French developer Darkworks presents The Deep
There are only few game developers with which publishers are as dissatisfied as with Darkworks, which nonetheless exist for more than 10 years (only Silicon Knights comes to my mind as another example).
A troubled history
Darkworks' first release was Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare in 2001. However, in the late 90s, they started work on various prototypes including 1906: An Antarctic Odyssey and Alive (resurfaces years later as I Am Alive). 1906 evolved into USS Antarctica/Lost Mantis which was meant to be published by Capcom. In 2002 the deal fell through. Darkworks started a new project, now in conjunction with Namco US: Time Crisis Adventure for XBOX. You might imagine what happened.
Then, as a surprise to everyone, Darkworks works together with Ubisoft and releases a game: Cold Fear. But that's enough to celebrate because after that Darkworks goes back to their Alive concepts and pitches them to Ubisoft, who were pretty happy with Darkworks after Cold Fear.
The relationship changes drastically during the development of Alive (later I Am Alive). In early 2009, Ubisoft announces to retailers that the game will ship in March of the same year, even though nothing was published except for a E3 trailer and a few magazine hands-on articles. Only weeks later, the game is delayed until June because Ubisoft wants some major changes. Finally, in March, development is moved to Ubisoft Shanghai.
One cannot blame Darkworks for this, they built the game they wanted and it's Ubisoft's fault when they do not tell them what they want. We all know the story of I Am Alive (completely rebuilt), but what did happen to Darkworks?
Darkworks, the developer of game technology?
Darkworks had become a developer of game technology. Together with TriOviz they made a kit that "enables smooth stereoscopic 3D conversion of video games or multimedia products". In addition, they recently announced Kusanagi. But what about games?
Since the I Am Alive debacle Darkworks worked on various prototypes, most neither found a publisher nor were they revealed publicly. Though many of them are quite intriguing and would be worth to be posted, I should concentrate on "The Deep" today.
What is "The Deep"?
The Deep is a Darkworks prototype directly started after I Am Alive was "taken away" and it was continued throughout 2009. When no publisher came to sign on, Darkworks used it for public presentation purposes of their 3D TriOviz technology as seen here. Below I attached concept art, screenshots and a video scene from the game prototype. Someone with acces to GamesPress may add these.
And a video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xigf55_the-deep_videogames
Just posted this in case anyone wondered what's going on at Darkworks. Images, artworks and video are copyrights of Darkworks and officially released.
http://www.unseen64.net/2011/05/03/the-deep-xbox-360-ps3-prototype/
There are only few game developers with which publishers are as dissatisfied as with Darkworks, which nonetheless exist for more than 10 years (only Silicon Knights comes to my mind as another example).
A troubled history
Darkworks' first release was Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare in 2001. However, in the late 90s, they started work on various prototypes including 1906: An Antarctic Odyssey and Alive (resurfaces years later as I Am Alive). 1906 evolved into USS Antarctica/Lost Mantis which was meant to be published by Capcom. In 2002 the deal fell through. Darkworks started a new project, now in conjunction with Namco US: Time Crisis Adventure for XBOX. You might imagine what happened.
Then, as a surprise to everyone, Darkworks works together with Ubisoft and releases a game: Cold Fear. But that's enough to celebrate because after that Darkworks goes back to their Alive concepts and pitches them to Ubisoft, who were pretty happy with Darkworks after Cold Fear.
The relationship changes drastically during the development of Alive (later I Am Alive). In early 2009, Ubisoft announces to retailers that the game will ship in March of the same year, even though nothing was published except for a E3 trailer and a few magazine hands-on articles. Only weeks later, the game is delayed until June because Ubisoft wants some major changes. Finally, in March, development is moved to Ubisoft Shanghai.
One cannot blame Darkworks for this, they built the game they wanted and it's Ubisoft's fault when they do not tell them what they want. We all know the story of I Am Alive (completely rebuilt), but what did happen to Darkworks?
Darkworks, the developer of game technology?
Darkworks had become a developer of game technology. Together with TriOviz they made a kit that "enables smooth stereoscopic 3D conversion of video games or multimedia products". In addition, they recently announced Kusanagi. But what about games?
Since the I Am Alive debacle Darkworks worked on various prototypes, most neither found a publisher nor were they revealed publicly. Though many of them are quite intriguing and would be worth to be posted, I should concentrate on "The Deep" today.
What is "The Deep"?
The Deep is a Darkworks prototype directly started after I Am Alive was "taken away" and it was continued throughout 2009. When no publisher came to sign on, Darkworks used it for public presentation purposes of their 3D TriOviz technology as seen here. Below I attached concept art, screenshots and a video scene from the game prototype. Someone with acces to GamesPress may add these.
And a video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xigf55_the-deep_videogames
Just posted this in case anyone wondered what's going on at Darkworks. Images, artworks and video are copyrights of Darkworks and officially released.
http://www.unseen64.net/2011/05/03/the-deep-xbox-360-ps3-prototype/
