Denis Dyack Blames "Unethical" Journalists For Almost Killing Shadow Of The Eternals

Unethical? Isn't that word a little rich coming from him?

I'd love an Eternal Darkness II. I have to say the video looks nice though.

Unethical Denis Dyack killed Silicon Knights.

Unethical? Really?

He only went and destroyed his own company due to unethical activities.

@Damo thanks for the up, much appreciated.
Regardless of what people may think of Dyack, he certainly is tenacious in his resolve to release this game, so if anything I can at least appreciate that and to me personally, the game looks and sounds great and has the right atmosphere.

And he is also still very much a fan of Nintendo, so who knows what his upcoming announcement will reveal?

I'm not interested in the politics that has gone on behind the scenes, I just love Eternal Darkness and would love a sequel or spiritual successor. I backed the original kickstarter and was disappointed it didn't reach its goal.

Not this again. People want games more than they value the word of any journalist of any kind. People made their own minds up and voted with their wallets on crowdfunding. Just let it die!!

Oh please no more gamergating. Yes, some of the games media are an absolute mockery and wouldn't know a journalist if one sat on their faces. And yes, Jim Sterling will often latch onto anything that allows him to cuss on people for the sake of his act. And I wouldn't particularly trust his fact-checking skills either.
But they collectively account for about 5% of the industry Mr Dyack. Your project failed because you provided a fairly vague concept, in an already niche genre, and by the sounds of it didn't market it very well.
Make a really clear demo that illustrates the concept and send it to thousands of youtubers and then the media. You'll do a lot better.
Romero's kickstarter just failed! It's not about the name or the idea anymore. It's about how well you present it.
It's probably partly the fact that it's not a genre that lends itself very well to kickstarter because you can't produce a very meaningful "vertical slice" in the way something like Shantae or Yooka Laylee could.

@Dezzy - No cussing please, rules 'n all that. Thanks

Sure a successor to Eternal Darkness would be exciting but I will not believe it is happening until there is an absolute release confirmed.

i was interested in this years ago!
i would like try out ED before planning getting this (if/when it comes, imo i don't care if it comes to Wii U, PS4, Xbox One or PC. tbh i have all four . but i still hope for a Wii U version just for them to support it for Wii U. ) is ED really good? i'm planning on getting it soon!

@DiscoGentleman Agreed. I mostly gave this tip to NLife to focus on the game, not on everything else that Dyack does, because I also think he's more than a bit petty in that aspect.

On the other hand, people also need to try and let go of the past and not continuously keep dragging the past into the future in order to be able to label someone as that guy that did that bad thing back then as if that is any guarantee that the same mistakes will be made over and over, only for them to have a "good" reason to not buy his game, even if it does eventually gets to see a commercial release...

@A01 These trailers are new and slightly altered. I also believe they have been recompiled because of the source material being moved to the new development team, and if I have seen correctly, some touch up work has been done here and there.
Nothing dramatically different, mind you, but still enough to warrant a re-release of these two videos as "new".

And obviously also to once again bring this game under attention of the media and the public.

@Dezzy the first video is 9 minutes of gameplay. Can't get much clearer than that, methinks...
If you really do want some more background info on the story, gameplay and tech behind it all, then these older videos should be enough to provide you with that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlREuZz7MwE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K14MJsfMgfE

Interesting detail to take note of: the continued and clear presence of Wii U/Nintendo buttons in the gameplay video in the article here...
And it is running on CryENGINE 3 and was already partially optimized to run on Wii U. If it ever sees the light of day, I wonder if they have to recompile the whole thing again to put it on NX, if Nintendo is still a target platform besides PC.

Then again: they would probably use the latest PC build to port to consoles.

@MysteryAozz Depends on what you expect. It is good for an old horror game, and has some great moments that can truly leave you completely puzzled and/or panicking because of the brilliant little addition called the sanity effect. If you don't want to spoil that for yourself, don't Google that. It makes for some cool discoveries to let the game surprise you with them.

