If you hate long, meandering, nigh-pointless internal dialogue that’s all shoot-from-the-hip then I’d say you should either run away or just scroll down, type TL;DR, and peace out.

The Promise

Shadow of the Eternals will be an episodic, horror adventure action game developed by Precursor Games (which is seemingly made up of Silicon Knights remains). It is the self-appointed spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness. Each episode (total of 12) will have roughly 2-4 hours of gameplay. The game is crowdsourced, and will incorporate content “created” by those who help fund the game. If you submit an idea on the forums, and the fans like it, the developers want to include it.

Denis Dyack says this new company is letting him focus purely on creativity and creation, rather than business.

The Past

I’m looking at the Precursor Games website right now. 6.58% of 1.5 million funded. 30 days left. No, I’m not considering pledging my support – but it’s not because I disagree with Dennis Dyack. Will Shadow of the Eternals reach its goal?

Probably. But not before we hear the rage of the internet. The comments on websites showing the trailer for the game, on IGN’s gameplay demo and just on forums here and there show well enough what the core temperature is. No one’s forgotten about that Kotaku article yet…

Many have already pointed out that the Shadow of the Eternals trailer we’ve seen appears to be quite similar to the secretly developed Eternal Darkness 2 demo described in that fateful article. Now, before I continue, I’m going to come right out and say I couldn’t give less of a fuck that Silicon Knights lied to their publisher and spent time developing this Eternal Darkness 2 demo instead of focusing on the well-known shitware that was X-Men Destiny. Sorry duders. The morality of that decision isn’t what I’m interested in really. Frankly I’ve worked in enough companies and known enough employees of bigger companies to know that this “strategic reallocation of resources” is nothing special, in this industry or the next. Is it right? No. Does it need to happen? Probably not. Is it a known issue? Yep. Did it *really* blow up in SK’s face? Oh yeah.

It’s really only the mistreatment of employees that rubs me the wrong way – but again, nothing in MacMillan’s Kotaku article, from leaving employees off of the credits to a creative director who miscommunicates, excommunicates, and simply doesn’t *get* what is going on with his team and how to best direct them – none of this is new. Or it didn't strike me as new. The issue of crediting in games is a big problem (there are a million stories, here's a famous one from years back), just like all the layoffs we’re crying about every few weeks. In his article MacMillan makes reference to another he penned about Team Bondi (L.A. Noire) – this is worth remembering; here too we have many employees left overworked, uncredited and angry. But of course no one is shitting on Whore of the Orient. Dyack, of course, unlike whoever heads Team Bondi, famously took to forums to defend his games on numerous occasions, and this definitely helped cement him as an unlikable, evil, Bizzaro Vinny. Oh and there was that lawsuit too…

Anyways. I’m not here to excuse Dennis Dyack. Forget that shit. I just don’t think he’s special. Him or his poorly run business. You think his wife was the only family connection working at a game company? You think he’s the only boss who bad mouths his ex-employees? You think he’s the only developer who thinks “artists are a dime a dozen”? What – did I die and wake up in a perfect world? What year is it?

Sigh.

Denis Dyack… Are you worth hating a game over? I know, in my heart of hearts, that Denis Dyack did not make Eternal Darkness. He was responsible for it, at least, but a game like that does not fall from one man’s fingertips. I feel the same way when I look at Shadow of the Eternals. Who really owns a game? The fans? The owner of the company? The man or woman who planted the idea seed? Or every hand that ever touched it, credited or not? Most importantly: can we have an Eternal Darkness without Dyack?

Looking at the (very short) list of Precursor team members, I can see they all worked on either X-Men or Too Human. Two worked on Eternal Darkness outside Dyack. If these aren’t the people to make the “right” sequel to Eternal Darkness, who is? And will we ever hear from them? Maybe this is a product of the demo being made so long ago but I’ll be honest and say Shadow of the Eternals does look like the sequel to Eternal Darkness, as hard as it is to describe what about it gives that feeling. Something about the character models?

Should You Support Shadow of the Eternals?

Maybe. The fact that it’s not through Kickstarter (no Canadians allowed damn it!) may scare you and the fact that Silicon Knights, er, Precursor, will keep all money raised regardless of whether they reach their goal or not, probably should scare you. That said, it does say somewhere on their website that if it is clear they don’t have enough to make the game they will refund donors. So! Chew on that?

One thing that’s confusing is this: why would subsequent episodes cost less to make than this first one? Again: the team is exceedingly small, and if this trailer we saw *is* the demo that was developed all those years ago… uh... see where I’m going with this? Maybe this 1.5 million is for hiring? Or is this money actually for development of the following episodes? Questions – so many questions! All in all I find it hard to believe that figure is an honest number. This is a growing issue for me with crowdfunded games. I don’t understand why developers aren’t more transparent – the answer, probably, is they just don’t need to be. Will Precursor ask for a million for each episode, making it a 12-15 million dollar game? That makes a little more sense to me.

Conclusions

As I gaze into the palantir on my desk I see two lessons, two futures, ahead of us. In one we learn the bastard cost of legacy. Had X-Men Destiny been developed by some joker like Brad Muir probably we would have all said “sure, makes sense,” and shrugged. But it wasn’t. It was made by Silicon Knights. If Too Human was a new IP from an unknown developer like, uh… Brad Muir… then – well you know! My point is Eternal Darkness is a 10,000 pound anchor and we, the fans, are the ship tethered to it. I guess that makes Dyack the storm? (What the hell am I even talking about now?) Ok, I remember: legacy is a bitch. The history of Silicon Knights has paid massive dividends to the developer, in terms of success, not really, but in terms of attention, yes. This whirlwind surrounding Shadow of the Eternals is largely incidental. The team that made Eternal Darkness is gone. Time has passed. Why should we believe the quality of that game would influence this one? It’s entirely likely this game comes out and is bad; it’s also possible this game simply does not come out.

But there is another future: what if Shadow of the Eternals comes out – and is good. What if the whole season is great? I love Eternal Darkness to hell. I want to want to play Eternal Darkness 2. And if I hear from all around that Shadow *is* a true successor – then what? Do I “forgive” Dyack (if ever there was something to forgive)? Or do I go back to the idea that the game was never his anyways; that its success or failure as a game, like the original, is not entirely up to him (poor management be damned).

But then – if that’s true – why all this writing in the first place? If the quality of a game is independent of the man who calls himself head honcho – why do I care about him at all? Why do I care about any one developer? Gut tells me that as fans, we want to root for a person. Like a director. Or actor. In games we have people like Ken Levine, Tim Schafer and Will Wright - but these guys barely make the games they make. The idea, or most of it, or part of it, is theirs. But the makers are many more...

So here's to you, game makers far and wide: programmers, artists, sound engineers, and the rest of you whose job positions I don't even know exist. Whether you worked for Silicon Knights, Team Bondi, Irrational or whomever: Sorry. Your hard work shouldn't be reduced to one person, either in a negative, or positive way. It's hard to see how this could ever change, but I, at least, will do my best to honor the team and the game.

Peace be with all of y'all.