Riddick: Dark Athena Back On, Courtesy of Atari

Say what you want about the Chronicles of Riddick movie, but I'm comfortable asserting that Escape From Butcher Bay, the game based on the flick, is one of the best movie tie-in games ever. Maybe the best. So I was chuffed (chuffed!) about Assault on Dark Athena, a remake of Riddick for current consoles. At least, I was chuffed until Activision-Blizzard divested itself of a bunch of Vivendi's old properties a few months ago, leaving Dark Athena twisting in the wind with no publisher and no certain future.

My friends, we are in luck. Variety's Cut Scene blog reports that Dark Athena is back on, thanks to new publisher Atari. Better yet, it sounds like they're beefing the game way up.

I spoke with Bill Kispert, head of interactive for Universal, which owns the "Riddick" rights, and he promised even those of us who have played "Butcher Bay" will get our money's worth from "Athena's" new campaign and multi-player.

"Originally it was just a remake, but we started thinking more and felt that wasn't super compelling," he explained. "the new campaign is robust, it's not an extra mission or two. It has a storyline, new characters, new locations, new weapons."

He added that he's really excited about the multi-player too and promises it will give fans "something a little different" than what they're used to in multi-player.

Solid! I would gladly play through the same old Riddick game again in HD and with achievements, so all this new content is just fancy icing on an already delicious cake. Look for Dark Athena to hit early next year.