Obviously, I'm a fan so I couldn't objectively say that you should buy it or not, but in general it got favorable reviews and fans of the genre can't really go wrong with this game, so if you can still get it for a decent price, I'd say have a go and find out for yourself.

Even if you don't like it, I'm betting that putting it for sale online will get you your money back pretty easily...

@ThanosReXXX

I did watch it. I maintain that this really isn't a very good genre for kickstarter. It's not something you can particularly break down into a short demo that properly illustrates the appeal. I learnt more about Yooka Laylee in a minute video than I learnt about this in a 9 minute video.

Wish them all the best but I won't believe it until I really see the goods. Nothing so far is any different to back in their Kickstarter days.

@Dezzy Ah, okay, guess I misunderstood you the first time. I can agree that kickstarter is indeed not the right platform for this, but that probably has to do with his previous plans of making this game into an episodic release. Don't know if that is still the plan, but I hope that IF it gets released, it will just be one complete game instead of episodes.

He would also not have gotten any money from me on kickstarter even though I'd like to see this game successfully released, since I never support kickstarter. I'll just buy a game when it is in stores. Too many things go wrong with kickstarter games in my opinion. Obviously, there are exceptions, like Yooka-Laylee and so on, but that still isn't enough to lure me in.

Jim seems to be taking this accusation in his stride. I have followed Jim for a while and whilst it's easy to disagree with him on numerous things, I certainly do not see any evidence that suggests he's "unethical". Kotaku too for that matter even though they don't have too many people on their side nowadays.

Journalists spinning things out of proportion to have a story to tell is an issue in any business.

Mr. Dyack is unfortunate to also not have had the best outset for combating the badmouthing he'd been getting, in that he could stand to be more up front and honest about what truly happened.

A huge part of the debacle was really that so many on the internet, journalists and private people alike, seem to have adopted the "never forgive, never forget" attitude towards people that have any kind of public awareness tied to their name.

One slip-up and they're forever labeled and condemned. You see it happening a lot over the past five years, and It's not a particularly pleasant environment for anyone who wants to create something.

Most [gaming] journalists these days are a bit sensationalist*, imo, so I can totally see where he's coming from.

*They're not posting what they personally find interesting but rather pretty much anything and/or what's going to get the views and hits. It's about volume and traffic above all else most of the time these days, even on games sites.

@TheLastLugia
The Kotaku claim is undeniably true. The list of cases where Kotaku writers have promoted their friend's work without disclosing the relationship is incredibly long.
Patricia Hernandez wrote about her room-mate's game without disclosure for god's sake. When you can do that and keep your job (the editor Totilo has acknowledged it happened), it does say something about the company you work for.

@Pod I think you're being harsh on the journalists and lenient on the game devs if you're saying that these journalists are like lions pouncing on their prey (the game devs/publishes) after one little slip up and then mauling them. I'm not up to speed on this guy, but from multiple broken releases from 'AAA' companies like Ubisoft/EA, shady Kickstarters from Inafune and this guy (apparently), Gearbox's shameful Aliens Colonial Marines and the snake-oil salesman Peter Molyneux, I think these companies/individuals have had it coming for a long, long time after getting away with numerous minor incidents (Molyneux's lies go back as far as the first Fable game).

These people are rarely first time offenders who made a little oversight. EA with Battlefield 4, Gearbox with ACM and WB with Arkham Knight on PC all knew they were releasing broken games, and did it anyway. The people who tear them to shreds over these issues gain my respect, sometimes an apology and a forgive-and-forget attitude is far, far too lenient for what they did.

Oh Dyack, you never learn.

The game looks like a first generation PS3 title.

He should get the game made and let it speak for itself. Anyone that's read about the lawsuits with Epic is bound to form an opinion on Silicon Knights. And anyone that played X-Men Destiny would likely form one as well. Eternal Darkness seems to haunt Dyack (fitting?). Yes, gamers hold grudges and game bloggers (I refuse to call the vast majority 'journalists') forward personal agendas as though its their life's purpose.

