All Articles: Shadow of the Eternals

Shadow of the Eternals lives on at Quantum Entanglement Entertainment

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Shadow of the Eternals, a spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness, was put “on hold” more than a year ago after two failed Kickstarter campaigns and other development woes. But now, development on the title has begun again thanks to Quantum Entanglement Entertainment (which is also known as QE2).

Quantum Entanglement Entertainment is a new media conglomerate that will attempt to produce games, films, and television shows all under the same roof. The gaming division will be lead by Denis Dyack, the founder of Silicon Knights (the developer behind Eternal Darkness) and the former Chief Creative Officer of Precursor Games (the original developer behind Shadow of the Eternals).

The Shadow of the Eternals page on Quantum Entanglement’s website is currently rather sparse, containing just a few screenshots and a pair of trailers originally released last year. The game was originally in development for the PC, PS4, and Wii U using Crytek’s CryEngine, but it’s unknown if that’s still the case.

Hopefully, we’ll learn more about the future of Shadow of the Eternals soon.

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Precursor puts Shadow of the Eternals on hold

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It looks like the dream of a spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness is dead. Or, at the very least, in a very deep sleep.

Precursor’s Denis Dyack has announced, via the company’s Official Forums, that Shadow of the Eternals has been put “on hold.” Most of the team will be taking a break, though the forums will remain in place for those who want to talk about a game that will likely never come out. Though that might not be fair as Dyack also said: “Is the project dead? No, but we feel it needs a rest too. We have all agreed as a group that when and if the time is right we will get together and start it up again.”

But after two failed Kickstarter campaigns, I’m not sure it’ll be that easy.

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Precursor relaunches Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter campaign with no episodic content

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The first time Precursor Games tried to obtain funding for Shadow of the Eternals, their spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness, they had a tough time. When the campaign was suspended last month, backers had pledged only 10% of the requested $1.35 million total.

Today, the developers are back with a second shot at Kickstarter glory, but with some major changes to their pitch. The new Shadow of the Eternals will be no longer be released in an episodic fashion. Precursor is now stating that they will create a complete 8-10 hour game if their funding goal (which has been lowered to $750,000) is reached. David Hayter, the former voice of Solid Snake, has also been brought aboard as the voice of Detective Paul Becker, the game’s main character. Finally, Precursor will bring the game to the PS4 if they reach an unnamed stretch goal.

The rest of the pitch looks very similar to what we saw before, including a level that takes place in Csejthe Castle (home of Elizabeth Bathory, “The Blood Countess”), the Sanity Events, and an action-adventure look that is very reminiscent of Eternal Darkness. If all goes well, Precursor expects to release the game sometime in the Fall of 2014.

The Kickstarter campaign for Shadow of the Eternals will run through Friday, August 23. As of this writing, just a hair over $40,000 has been pledged towards the project.

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Precursor plans to suspend Shadow of the Eternals crowdfunding campaign

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Precursor Games’ crowdfunding campaign for Shadow of the Eternals hasn’t been going well. With 13 days to go, the developer’s Kickstarter campaign has only raised $127,962 in pledges, which is less than 10% of their $1,350,000 goal (an additional $157,345 has been raised through a PayPal campaign).

But perhaps all is not lost.

In an update on the Precursor Games website, CEO Paul Caporicci has announced that the Kickstarter campaign will be suspended on Thursday, June 6 because of “a host of new exciting opportunities” that have become available.

Caporicci wouldn’t go into specifics, but he did say that we’ll all learn about it soon, when the Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter campaign is relaunched in a few weeks. All current donations that came in through the Kickstarter campaign and via PayPal will be refunded.

So has a big-name publisher agreed to fund Shadow of the Eternals? Because it certainly sounds like that’s the case.

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Shadow of the Eternals crowdfunding campaign is now on Kickstarter

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Precursor Games is no longer going it alone for their Shadow of the Eternals crowdfunding campaign. “Due to popular demand,” the developer is now seeking additional funding through Kickstarter. Even with a Kickstarter campaign in full force, the fundraising campaign on their own site (and the PayPal payment option not available through Kickstarter to go with it) is still available. Precursor had collected about 10% of the $1.5 million goal through the campaign on their own site. So the goal for their Kickstarter campaign has been adjusted downwards to $1.35 million (as of this writing, 115 backers have pledged $7,397 towards it). Everything else about the two campaigns are identical.

