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Eternal Darkness Director Denis Dyack Would Like to See a Remaster

IbizaPocholo

NeoGAFs Kent Brockman

Dyack was featured as a guest of YouTuber Kiwi Talkz. During their conversation, the pair touched on several things Eternal Darkness related. Among the topics discussed were the game's lackluster sales, Eternal Darkness' influences, and the fact that the project was almost canceled by Nintendo before its eventual release. But with the current gaming landscape embracing remakes so passionately, Dyack was asked his thoughts on a potential Eternal Darkness remake.

Around the 17:30 mark of Dyack's interview, Kiwi Talkz brings up the potential idea of an Eternal Darkness remake coming to fruition following the success of Metroid Prime Remastered on Nintendo Switch. Dyack agrees by saying he does believe a remake would resonate with fans and that he does get asked about it all the time. He concludes the topic with "Who knows, maybe someday."

Dyack also briefly spoke on what made Eternal Darkness unique during its 2002 launch window on GameCube. He stated that he and his team at Silicon Knights "were doing Lovecraft before it was cool" and noted that Lovecraftian horror themes are almost pop culture now. He posited that games like Eternal Darkness and the studio's prior hit, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, aren't being made anymore - though Embracer Group has asked fans if there's demand. This is why his current development team, Apocalypse Studios, is targeting the genre once again with their upcoming free-to-play narrative-driven action RPG, Deadhaus Sonata.

Dyack mentioned that Eternal Darkness had around a 33% console share on the GameCube, meaning that about one copy of the game was sold per every three consoles. He noted that this was among the best attach rates on Nintendo's underperforming GameCube console, outside of Nintendo's first-party roster, of course. Eternal Darkness is commonly regarded as one of the better psychological horror games to ever be released. The game also ranks as one of few titles on Metacritic to receive a score of over 90 to never receive a sequel.



  • 🎮 Denis Dyack directed games such as Blood Omen Legacy of Kain, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, and Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and is currently working on Deadhaus Sonata.
  • 🥋 Dyack was a Canadian Taekwondo champion and did various martial arts, including wrestling for Brock University. He wanted to make video games but put himself through university in computer science and obtained a degree in physical education first.
  • 🎬 Dyack was influenced by Bruce Lee's philosophy and loved martial arts and horror movies.
  • 🕹️ While martial arts and wrestling did not directly influence his work in video games, his love of action and horror genres is reflected in the games he directs.
  • 🕹️ Eternal Darkness on GameCube sold well from a penetration point of view, but the GameCube was Nintendo's worst selling console at the time.
  • 🕹️ Denis Dyack's favorite movie of all time is John Carpenter's The Thing, which performed poorly at the box office but became his most iconic movie.
  • 🕹️ Many people consider Eternal Darkness to be their favorite game of all time, including some people who worked on the project at Nintendo. Dyack believes the game was ahead of its time in terms of quantum mechanics, replayability, and Lovecraftian themes.
  • 🕹️ Dyack believes a remastered version of Eternal Darkness would sell well and has mentioned that the game could benefit from a Metroid Prime-style remaster.
  • 🕹️ Deadhaus Sonata is a game that Dyack and his team are working on, with the goal of creating the "Holy Grail" of narrative games like Eternal Darkness and Legacy of Kain. They believe that games like these are not being made anymore, and that there is a demand for them.
  • 🕹️ Dyack acknowledges that it would be impossible for his team to develop a remastered version of Eternal Darkness or oversee its development, but he does not rule out the possibility of a third-party studio taking on the project.
  • 🎮 Dyack describes two schools of thought on game development: Japanese development-driven approach and Western marketing-driven approach.
  • 🎮 Nintendo is an example of a company that prioritizes development-driven philosophy.
  • 🎮 Western companies tend to create games with huge marketing budgets that come before development.
  • 🎮 Dyack believes that the most engaging part of a game should be the starting point of development, and that this philosophy is more common in Japan.
  • 🎮 The Western model of creating games results in many failures due to a focus on quantity over quality.
  • 🎮 Nintendo, Sony, and other companies with development-driven philosophies tend to create higher quality games.
  • 🎮 Microsoft is an example of a company that prioritizes quantity over quality when it comes to game development.
  • 🎮 Dyack's story of how the Metal Gear Solid collaboration between Konami and Nintendo started.
  • 🎮 Kojima believes in focusing on the experience they will give to gamers, hence the internal discussions on what unique experience they can give to Nintendo gamers through Metal Gear.
  • 🎮 The collaboration was unique as it involved three companies working together and bringing in all of their worlds together to create a unique project.
  • 🎮 The decision to add the first-person mode in Twin Snakes was made after a discussion between Kojima and Dyack. The aim was to give gamers a unique experience, and although it made the boss fights easier, they went with it as it adds to the overall experience.
  • 🎮 The Easter egg with Mario and Yoshi was a collaboration between the team, and everything has to be approved by everyone. The collaboration was one of the most memorable things about the project, and everyone was very willing to cooperate.
  • 🎮 Denis Dyack explains the difficulty of world building in video games and how it is much harder than writing in the Aristotle's way, where most Hollywood writers come from.
  • 🎮 He states that creating a game with extensive world building involves years of research, building a foundation before even creating the basic storyline that may adapt and change.
  • 🎮 Dyack uses Deadhaus Sonata as an example of how they've done a lot of research on the different types of undead, categorizing them and creating different hierarchies of gods.
  • 🎮 There will be eight other houses in the game, and they have created hours of radio plays outside of the game to give people an idea of the universe they're creating.
  • 🎮 Dyack states that they're creating a really Grim world where it's better off to be dead than alive and that the game should be an extremely engaging experience for everybody plot-wise.
  • 🎮 Dyack explains that, unlike AAA products, the free-to-play model allows them to iterate with their audience and community once they've launched the game.
  • 🎮 The idea is to present narrative in a very different way than what people have seen before and that Legacy of Kane is an excellent example of this. Everything was voice-acted by professional actors and had no text, and this is how they plan to propel the narrative forward in Deadhaus Sonata.
  • 🎶 The game Deadhaus Sonata has musical references in its name and gameplay, such as a blood chant and chants and songs used for spells cast by characters.
  • 🧙‍♂️ The use of music in storytelling is inspired by the structure of a classical Sonata and old Egyptian manuscripts that mention priests using singing to levitate stones and cut them.
  • 🌎 The game's ambition is to bring people together through a common love of music and storytelling, without preaching to anyone or dictating how they should think.
  • 🥩 The creators aim to provide a lot of depth to the game's story, offering "meat on the bone" for players to enjoy.
 

