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New artworks of cancelled Silicon Knights projects (Eternal Darkness 2, Sandman, Box)

Shiggy

Member
The Box / The Ritualyst / The Crucible: Evil Within (for Sega/THQ) [2005-2009]:



Sandman [2009]:



Siren in the Maelstrom (prototype funded by a Canadian government agency) [2009]:



Eternal Darkness 2 [2010-2012] (Some of these were shown when Shadow of the Eternals was revealed):
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Nintendo could use something like Eternal Darkness 2 right now. Though I don't blame them for not giving Denis Dyack any money.
 

L Thammy

Member
First few Eternal Darkness 2 images look like they're about vikings worshipping the god of beards. I like that they were trying to do new environments, but there's only a few images that make me think of Eternal Darkness.

Are SK actually making anything at the moment? As in, a project that has not been cancelled?

If not, Dyack please. Give me some more Blood Omen.

assuming you even still own any rights to it at all, which lets face it, you probably don't.

As far as I know, Silicon Knights only exists on paper now. I don't know if they have any employees left.
 

BibiMaghoo

Member
Are SK actually making anything at the moment? As in, a project that has not been cancelled?

If not, Dyack please. Give me some more Blood Omen.

assuming you even still own any rights to it at all, which lets face it, you probably don't.
 

Riki

Member
Nintendo could use something like Eternal Darkness 2 right now. Though I don't blame them for not giving Denis Dyack any money.

I wonder if they could potentially give it to a Next Level Games. It would have to be better than what SK put out, certainly.
 
Nintendo could use something like Eternal Darkness 2 right now. Though I don't blame them for not giving Denis Dyack any money.

As I understand it, they were amenable to hearing a pitch, but the demo SK presented them was a single room that took six months to make and it made them beg off.
 

L Thammy

Member
Wait no, the relevant Kotaku article (it's a good read if you haven't read it) implies that the ED2 demo took a year and was two rooms.

It's stuff like this that makes me wonder how Miyamoto was actually involved in the game. The gameplay's hardly a selling point, so I imagine that he just ran around screaming "just finish the thing, Jesus Christ!"


Also, Sandman and Evil Within's art is great.
 

Riki

Member
Wasent ED2 all but confirmed to be in development, but as soon as epic won that case, we started hearing about it less and less?

If they were making it, it was seemingly without a publisher attached.

Which sounds exactly like the kind of crazy bullshit Dyack would do.

There's no way they were actively working on it.
The "demo" they showed us for their kickstarter was the exact same demo they showed Nintendo years ago.
They may have been saying they were working on it, but not like a real studio works on a game.
 

L Thammy

Member
If they were making it, it was seemingly without a publisher attached.

Which sounds exactly like the kind of crazy bullshit Dyack would do.

I don't know how if it turned out being false, but there was that whole bit from a supposed former Silicon Knights employee. He claimed that they were shoveling funds from X-Men Destiny to Eternal Darkness 2, which they were shopping around for a publisher for.
 
Why internal? Seems like Next Level Games type of deal has worked them quite nicely with them and Monster Games. Both studios are now making games exclusively on Nintendo platforms.

silicon knights deal with them worked too until SK broke out to make too human with microsoft .

Also from the kotaku article

"This is the reason for the extremely high quality games that SK built a reputation on," says one source. "Nintendo was going to put their name on the game, so it had to be 'Nintendo quality.'"

Obviously i wouldnt totally trust an anonymous source, but a lot of people have been saying that since too human happened
 

fred

Member
Nintendo could use something like Eternal Darkness 2 right now. Though I don't blame them for not giving Denis Dyack any money.

It wouldn't surprise me if they have someone working on it. I'm also expecting at least two out of the following given the Wind Waker HD treatment: Eternal Darkness HD, Paper Mario Thousand Year Door HD, Wave Race HD or F-Zero GX HD.

After the bucketloads of profit they made from Wind Waker HD it's a no-brainer for them to do more with their conversion software. I'd really like to see them making this software available to third parties too.
 

2+2=5

The Amiga Brotherhood
Can someone explain to me why on gaf abload.de is so popular? Damn is so irritating! It's slow, puts an ad over the image and when i close it it opens a window with ads!
Please gaf use something else!
 

foxuzamaki

Doesn't read OPs, especially not his own
If they were making it, it was seemingly without a publisher attached.

Which sounds exactly like the kind of crazy bullshit Dyack would do.

There's no way they were actively working on it.
The "demo" they showed us for their kickstarter was the exact same demo they showed Nintendo years ago.
They may have been saying they were working on it, but not like a real studio works on a game.

Idk, from what I remember there were a rumor or 2 going around that was getting alot of legs that ED2 was in development, than out of nowhere nintendo reupdated their eternal darkness IP which made the rumors even stronger, than soon after that, SK lost their case with epic and we started hearing that nintendo didnt want to deal with SK after that, and than right after we got that huge story on SK and their relationship with nintendo and their eventual downfall.
 
Can someone explain to me why on gaf abload.de is so popular? Damn is so irritating! It's slow, puts an ad over the image and when i close it it opens a window with ads!
Please gaf use something else!

Use adblock? I never had that happen to me using abload.de.

Edit: I guess he links to a page instead of the direct link. I can see your point there.

I really wished ED2 was a thing by now. I doubt we'll ever see it though.
 
How is Silicon Knights still in existence? Makes absolutely no sense, unless they are siphoning all that money they got from the government a few years back
 

Riki

Member
How is Silicon Knights still in existence? Makes absolutely no sense, unless they are siphoning all that money they got from the government a few years back

They essentially aren't in existence.
It's Dyack and like two other guys pitching ideas that no one wants.
 
