Game News More than 20 years ago, this video game convinced gamers they were going crazy

Game news Over 20 years ago, this video game convinced gamers they were going crazy

Eternal Darkness, designed to break the “children’s” image of Nintendo consoles

When the Canadian studio Silicon Knights presented its video game Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain at the second edition of E3 in 1996, it did not suspect that the vampires of its title developed for the PlayStation and the PC were salivate, in the shadows, one of the most important players in the industry. Nintendo, whose logo is recognizable among a thousand others with the use of a flashy bright red, is attracted by the purple blood that Kain spills. Mario’s parents were indeed prowling the aisles of the Convention Center in May 1996 to find companies that could produce video games.mature” on Nintendo 64 in an attempt to break the image “for children” from the Japanese brand.

From its introductory cinematic, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain immediately shows who it is aimed at with its protagonists who are massacred in sprays of blood. With its top view and its settings alternating forests and dungeons, it is true that the production of Silicon Knights has a false air of The Legend of Zelda where the violence cursor would have been turned towards the maximum.

After a few meetings, the two groups agreed to develop a title designed to appeal to players who usually criticize games too much.gentilets” And “colorful” from Nintendo. Denis Dyack, the boss of Silicon Knights, has the idea of ​​an epic whose narration would take place over different eras. Since the Kyoto firm seemed up for horrific content, he decided to make this project a survival horror. It’s decided, like Resident Evil, the big success of this era, the game will show its action with fixed cameras filming the characters in real-time 3D walking around in pre-calculated 3D settings. The studio’s developers then spend several years integrating their ideas on the fly, as long as they are good. However, the mixed success of the Nintendo 64 forced the Japanese company to find a replacement sooner than expected. In the early 2000s, the two companies agreed to make Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem a GameCube game.

While the developers finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel and imagined an imminent release on Nintendo 64, we had to get our hands dirty and imagine a new rendering engine, redo the scenery, improve the animations and discover new tools! Eternal Darkness is transforming and evolving: elements initially planned in the 64-bit version are removed, while new mechanics are integrated. In addition, fixed cameras are forgotten in favor of cameras following an invisible rail, using pans and traveling shots in order to provide a cinematic aspect worthy of that of Resident Evil: Code Veronica. Yes, since 1996, times may have changed, but the Capcom series remains a reference.

Silicon Knights employees could have gone crazy during this long, somewhat chaotic development. They preferred to let the players lose their minds for them. Planned from the beginning of the project and inspired by the mental resistance of the paper role-playing game Call of Cthulhu (from Chaosium), mental health is the brilliant mechanic that makes all fans of the genre still remember Eternal Darkness. Because in all honesty, it is neither with its already outdated graphics at the time of its release, nor with its imprecise handling during clashes that the software could have become an essential. The salvation of the software rests on the ambition of its narration as well as on a small green gauge visible at the top of the screen, which decreases when the player is spotted by a demonic creature. The more it empties, the more the directed protagonist loses his footing. And this manifests itself in two different ways for the player.

When mental health is weak, there are first of all worrying manifestations that can occur: blood dripping down the walls, screaming, babies crying, knocking on doors, whispering, sudden transformations as a zombie, even explosions when healing. Then, and above all, there are effects which break the fourth wall, like the cameras which go crazy, the screen which only displays black and simulates a video loss, the message which asks to insert disk 2 to continue (even though there is obviously only one disk in the box) or even this terrible warning which indicates that the backup has been deleted! Do you really want to scare a player? Make him believe that his machine is broken or that his progress has gone up in smoke! And it works, many comments on specialized forums show that Silicon Knights’ tricks to drive users crazy have hit the mark. “The first time one of these effects hit me, I literally threw myself at the console and mashed the Reset button. They got me!” writing a Reddit user.

Of course, these funny effects which make you believe that the console has a problem are reminiscent of the confrontation against Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid, effects that we will see again later in other games, such as in Batman: Arkham Asylum during the Scarecrow sequence. The funny thing is that Nintendo didn’t necessarily welcome the way the Canadian studio plays with the player’s true mental health. The mustachioed plumber’s firm is concerned about the reactions that the user who is the victim of one of these “hallucinations”, fearing for example that the customer would suddenly unplug their machine, or suddenly remove their memory card out of fear, thus damaging the GameCube. Despite everything, the Japanese giant is being convinced. Finally, he found the system so ingenious that he filed a patent in 2005. This patent expired on November 5, 2021.

Panic

When Eternal Dakness was released on GameCube in 2002, it had the little badge “M for Mature” on American boxes, and “not recommended for under 16s” on the French dust jackets. Nintendo has the game designed for (young) adults that it had ordered. Unfortunately, despite excellent reviews (average of 92/100 on Metacritic), the title sold less than 500,000 copies worldwide. For Silicon Knights and Nintendo, it’s a cold shower. So much so that the studio will never be able to convince the Kyoto firm which holds the game license to launch a sequel.

After Eternal Darkness, the Canadian group released the much-maligned (and now sought-after) Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes while developing one of its most ambitious projects: Too Human. Officially announced at E3 1999, this sci-fi game was originally supposed to be released on the very first PlayStation. It will ultimately take 10 years of production for it to land exclusively on Xbox. With a 65/100 on Metacritic, the creation of Silicon Knights is described as “dusty” And “unfinished”. Denis Dyack then launched a lawsuit against Epic Games for “breach of contract”, a lawsuit which he lost and which forced the studio to destroy all unsold copies of Too Human. On May 16, 2014, Silicon Knights filed for bankruptcy, and all attempts to make a spiritual sequel to Eternal Darkness fell through.

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With its weapons to enchant, its system of members to target, its scenario which effectively combines fiction/reality and the astonishing effects of the mental health gauge, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem is ultimately very different from the classic survival horror of its time. And it is surely for this reason that even today, it is considered one of the most important works of Silicon Knights, of the GameCube, and even of horror gaming in general. If you get the chance, give it a chance!