Power Pro

Member
obi-wan-star-wars.gif
 
The IP is Nintendo property, right? So Switch is the only possible platform? So a quick upscaled, fresh textured remaster shouldn't be that hard. Maybe some tesselation possible too?
But I much rather have either a spiritual successor, or a properly extended I-am-not-a-remake Perpetual Dusk, ie experiencing more characters. It is almost kind of Assassins Creed with the different time periods but all fused in one game.
 

KàIRóS

Member
The lackluster sales of that game will forever remain as one of the biggest mysteries in the gaming industry, critically acclaimed 9+ scores everywhere, featured heavily on Nintendo magazines and with basically no survival horror competition on the GC other than Resident Evil and it still didn't sell.

Would be nice but I dont think it's happening, just play it on 4k on Dolphin honestly.
 

Spaceman292

Banned
"He stated that he and his team at Silicon Knights "were doing Lovecraft before it was cool""
Fuck off, Dyack. The Lurking Fear and Alone in the Dark did Lovecraft way before you, and Sandy Petersen did it before that.

I love Eternal Darkness, though, and would love a remaster/sequel.
It wasn't the first, but he still did Lovecraft before Lovecraft was cool. They got there before you could buy Cthuhlu plushies.
 
The lackluster sales of that game will forever remain as one of the biggest mysteries in the gaming industry, critically acclaimed 9+ scores everywhere, featured heavily on Nintendo magazines and with basically no survival horror competition on the GC other than Resident Evil and it still didn't sell.
isn't he saying here the opposite?
had around a 33% console share on the GameCube, meaning that about one copy of the game was sold per every three consoles. He noted that this was among the best attach rates on Nintendo's underperforming GameCube console, outside of Nintendo's first-party roster
So the "mystery" would just be that it did actually reasonable well, just the numbers of the GC itself were the problem.
 

Bragr

Banned
isn't he saying here the opposite?

So the "mystery" would just be that it did actually reasonable well, just the numbers of the GC itself were the problem.
Pretty sure Dyack is either lying or has no idea what he is talking about.

The gamecube sold 21 million. 33% of that would be 6-7 million. But on the wiki, it says Eternal Darkness sold less than half a million.
 

Ulysses 31

Member
It would need a Metriod Prime level of remaster, I'm playing through the OG and I don't think many would put up with those graphics if they started gaming from PS4 and up.
 

MagiusNecros

Gilgamesh Fan Annoyance
He should probably focus more on Deadhaus Sonata. Like even if Deadhaus doesn't become anything the audiologs that is centered around the Vampire enemy types and Alaric the Inquisitor is superb.

He kinda made people upset when Shadows of the Eternals was canned.
 

Drizzlehell

Banned
I only ever heard about these fourth wall breaking glitches in this game which was probably a cool novelty back in the analogue days of gaming, but curiously enough I never hear anyone praising this for the story or gameplay. Which kinda tells me that these sanity glitches were the only notable gimmick and the game itself is pretty mid at best.
 

Draugoth

Gold Member
A remake would make more sense.