I may not like what I've heard about Dyack, but I can't deny that Eternal Darkness is a game that could really, really use a great sequel. I don't know what his beef is, specifically, but I agree with the commenter who said Dyack needs to just focus on bringing the goods. People will start to support him again but his reputation is such that it's an uphill battle for now, so get it made and prove that the skepticism is unfounded.

Politics ,shmolitics!! Just work on the game and make it as good as you can make it.
'Artists' so often aren't as good at voicing opinions as expressions through their art. I loved the first game and would like more please. The video looked good to me, good overall style to it.....

I still can't believe Nintendo didn't just jump in and scoop this game? Once the Kickstarter failed it should have been a no brainer. Some early work was already done and the first game was a cult hit for the GC plus the Wii U was and is and always will be hurting for good content. The Kickstarter wanted like a quarter million if I remember correctly? That's peanuts for the big N

The voice acting in that video is absolutely dreadful. As someone who adored ED, please let this not see the light of day.

Criticizing his company's track record and warning people not to invest in the Kickstarter isn't unethical. Their previous two games suffered in development hell and came out poorly. It would be unethical not to warn people about that.

@TheLastLugia
I'm with you on company practice, and that it's okay to be a little hard on corporate affairs that aren't in favor of the consumer.

What I'm talking about is mostly the whole "gunning for the man" thing that's happening the last handful of years, when a person who steps forward with a name and a face will be torn to threads by loud people who aren't just digging up smut when necessary, but making sure any bit of wrong-doing will be the first thing you know about someone.

Denis Dyack and Doug TenNapel's crowdfunding campaigns are good examples. So is the smear campaign that's been going on for Tim Schafer, which completely fails to realize that he didn't ever do any of the things he's being accused of.

@able_to_think

I think his claim was that they misrepresented what'd happened with the X-men game.

@Kriandis Right....
I think you either need to go see an optician or boot up your PS3 to check and see if the effects and textures on display here are even remotely possible on that console. No bashing; it had some great games, but this game definitely shows some stuff not possible on that machine.

The first versions of the game trailers/teasers were made in CryENGINE3, which the PS3 could have handled just fine (depending on what was done with the engine), but from what I understood, it is now being done in 4, which is not compatible with older platforms.

@Pod "...seem to have adopted the "never forgive, never forget" attitude towards people that have any kind of public awareness tied to their name."

EXACTLY, very well said. People just need to move on and let bygones be bygones. So he was a douche, made some bad calls and doesn't seem to have a particularly good relationship with certain parts of the media, but does that have to define his entire future?

I think not, and who cares anyway? Besides being in the public eye, he's (probably) not related or tied to any of us, so it shouldn't really bother so many people.

So for Pete's sake, just allow the guy to make his game and if it is any good, then we will all benefit from it and in that case I couldn't really care less from which person that game is coming from, as long as I enjoy it...

I'm not sure about you guys, but this doesn't look like a spiritual successor... It looks like a updated Eternal Darkness. The church and scenario almost look like they were copy, pasted and given an HD revamp. The difference seems to be the two women in the ''Alex Rovias" time era.

If would have been cool if Nintendo had funded this in the first place and released Eternal Darkness HD followed by Eternall Darkness 2, but it didn't and so we're all just trying to forget about it so that we don't continue to get out hopes up just to have them smashed again.

He's right kotaku and jim are garbage, that aside lets see the actual game.

@ThanosReXXX I agree that his past shouldn't define his entire career but his present seems to be a guy who's ready to blame others for his failure to get his game made. It's on him to rebuild his reputation and not for everyone to think "yes this guy was a jerk and ran his former studio to the ground; he sounds like the perfect guy to give my money to."

I don't think anyone here is saying he shouldn't be able to make his game but he has to give players a reason to trust him again if he wants to make it with their money. It may be tough but he'll probably have to make his next game or next few games without player funding in order to re-establish his reputation. Maybe his next project shouldn't be as big or as ambitious as Shadow of the Eternals.

Kotaku is by far the scum of the gaming universe, along with anything from rooster teeth. I donated $100 to Shadow of the Eternals the first time, and I would gladly do it again. I WANT MY ETERNAL DARKNESS SEQUEL, GODDAMMIT!

