Starbreeze Lead Designer talks about The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

Speaking to IGN, Starbreeze Studios Lead Designer Ian Stevens revealed that one of the main reasons of the company for embarking on a Chronicles of Riddick remake with The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena instead making a new game in the franchise was because of backward compatibility issues. To be specific, the designer was talking about the backwards compatibility issues of the original video game with the Xbox 360. Stevens expounded:

For a while we were trying to get the original game onto the backwards compatibility list for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft seemed to have some pretty fair reasons why it couldn’t do it. We were disappointed with that conclusion and we’ve seen the same disappointment in the community, so we felt compelled to find some kind of way around that.

But this wasn’t the only reason. Developers of the game also hesitated with moving forward too quickly and making a sequel. Stevens said that the story they had to tell in Escape from Butcher Bay was an important one for them, so they felt that they had to get that story to a larger audience before moving the story significantly forward.

As you already know, it was said that they’ll be carrying over a lot of content from the Director’s Cut of the first game, but that’s as far as it goes. They’ll be adding a lot of new things to Assault on Dark Athena, particularly with the single player experience of the game. As for the length of the added content, all Ian Stevens hinted on was that they went for depth instead of quantity on this one.

When it came to gameplay, it was said that they’ll be adding more weapons, but that was all the Lead Designer could say for the moment. The same goes for additional side-quests – he couldn’t talk about it yet. Don’t worry though, they’ll be keeping a lot of what worked in the previous game, particularly the stealth elements.

If you’re wondering if the remake will look any better, Ian Stevens said they’re using the engine they used in The Darkness, and you all know how well the introduction of that one turned out.

As for the major differences in the Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Sony PS3 versions of the game, Ian Stevens couldn’t talk about that either. Neither could he talk about the E3 appearance. Stevens did assure IGN though that an E3 appearance is “always being discussed”.

For the complete interview just click on the “read” link below.

Speaking to IGN, Starbreeze Studios Lead Designer Ian Stevens revealed that one of the main reasons of the company for embarking on a Chronicles of Riddick remake with The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena instead making a new game in the franchise was because of backward compatibility issues. To be specific, the designer was talking about the backwards compatibility issues of the original video game with the Xbox 360. Stevens expounded:

For a while we were trying to get the original game onto the backwards compatibility list for the Xbox 360 and Microsoft seemed to have some pretty fair reasons why it couldn’t do it. We were disappointed with that conclusion and we’ve seen the same disappointment in the community, so we felt compelled to find some kind of way around that.

But this wasn’t the only reason. Developers of the game also hesitated with moving forward too quickly and making a sequel. Stevens said that the story they had to tell in Escape from Butcher Bay was an important one for them, so they felt that they had to get that story to a larger audience before moving the story significantly forward.

As you already know, it was said that they’ll be carrying over a lot of content from the Director’s Cut of the first game, but that’s as far as it goes. They’ll be adding a lot of new things to Assault on Dark Athena, particularly with the single player experience of the game. As for the length of the added content, all Ian Stevens hinted on was that they went for depth instead of quantity on this one.

When it came to gameplay, it was said that they’ll be adding more weapons, but that was all the Lead Designer could say for the moment. The same goes for additional side-quests – he couldn’t talk about it yet. Don’t worry though, they’ll be keeping a lot of what worked in the previous game, particularly the stealth elements.

If you’re wondering if the remake will look any better, Ian Stevens said they’re using the engine they used in The Darkness, and you all know how well the introduction of that one turned out.

As for the major differences in the Microsoft Xbox 360 and the Sony PS3 versions of the game, Ian Stevens couldn’t talk about that either. Neither could he talk about the E3 appearance. Stevens did assure IGN though that an E3 appearance is “always being discussed”.

For the complete interview just click on the “read” link below.