Shadow of the Eternals is dead…for now

The crowd-funded spiritual successor to the Gamecube cult hit Eternal Darkness, Shadow of the Eternals has hit a number of brick walls; it failed not once, but twice to meet its crowd-funding goals – and then failed in its attempt at Steam Greenlighting. The wheels have now come right off.

"It is with a heavy heart that we have decided to put the Shadow of the Eternals project on hold," Dyack wrote in a message on the official Precursor Games forum. "We are very happy with what we have accomplished both as a group and with the community. The community has blown us away and was the one thing that kept us going through it all – we cannot thank you enough.

"Many of us will be taking a break. For those who are not aware, we all worked on this project as a labour of love and self financed 100 per cent of everything for a over a year to try to make Shadow of the Eternals a reality. Although we did not succeed on doing this, we succeeded in making many friends and starting something that we hope provided value for those involved.

"We have no regrets."

So is that it? Is the project dead? Well, no. According to Dyack they may try and get the band back together at some point in the future.

"Is the project dead? No, but we feel it needs a rest too," Dyack concluded. "We have all agreed as a group that when and if the time is right we will get together and start it up again. Keep your head high everyone and remember what we have accomplished together."

Honestly though, I think the biggest problem is Dyack himself; his prima-donna actions have resulted in far too many bridges being burned, and I’m not the least bit surprised nobody wants to work with Dyack or throw piles of cash at him. Silicon Knights, Dennis Dyack’s last studio before Precursor games, last  games were X-Men: Destiny and Too Human, neither of which were received particularly well.

That company was also embroiled in an ages-long lawsuit with Epic Games over what they claimed was a faulty engine in Unreal Engine 3 (which was so broken it subsequently went on to power most of this generation’s game). In the end, they ended up with the short stick, owing Epic a bunch of money and being forced to recall and destroy unsold copies of Too Human (of which there were probably very many).

Last Updated: September 30, 2013