@DiscoGentleman Well, in this case I guess you have to blame me for drawing his attention to this news, as you can see directly below the article...
Although in all fairness, I only wanted to focus NLife's attention to the renewed attempt to get the game released, not so much on the personal woes of Dyack...

@darklinkinfinite Fair enough. Here's hoping the game is going to make it this time around then, because this is my type of game and ever since I first saw it, I was hoping to be able to play it some day. And if Dyack is still such a Nintendo fan as he always claims to be, then chances are it will also come to NX, and whether people like this kind of game or not, the more games that machine gets early on in its life cycle, the better.

That at the very least should be something that we could ALL agree upon...

@EVIL-C Although somewhat less angry, I wholeheartedly agree with that final statement...

I wanted to donate back when the Kickstarter was on, but I was just not in a financial situation at the time to do so. Despite Too Human being okay and X-Men Destiny being a turd of a game, everything about Shadows of Eternal oozed style and had this macabre atmosphere. I want to see this game finished because I think it would be an absolute gem of a title. Eternal Darkness and Twin Snakes were great titles, and while you can argue it may have been thanks to Nintendo (and Kojima on Twin Snakes) guidance, I think Dyack still has it in him to make an impressive title.

Chears to Shadows of the Eternals being back on the board.

@ThanosReXXX

I'm only "angry" because it wasn't funded, the idea of playing SOTE sometime this century makes me very happy.

@EVIL-C Just pulling your leg there, fellow NLifer...

Oh. Okay. goes back to ignoring Dyack

What a hack.

Kotaku is garbage, but don't forget about Polygon!

oh sweet! I love Eternal Darkness!!!

Not sure of what I think about Denis Dyack (tbh, don't know a whole lot about him and his studio"s"). Not a fan of Kotaku. I much prefer NintendoLife like x10000000000!

Here we go again...

@ThanosReXXX The Last Of Us on PS3 looks better than this game.
If the gameplay and story is there fine, but the character models look stiff, old and dated.

@Kriandis In the game's defense, this is early Alpha footage and will more than likely not be fully representative of the final product. To compare a game in an Alpha build to a finished game which had the backing of Sony behind it also being developed by Naughty Dog (which is also possibly the best looking game of the last generation) it is a bit harsh.

I mean this game is an independent project by a rather small team who made it with passion and love and funded it out of their pocket I think it looks fantastic. The character models are a bit stiff and not quite there yet, but the environments look great and the moment at the end of the gameplay demo in the hellish landscape looks very disturbing. The enemy designs look rather nice (granted they look a bit generic, but are probably the early game enemy type), and the art design is very well thought out. For a game in its alpha, it looks very promising, and I look forward to seeing what the new build looks like since this seems to be recut footage from the Kickstarter campaign.

I still have never seen any solid evidence condemning Dyack. The guy might be a total scumbag, but everyone sure seems to think he is guilty with little details as to how and why. I would be upset to if video game "news" sites were posting rubbish about me and my career.

Eugh, this better not start an argument over gaming journalism as we currently know it. It's bias, uninformed and condemning and it's not going to change for the time being.

@Kriandis No, it really doesn't, both texture, color-depth and effect-wise this game already looks better.

Once again: I'm not bashing the PS3 but please let's be realistic here. The character animation does indeed look a bit stiff and/or off/unfinished, so I'll agree to that for now (since this is still a beta), but environmental graphics are pretty decent and show stuff that the PS3 won't be able to do.

Case in point: the utterly realistic textures, transparency, distortion and translucency of all the different kinds of glass panes in the different rooms, starting with the window in the alcove where the two ladies go to look at the book.

As far as the environments and textures are concerned, this is CryEngine3 operating at a higher level. PS3 never got further than medium settings or slightly above, so we're talking a pretty decent gaming PC vs a PS3 here, a contest the former obviously wins.

