Game News Before Starfield, discover the wacky story of this Xbox-banned sci-fi RPG whose copies had to be recalled and then destroyed
Published on 07/08/2023 at 09:00
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The history of video games is marked by projects whose development turned out to be disastrous. From Duke Nukem Forever to Final Fantasy But rare are the apps that Arlesian has turned into cursed games, leading to the demise of their developers and the destruction of commercially distributed copies. Brace yourself, we’ll put you in the middle of a cyberwar that’s a bit western, despite its Norse mythology-inspired protagonists.
Summary
- Revenue from cyberspace limbo
- 10 years, 3 manufacturers, 1 demo
- Baldur’s gate
- On the borders of Unreal
- At least too human
Revenue from cyberspace limbo
You may not know it, but we’ve just celebrated a very special anniversary: four years since Too Human returned to the Xbox online store. When Microsoft officially announced its entry into the latest wave of backward compatible Xbox 360 software in June 2019, the trade press was speechless: Developed by Silicon Knights (Eternal Darkness, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes), the game should never have risen from the dead. In fact, in 2012 the studio was forced to destroy all game code and unsold copies. It’s a terrible fate for a production that took ten years to develop – chaotically.
Introduced in 1999, Too Human was originally intended to be a PlayStation exclusive before becoming a GameCube exclusive and then ending its life only on the Xbox 360. Yes, that means three competing manufacturers on three different generations of consoles: the Silicon Knights title definitely couldn’t do nothing like the others.
10 years, 3 manufacturers, 1 demo
Too Human was officially announced at E3 1999 and was originally set to appear on the very first PlayStation. The project was so advanced that the studio considered putting this futuristic TPS on four CDs. Videos from the period showed a targeting system for targeting enemy body parts (the mechanic is carried over to Eternal Darkness) as well as several areas to explore. The release of “Too Human” was planned for the summer of 2000, but suddenly nothing was heard of “Too Human” anymore.
Nintendo recognized the Canadian studio’s talents and announced an exclusive partnership with Silicon Knights in the early 2000s. Out of this agreement came survival horror Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, as well as Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, the acclaimed remake of Silicon Knights’ first MGS. And too human in all this? It took until 2005 for new information to come in. That year, Microsoft announced a partnership with Silicon Knights to make Too Human an Xbox 360 exclusive “which will span a trilogy” with the first episode announced “for 2006”. This date is not observed.
Too Human suffers from a complicated development, having already known two supports on two generations of different consoles, and has to shine on new hardware from another manufacturer, belonging to the very last generation of machines. Neither in 2006 nor in 2007 did software come onto the market. To keep players waiting, Silicon Knights participated in a three-part mockumentary titled The Goblin Man of Norway. Used as a viral marketing tool, this hoax reported the discovery of a robotic being trapped in a Norwegian glacier. The bone to gnaw on was small, of course, but it made it possible to convey some details about the game’s lore in quite an original way.
It was the summer of 2008 when Silicon Knights lifted the veil on its production. After such a long wait, the Canadian developer pulled out all the stops: in consultation with Microsoft, the studio released a playable Too Human demo during the Bringing it Home event designed to give Xbox 360 users direct access to the E3 demos. On July 14, 2008, gamers around the world finally got a chance to see what this SF title had to offer. The least we can say is that returns were mixed. Still, the Redmond-based company chose to focus on the good news rather than the bad, and proudly announced that the trial version of the title was a resounding success, with 900,000 downloads in less than two weeks.
Baldur’s gate
“Too Human” finally came out in August 2008 and was received by the trade press as coldly as the snowy plains of Midgard.. Silicon Knights’ creation was rated 65/100 on Metacritic and was described as “dusty”, “heavy” or even “unfinished”. For our part, we felt Denis Dyack’s work was “unbalanced”. “Whatever angle you choose, Too Human is a disappointment. Of course, the extent of this disappointment depends on the expectations you have of him.
Presented as an ambitious sci-fi action RPG, Too Human turned out to be a futuristic Diablo-like game with a camera behind the main protagonist. Taking on the role of an indestructible brute named Baldur, the player was tasked with clearing arenas using their weapons/abilities alone or in partnership.
Despite having a solid gear management system, the chaotic combat, lack of challenge, and overly linear level design have been widely criticized. The main problem with the software stemmed from a specific design decision: hitting with the right stick (à la “Grabbed by the Ghoulies”) rather than the joystick buttons. To refocus the camera you had to press the LB button or be guided by an automatic camera that did its best to follow what was happening without really succeeding. Too bad that “Too Human”, with its reinterpretation of Norse mythology peppered with science fiction, had its own background that could have hit the mark.
The scathing comments from players on the forums ultimately angered Silicon Knights boss Denis Dyack. The latter didn’t hesitate to post inflammatory messages on NeoGAF and mock users’ comments. With an estimated budget of between $60 million and $100 million, Too Human was expensive. Since sales fell short of expectations, Microsoft canceled the other two originally planned episodes.. Still, this half-hearted exit was just the beginning of Silicon Knights’ real troubles.
On the borders of Unreal
Before attacking players on the forums, Denis Dyack sued Epic Games for “breach of contract.” In fact, on July 19, 2007, the developer claimed that Unreal Engine 3, the engine used by Silicon Knights, was not ready and that Epic was using the royalties to fund Gears of War rather than to complete the engine features. The gaming giant’s response at least lived up to Dyack’s anger: Epic countered, claiming that Silicon Knights “violated and violated Epic’s intellectual property rights” by stealing lines of code. In 2012, the Tim Sweeney-led company dealt a fatal blow to the creators of Eternal Darkness : The judge found that Silicon Knights “deliberately and repeatedly copied thousands of lines of Epic Games’ copyrighted code and then attempted to cover up its wrongdoing by removing Epic Games’ copyright notices and obscuring Epic Games’ copyrighted code” .
As a result, the judge ordered the destruction of all unsold copies of Too Human, as well as X-Men: Destiny, another of the studio’s Unreal Engine 3-based games. In January 2013, Too Human was removed from the Microsoft Store and Denis Dyack, realizing the doom that awaited his company, co-founded Precursor Games with Ken McCulloch. Additionally, three unannounced Silicon Knights games were removed from the map and the studio had to pay Epic more than $4.45 million in fines, excluding legal fees. race results? On May 16, 2014, Silicon Knights filed for bankruptcy. Ken McCulloch, the co-founder of Precursor Games, was arrested in 2013 for possession of child pornography.
At least too human
While Too Human seemed to be in limbo for good, it unexpectedly resurfaced in 2019 during the recent wave of backward compatible Xbox 360 games. An unlikely thing that rarely happens alone: Silicon Knights’ software went free. Without going into detail as to why, both Microsoft and Epic have officially stated that this return was not a bug. Today Too Human can be downloaded without spending a single euro to play on Xbox 360, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
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Discovering Too Human today, knowing the entire history of the project, has a special appeal. While the planets seemed aligned in such a way that this software would disappear for good, today we can enjoy it like video game archaeologists. If Too Human certainly doesn’t belong in your all-time toy library, it certainly belongs in a museum. The title “Silicon Knights” is definitely fascinating when you look at the generations (of consoles) from dead to risen. When you’re running low on space left on an external hard drive, it’s time to give that cursed project one last chance.
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