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Denis Dyack is coming back from the dead with Deadhaus Sonata

Shin

Banned
Denis Dyack's latest game is Deadhaus Sonata, where the player is an undead character fighting the living. And Dyack thinks that’s a good parallel for his own life in gaming.

His previous company, Silicon Knights, and its successor, Precursor Games, both went under after a series of setbacks in both game launches and crowdfunding efforts. He got into a lot of public spats, like a dispute with Epic Games over Unreal Engine rights.
But Dyack is soldiering on with a new company, Apocalypse Studios in Niagara Falls, Canada, and a new free-to-play action role-playing multiplayer game.

“When I talk about the House of the Dead, I feel like I’m talking about myself,” Dyack said in an interview at last week’s DICE Summit in Las Vegas. “Silicon Knights is dead.
It’s never coming back. With the launch of Apocalypse, I’ve gone through some things and can bring that experience to light in ways that I think are refreshing and new.”

Now he’s moving on. Dyack showed me an early demo of the game, where you play an undead character — think vampires, ghouls, revenants, and liches — and go to war against the living.

You’re an anti-hero with some frightening capabilities, like jumping high in the air and slicing anything that’s in your way as you come down. It has horror vibes that are similar to some of Dyack’s previous games, such as Blood Omen: Legacy of Cain, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, Too Human, and the ill-fated Shadow of the Eternals. Dyack has built a big backstory, and he says the multiplayer action will have a lot of narrative elements that go into the different stories of rival undead houses.



Credit: VentureBeat
Supplement: WCCFTech

Note: even if you hate/dislike the guy I can't help but find that he has a interesting style.
 
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Xenon

Member
Yeah I saw this a while back. Looks like he's going back to his horror roots. Not a big fan of the art style. But what happen with Epic was complete bullshit. They should have just killed the studio, making them destroy the games was a dick move.
 

HyGogg

Banned
I like Dennis as a person. I once spent a good hour talking to him one on one, and I found him to be very candid and likable,

But he has made a couple of genuinely bad games, so I will remain cautiously optimistic about this one.
 

v1oz

Member
I like Dennis as a person. I once spent a good hour talking to him one on one, and I found him to be very candid and likable,

But he has made a couple of genuinely bad games, so I will remain cautiously optimistic about this one.
An hour isn’t enough time to make a judgement like that. A lot of his former employees speak negatively about their time working under him and his dictatorial tendencies. Also Activision were not too pleased with what he did with their money.
 

HyGogg

Banned
An hour isn’t enough time to make a judgement like that. A lot of his former employees speak negatively about their time working under him and his dictatorial tendencies. Also Activision were not too pleased with what he did with their money.
I'm by no means trying to absolve him of anything, just that I liked the guy when I met him.
 

clem84

Gold Member
What happened to Too Human 2 and 3?

Unrelated. With Silicon Knights dead and "not coming back", who owns Eternal Darkness? I remember Nintendo heavily funding the project.
 
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Northeastmonk

Gold Member
I'll believe it when I see it. Not that I want this to suck, but its gotta be good to get that much praise again (Eternal Darkness).
 
An hour isn’t enough time to make a judgement like that. A lot of his former employees speak negatively about their time working under him and his dictatorial tendencies. Also Activision were not too pleased with what he did with their money.

I'd guess a lot of former employees speak negatively about their old bosses. That's not a reason I'd ever want to judge someone, unless perhaps I knew the employees and their work ethic personally.
 

Ellis

Member
GlossyPlushBangeltiger-size_restricted.gif
 

Griffon

Member
I have fond memories of Blood Omen and am still salty over what Crystal Dynamics did.

I very much look forward to Dyack's new foray into vampire lore. I hope it turns out good.
 
I'll stay open minded since everyone deserves chance for redemption but I suggest extreme caution if he starts any crowdfunding initiative.
 

UltimaKilo

Gold Member
I know the guy had his issues, but I never like so see someone down in the dumps forever. Hope this is a smashing success for the guy.
 

Xenon

Member
who owns the Too Human IP?

Silicon Knights. The ownership of the IP was never changed. The settlement was for the game to be pulled from stores and the source code with the stolen code to be destroyed. But SK is no more so I'm not sure what that means for their IPs since the company could never afford to pay the judgment to Epic. I think it was 10 million. It's safe to say it's dead as something can be in gaming.
 

TeamGhobad

Banned
Silicon Knights. The ownership of the IP was never changed. The settlement was for the game to be pulled from stores and the source code with the stolen code to be destroyed. But SK is no more so I'm not sure what that means for their IPs since the company could never afford to pay the judgment to Epic. I think it was 10 million. It's safe to say it's dead as something can be in gaming.

MS was the publisher though, could they have the IP? or if SK had it and they declared bankruptcy then who takes over their assets? would be fun to ask denis.
 

Xenon

Member
MS was the publisher though, could they have the IP? or if SK had it and they declared bankruptcy then who takes over their assets? would be fun to ask denis.

I remember reading that silicon knights owned the IP. Also considering the relationship at the time I don't think epic would have went so hard if it was a Microsoft owned IP.
 

Bragr

Banned
So, anyone knows what's going on with this game? it's been 2 and a half years now.

The first time I heard about this, I thought it might be a bit too ambitious for what I assume to be a very small studio. Now, years later, I see there is some footage of the game, but it looks very raw and early on in development.
 

MMaRsu

Banned
He won't ever be down for long, he will always stand and be counted.
Legendary

Against 🙋🏼‍♂️

 
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A.Romero

Member
So, anyone knows what's going on with this game? it's been 2 and a half years now.

The first time I heard about this, I thought it might be a bit too ambitious for what I assume to be a very small studio. Now, years later, I see there is some footage of the game, but it looks very raw and early on in development.

My money is on nothing will be released and if it does it will be a severally cut version.

A director's success is at least 50% related to leadership and management skills and the other 50% could be having good (as in creative) ideas. I feel Dennis fails on the first 50% so I have a hard time picturing him as a really successful director.

Hope I'm wrong, though. More games is always better.
 

FStubbs

Member
I thought this was going to be about him somehow being brought forth by Apple to testify against Epic. Left disappointed.
 
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Bragr

Banned
My money is on nothing will be released and if it does it will be a severally cut version.

A director's success is at least 50% related to leadership and management skills and the other 50% could be having good (as in creative) ideas. I feel Dennis fails on the first 50% so I have a hard time picturing him as a really successful director.

Hope I'm wrong, though. More games is always better.
Yeah, I'm a bit worried too, the gameplay they have shown seems very rushed, with robotic animations and just a dude walking around in an empty area. They released some news about an in-game model they finished a few days ago for some reason, but I don't understand why they hype that as news. I get the sense they push content out to promote and get funding or something, rather than actually having anything to show.

Ultimately, I think guys like Dyack need to learn from guys like Supergiant Games or Jonathan Blow, how to make modern indie games with a small team, rather than try to make a complex action RPG like they are attempting now. Hopefully, I'm wrong, I still have some anticipation for the game.
 
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