Take a look here if you will, for a more in-depth explanation of all the more advanced effects used, with in-engine prompts and what not. It's the old demo, supposedly running on a Wii U dev kit, but I'm suspecting it was running on a PC. Either way, if you're into the tech part of game demos, then this might just interest you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlREuZz7MwE

Dynack may be a loud mouth, but he is right. Many journalists and critics in gaming have become bandwagon jumpers and glory hunters in order to gain fans and fanboy approval.

Many journalists will continue to slate Dynack and everything he does just because he is a hate figure. But at the end of the day everyone makes mistakes and deserve a second chance.

Polygon, IGN, Gamespot...You can't trust any of them.

Considering that Kotaku have shown themselves to be liars (called out and never apologized http://deepfreeze.it/article.php?a=quickdirty#wardell ), as well as an outlet that insults both devs ( https://archive.is/LoRMt & https://archive.is/d51CO) and their audience ( http://deepfreeze.it/article.php?a=enemy#dead )

As well as proving themselves to be one of the clickbaitiest games media sites on the internet...
https://pretendracecars.net/2015/01/18/kotaku-writes-the-same-article-about-project-cars-twelve-times/

And considering that Sterling is just about as slimy as Kotaku.

I'd say Dyack is right.

Wow. pathetic Dyack. Last ditch attempt at pandering to the one group you think is stupid enough, and indoctrinated enough by marketing to virally hate fund his game.

Its not going to happen Dyack. The only reason Eternal Darkness was any good was because of Nintendo's strict oversight. The second you walked on that everything you did was garbage. Lots of people want Eternal Darkness 2. The problem for you is the vast majority of them are rather intelligent and as such didn't jump on the worst generation bandwagon when gen 7 hit.

Many of us want an ED2, but we will stoicly see the IP die before we fund what will obviously be as hideous parody of what we actually want. That's what we do, its what we have always done. It doesnt matter how much marketing is thrown at us, we arent the worst generation. Its why you don't see bubsy running around today. We killed it, because it was trash. Its why shadow of the eternals failed funding twice. Good luck appealing to the worst generation/gutter garbage... Part of me wishes they did take your moronically obvious bait and hate fund the game like the complete idiots you think they are, just so I can see how hilariously dumbed down the game would have to be to pander to them.

He can say what he wants, I just want to play it.

This and Beyond Good and Evil 2 are at the very tip top of my bucket list so I just want them to exist before I die.

Granted Duke Nukem Forever sped that process along quite a few years, being an old bucket list entry I stabbed a hole through the paper when I checked it off.

Sterling is just about as slimy as Kotaku.

How so? Surely such statements need to be backed up by facts?

lolololololololololol

Jim Sterling unethical? I don't think I've seen anyone who calls out major publisher on their bullsh!t at much as him. He promotes ethics in gaming, if anything.

Look, I dont care about the politics of gaming. I care about gaming, period. Dennis Dyack rubs people the wrong way, but its not like he has done anything illegal or killed anyone. And Eternal Darkness remains one the most atmospheric game experiences out there. So release an Eternal Darkness HD release on Wii U or, if possible, all platforms. Drum up funds and support for Shadow of the Eternals. Then that game can be released. Politics need not come into it.

Unethical, that's rich. As a developer I have a lot if respect for Dyack's skills but he's not the victim here. He killer Silcon Knights and every time he opens his mouth about the project fewer people want to support him. Eternal Darkness was great but I won't back this project.

I actually took some time to even read through most of the Kotaku article (which scares me that people look to their site for true journalism). Most of these anonymous complaints are hilarious. I've worked in artistic fields (my background is in 3d animation) and I've worked in the white collar business fields (I'm currently an analyst) so I feel my comment is from all perspectives. There is no position or job where you will not run in to people that run projects poorly, are jerks, will belittle you, the list could go on and on. It is part of dealing with the human race even in the workplace. You can either put on your big boy pants and deal with it (as long as they are not doing anything illegal), or you can constantly complain about work. If you choose to work for someone it is your choice if you stay or not in an abusive situation. Some of the meanest, ruthless people I have worked for are some of the smartest people I have ever met, but it is my choice to stay or go. I don't sit there and bad mouth them to journalists, co-workers, etc...