Really sad, the outcome of Silicon Knights. (Factor 5 too)

Why they ever thought abandoning their fan base was a sound financial decision is beyond me. Better to be a big fish in a small pond than just another fish in a school. Oh well.

I'd like to see the IP rebooted by Next Level.
 

Nessus

Member
It's hard to imagine a more poorly managed company than SK.

What did they think they were going to gain by suing Epic?

And if the Kotaku article is to be believed, incredibly unprofessional day to day operations, fraud, etc. It's like Dyack intentionally ran it into the ground.

Even at the time it seemed like they were making a mistake by not sticking with Nintendo. The only reason they got as much exposure as they did was because they were one of the only devs making mature exclusives for GameCube and because Nintendo held them to a higher standard. Apparently they really needed that.
 

Loofy

Member
Obviously i wouldnt totally trust an anonymous source, but a lot of people have been saying that since too human happened
Eternal Darkness was the same. Apparently the game was crap until Miyamoto flew over from Japan and made major changes to the gameplay.
 

L Thammy

Member
Hahaha this is quite different from your typical cancelled game thread. Why do people hate Silicon Knights?

Well, there's this. Beyond that, fans don't have much confidence in their ability to make the sequel. Too much mishandling of the company. That's probably part of why the Shadows of the Eternals kickstarter campaigns failed, although the high goals certainly didn't help.
 

Astral Dog

Member
I loved ED, but i dont see how it can be a true sequel without some part of the original team, even if Next level games or Retro were making it, it may be very good but also too different, unless there was some sort of collaboration, and Nintendo would probably want to invest in other things
Maybe a remastered version
 

Shiggy

Member
Can someone explain to me why on gaf abload.de is so popular? Damn is so irritating! It's slow, puts an ad over the image and when i close it it opens a window with ads!
Please gaf use something else!

What alternative are you suggesting? I actually don't have those issues with Abload.de.


Use adblock? I never had that happen to me using abload.de.

Edit: I guess he links to a page instead of the direct link. I can see your point there.

I really wished ED2 was a thing by now. I doubt we'll ever see it though.

With that many images, I did not want to link to every picture individually.
 
I loved ED, but i dont see how it can be a true sequel without some part of the original team, even if Next level games or Retro were making it, it may be very good but also too different, unless there was some sort of collaboration, and Nintendo would probably want to invest in other things
Maybe a remastered version
Probably best to not pigeonhole either Retro or Next Level. Looking at the projects they've worked in, they're nothing if not versatile.
 

Astral Dog

Member
Probably best to not pigeonhole either Retro or Next Level. Looking at the projects they've worked in, they're nothing if not versatile.

Im not saying they wouldn't do a good job with the gameplay and graphics, but what made ED good to me were the characters, setting and story, and those development teams would need a little outside help

It could be good but its very unlikely to ever happen and sounds strange to me :/
 

also

Banned
It's too bad that Shadow of Eternal's kickstarter failed. That Kotaku article with no named sources really destroyed Dyack's reputation.
Eternal Darkness was the same. Apparently the game was crap until Miyamoto flew over from Japan and made major changes to the gameplay.
ED is highly regarded for its word and characters not for its mediocre gameplay. Unless Miyamoto came up with the ''sanity effects'' system, he couldn't have improved the game much.
 
It's too bad that Shadow of Eternal's kickstarter failed. That Kotaku article with no named sources really destroyed Dyack's reputation.

ED is highly regarded for its word and characters not for its mediocre gameplay. Unless Miyamoto came up with the ''sanity effects'' system, he couldn't have improved the game much.

Pretty much

The soundtrack and Voice acting were pretty ACE.
 

Discomurf

Member
Wait no, the relevant Kotaku article (it's a good read if you haven't read it) implies that the ED2 demo took a year and was two rooms.


Which were most likely the exact same 2 rooms (or so) they showed off in the Shadow of the Eternals demo.

The whole thing makes me sad... ED was one of favorite games I ever played. Easily one of Nintendo's best second party developers. Just think about the games Silicon Knights and Factor 5 would be producing today for the Wii U. What a shame.
 

Gleethor

Member
Which were most likely the exact same 2 rooms (or so) they showed off in the Shadow of the Eternals demo.

The whole thing makes me sad... ED was one of favorite games I ever played. Easily one of Nintendo's best second party developers. Just think about the games Silicon Knights and Factor 5 would be producing today for the Wii U. What a shame.

I blame Too Human and Lair.
 
The whole thing makes me sad... ED was one of favorite games I ever played. Easily one of Nintendo's best second party developers. Just think about the games Silicon Knights and Factor 5 would be producing today for the Wii U. What a shame.
It's sad, but it's entirely F5/SK's fault. Why anyone would effectively shit in their food bowl like that can't have any business sense.

"Hey guys, let's move our focus over to HD development. Sure our projects will cost 9x as much to produce, sure we're throwing away our Nintendo safety net, sure no one knows who the hell we are on these other platforms...but it makes so much sense!"
 
SK was really good at world building and concepts...not so much everything else. They really, really struggled in the GCN -> Xbox 360 transition. I still dig their art.

It's sad, but it's entirely F5/SK's fault. Why anyone would effectively shit in their food bowl like that can't have any business sense.

"Hey guys, let's move our focus over to HD development. Sure our projects will cost 9x as much to produce, sure we're throwing away our Nintendo safety net, sure no one knows who the hell we are on these other platforms...but it makes so much sense!"

Well, they'd likely be stuck making Yoshi, Kirby, and Star Fox games. A different kind of death, but death all the same.
 
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