An updated insanity system would make the game sell like hot water in this horror gaming renaissance
 

Astral Dog

Member
I’m so tired of hearing about this, in my opinion, overrated game.
In terms of 'atmosphere' its amazing,a very unique experience and innovative survival horror game, actual gameplay wise its not so good,average at best and the 3 campaings concept while interesting,was just padding that it came out of Nintendo of all companies is the biggest mystery

I reslly liked Eternal Darkness,a remaster would be cool to see but as an IP its pretty much dead with no use for Nintendo (i remember the rumors that Retro Studios was eorking on Eternal Darkness 2 lol,its like people don't understand what made ED good)
 
Pretty sure Dyack is either lying or has no idea what he is talking about.

The gamecube sold 21 million. 33% of that would be 6-7 million. But on the wiki, it says Eternal Darkness sold less than half a million.
okay, maybe 33% at the time of release and then sales did not have legs like other Nintendo titles, no idea. Anyhow, 1/2 mio doesn't sound really bad for a GC game. I think any game over a million was considered great success at that time still and I assume 1/2 would be perfectly okay and only 100k might be problematic.
I only ever heard about these fourth wall breaking glitches in this game which was probably a cool novelty back in the analogue days of gaming, but curiously enough I never hear anyone praising this for the story or gameplay. Which kinda tells me that these sanity glitches were the only notable gimmick and the game itself is pretty mid at best.
The game had great atmosphere. Maybe a bit rose tinted nostalgia glasses, but I don't remember much about most games especially a bit older ones, but in the church with bombing in the background, that was great af for its time. Also starting as a Roman, and wandering around different time eras with different characters afterwards was quite unique for my younger self, and still feels like not many games have even tried to do something similar and kind of nailing it already on GC is quite neat.
 
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Bragr

Banned
I only ever heard about these fourth wall breaking glitches in this game which was probably a cool novelty back in the analogue days of gaming, but curiously enough I never hear anyone praising this for the story or gameplay. Which kinda tells me that these sanity glitches were the only notable gimmick and the game itself is pretty mid at best.
The gameplay is bad, it has a terrible combat system that was poor when it was released and is virtually game-breaking today. That's why it would need to get a remake and not a remaster, they need to build a new combat system.

BUT, the story and setting are absolutely the real deal. It is a special game, dripping with atmosphere and mystery.

 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
It bothers gamers Nintendo threw the hammer on eternal darkness I get remastering eternal darkness, re4 is on and on. I would yes.
 
The gameplay is bad, it has a terrible combat system that was poor when it was released and is virtually game-breaking today. That's why it would need to get a remake and not a remaster, they need to build a new combat system.

BUT, the story and setting are absolutely the real deal. It is a special game, dripping with atmosphere and mystery.


Don't agree on that one fully. I replayed it maybe three years back and I actually think, while janky, the combat holds up better than some other survival horror games for me. The limb targeting is pretty cool and actually works quite well without too many issues. I like the tactical aspect of being able to chop a zombie's head off so they can't "green light" your ass and cause your panic meter to go down and so on, thought it was a cool touch.

The one big gripe I do have is that the spell system can be really obtuse. Like sometimes you'll have a color-coded enemy, use a spell of that variety and nothing. Meanwhile you're getting smashed in the encounter while fumbling trying out every spell that takes time.

100% with you on the story, setting and aesthetics. It's incredibly atmospheric at every turn and the whole idea of playing the locations in different time periods rules. My favorite has always been the church during the bombing.

Either way, I'd buy the absolute shit out of a remaster.
 

Majukun

Member
i know the game has follwing, but i didn't like it that much...some of the insanity effects were cool, but since you had on screen the meter at all time, it was almost impossible to be caught by surprise by them..even when the game suddenly dropped you into unwinnable battles, it was often too obvious

in the combat being able to target different parts could have been really cool if they ever gave you a reason to do so, instead you would always go for the head because a blind opponent lost all it's threat immediately.
the magic system was also pretty simplistic, with bigger circles of runes just being filled with the "power" rune for higher versions.

if with the remake they manage to make those parts actually compelling it could be a great game though
 
Semi-warm take: ALL of the legendary horror games from that generation and the next need remakes.

I will 100% solidify this take when Silent Hill 2 remake ends up just as good as the Dead Space and RE4 remakes.
 

Knightime_X

Member
Remaster or remake?
Remaster is just an hd port, sometimes with some graphical enhancements that mostly retains original source material.

A remake is built from the ground up.

Wish devs would learn the difference between the two.
 
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Rran

Member
Eternal Darkness is great. The combat is reasonably fun, but the atmosphere, writing, voice acting and story are top-notch. I'd love to see a sequel.

Dyack did have a falling out on NeoGAF back in the day, but keep in mind this place used to be full of people who now post on Resetera.
 

Puscifer

Gold Member
Is he the guy who got sued to stone age by Epic???
There's a response from EviLore EviLore tearing him a new asshole if you check the best of threads lol.



 
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