The “spiritual sequel” to Eternal Darkness has fans of the GameCube title excited, but many were wary of Precursor’s ties to Silicon Knights (specifically Denis Dyack’s involvement in both companies), which had a history of monetary problems. The jump to Kickstarter (and it’s strict backer protection policy) is, at least in part, likely a response to their concerns.

The Shadow of the Eternals Kickstarter campaign will conclude on Wednesday, June 19.

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Shadow of the Eternals uses art assets from Silicon Knights’ Eternal Darkness 2 project

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Before Silicon Knights went under, it was widely known that the company was working on Eternal Darkness 2. As far as anyone knows, Nintendo never signed off on the project and Silicon Knights was developing it in hopes of getting Nintendo interested down the line.

Obviously, that never happened and a core group of developers from the company broke off and formed Precursor Games, which launched their crowdfunding campaign for Shadow of the Eternals, a “spiritual successor” to Eternal Darkness, earlier this week. But according to CEO Paul Caporicci, there’s more than just the spirit of Eternal Darkness in Shado of the Eternals visuals.

Speaking to Wired, the developer said: “We did purchase some art assets from Silicon Knights and we were very happy to be able to put those assets created by the talented past employees to use.” Caporicci would go on to say that Precursor is only using art assets from Eternal Darkness 2 and that the rest of the game completed so far has been recoded using CryEngine 3.

Shadow of the Eternals’ crowdfunding campaign is currently available through Precursor’s official website and currently sits at 8.8% funded (a little over $132,000) with 27 days left.

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Shadow of the Eternals crowdfunding campaign has begun

As promised, Precursor Games has released the first details about Shadow of the Eternals and launched the crowdfunding campaign for their spiritual successor to Eternal Darkness. In a neat twist on the crowdfunding model, Precursor has decided to independently run the campaign themselves rather than going with Kickstarter or one of its many competitors.

So if you head over to the Shadow of the Eternals website, you’ll be greeted by the campaign video above and a request for $1.5 million. As we found out Friday, the developer plans to release the game episodically, and the campaign will cover the first episode, which Precursor is calling the “Pilot Episode.” If all goes well, a Summer 2014 release for the CryEngine 3-powered game on the PC and Wii U is planned.

The “Pilot Episode” will take place at Elizabeth Bathory’s home in medieval Hungary, Cachtice Castle. The year is 1610 and the “Blood Countess” has been terrorizing her subjects with abductions and ritualistic killings for 25 years. A first look at the game, with commentary from Denis Dyack, can be found at IGN.

The Precursor team is made up almost exclusively of former Silicon Knights developers. So while Shadow of the Eternals isn’t a direct sequel to the GameCube classic, it’s probably as close as we’ll ever get.

As of 3:15 PM (Eastern Time), the campaign has been active for a little over three hours with over $31,000 (or 2.1%) in pledges. So we might just get it.

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Eternal Darkness spiritual successor in development at Precursor Games

Eternal Darkness holds a special place in the hearts of many Nintendo fanatics. The GameCube game made excellent use of Lovecraftian horror and introduced an absolutely mindbending sense of trickery to the survival horror genre. The fact that it was published by Nintendo just added to the insanity (pun intended). So naturally, fans have been clamoring for a sequel ever sense.

While it likely won’t be published by Nintendo, we may just get one.

Denis Dyack and the rest of his Precursor Games team unveiled a teaser trailer for Shadow of the Eternals on IGN yesterday. Eternals is officially billed as a “spiritual successor” to Eternal Darkness, but it is currently planned for release on the Wii U and PC. The complete game will be broken down into 12 episodes, and a crowdfunding campaign will begin on Monday, May 6 in an attempt to fund the first one. Precursor is seeking $1.5 million to help them develop Shadow of the Eternals: Episode One.

It’s likely that Dyack began working on Shadow of the Eternals while he was still at Silicon Knights, the original creators of Eternal Darkness.

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