes for Too Human.

My only gripe with ED... PARGON... PARGON... PARGON... PARGON... PARGON... PARGON... PARGON... PARGON... PARGON... PARGON...