2023-07-08 07:00:03
Game news Before Starfield, discover the crazy history of this Xbox-excluded 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 punctuated by projects whose development turned out to be calamitous. From Duke Nukem Forever to Final Fantasy XV to The Last Guardian, these creations had so many problems during their production that we could doubt that they would ever arrive. But rare are the apps that have gone from Arlesian to cursed games, leading to the downfall of their developers and the destruction of commercially distributed copies. Brace yourselves, we put you right in the middle of a cyber war that, despite its protagonists inspired by Norse mythology, is a bit to the west.
Summary
Returned from the limbo of cyberspace10 years, 3 constructors, 1 demoBaldur’s GateAt the borders of UnrealToo Human after all
Income from cyberspace limbo
You may not know it, but we have just celebrated a rather special anniversary: that of the four years since the return of Too Human to the Xbox online store. In June 2019, when Microsoft formalized its arrival in the latest wave of backward compatible Xbox 360 software, the specialized press was dumbfounded: the game developed by Silicon Knights (Eternal Darkness, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes) would normally never have come back from the dead. Indeed, the studio was forced in 2012 to destroy all the game code as well as unsold copies. This is a terrible fate for a production whose – chaotic – development lasted ten years.
Introduced in 1999, Too Human was initially supposed to be a PlayStation exclusive, before becoming a GameCube exclusive and then ending its life only on Xbox 360. Yes, that means three competing manufacturers on three different console generations: the Silicon Knights title could not definitely do nothing like the others.
10 years, 3 manufacturers, 1 demo
Officially announced at E3 1999, Too Human was originally intended to be released on the very first PlayStation. The project was sufficiently advanced for the studio to consider fitting this futuristic TPS on four CDs. Videos from the time showed an aiming system to target opponents’ body parts (the mechanic will be carried over to Eternal Darkness) as well as multiple areas to explore. Scheduled to be released in the summer of 2000, Too Human suddenly ceased to be heard from.
Sensing the talents of the Canadian studio, Nintendo announced an exclusive partnership with Silicon Knights in the early 2000s. From this agreement were born the survival horror Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem as well as Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, the decried remake of the first MGS. And Too Human in all this? It took until 2005 to start getting fresh information. That year, Microsoft revealed a partnership with Silicon Knights to make Too Human an Xbox 360 exclusive.which will span a trilogy“whose first episode was announced”pour 2006”. This date will not be respected.
Suffering from a complicated development having already known two supports on two generations of different consoles, Too Human must shine on new hardware from another manufacturer belonging to the very last generation of machines. Neither the years 2006 nor even the years 2007 saw the landing of software. In order to keep gamers waiting, Silicon Knights participated in a three-part mockumentary titled The Goblin Man of Norway. Used as a viral marketing tool, this false report told of the discovery of a robotic creature locked in a Norwegian glacier. The bone to gnaw was small, of course, but it allowed to give some details on the lore of the game in a rather original way.
It was during the summer of 2008 that Silicon Knights really lifted the veil on its production. After such a wait, the Canadian developer pulled out all the stops: in agreement with Microsoft, the studio released a playable demo of Too Human on the occasion of the eventBringing it Home” designed so that Xbox 360 users have direct access to the E3 demos. As of July 14, 2008, gamers around the world could finally see what this SF title had in store. The least we can say is that the returns were mixed. Nevertheless, the Redmond firm preferred to focus on the good news rather than the bad by proudly announcing that the trial version of the title was a resounding success with its 900,000 downloads in less than two weeks.
Baldur’s Gate
Too Human was finally released in August 2008 and the specialist press gave it a reception as cold as the snowy levels of Midgard.. Awarded a 65/100 on Metacritic, the creation of Silicon Knights was described as “dusty“, of “heavy” or “unfinished”. For our part, we considered that the work of Denis Dyack was “unbalanced”. “Whatever the chosen angle, Too Human constitutes a disappointment. The depth of this disappointment will obviously depend on the expectations you place on him.”we wrote.
Presented as an ambitious sci-fi Action RPG, Too Human turned out to be just a futuristic Diablo-like with a camera placed behind the main protagonist. In the shoes of an indestructible brute called Baldur, the player had the mission of clearing arenas using his weapons/skills, alone or in pairs in cooperation.
Despite a solid equipment management system, the messy fights, the lack of challenge and the too linear level design were criticized on many occasions. The main problem of the software came from a particular design choice: that of executing blows using the right stick (à la Grabbed by the Ghoulies) rather than on the buttons of the joystick. To refocus the camera, you had to press the LB button, or let yourself be guided by an automatic camera that did its best to follow the action without really succeeding. Too bad, with its reimagining of Norse mythology sprinkled with science fiction, Too Human had a background of its own that could have hit the mark.
The acerbic comments from gamers on the forums ended up pissing off Silicon Knights boss Denis Dyack. The latter did not hesitate to post inflammatory messages on NeoGAF, making fun of the comments of users. With an estimated budget of between $60 million and $100 million, Too Human was expensive. Faced with sales not meeting expectations, Microsoft canceled the other two episodes originally planned.. Still, this half-hearted exit was only the beginning of Silicon Knights’ real troubles.
On the borders of Unreal
Before going after players on the forums, Denis Dyack sued Epic Games for “breach of contract”. Indeed, on July 19, 2007, the developer claimed that the Unreal Engine 3, the engine used by Silicon Knights, was not complete and that Epic was using the license fees to finance Gears of War rather than to complete engine features. The video game giant’s response at least lived up to Dyack’s anger: Epic counterattacked, claiming that Silicon Knights had “infringes and violates Epic’s intellectual property rights” by stealing lines of code. In 2012, the company run by Tim Sweeney dealt a fatal blow to the creators of Eternal Darkness : the judge held that Silicon Knights had “deliberately and repeatedly copied thousands of lines of Epic Games’ copyrighted code, then attempted to cover up his wrongdoing by removing Epic Games’ copyright notices and disguising the copyrighted code as copyright Epic Games“.
Consequently, the judge ordered the destruction of all unsold copies of Too Human, but also of X-Men: Destiny, another game from the studio built under Unreal Engine 3. In January 2013, Too Human was removed from the Microsoft Store and Denis Dyack, understanding the doom awaiting his company, co-founded Precursor Games with Ken McCulloch. In addition, three unannounced Silicon Knights games were removed from the map, and the studio was forced to pay more than $4.45 million in fines to Epic, not including legal costs. Race results? On May 16, 2014, Silicon Knights filed for bankruptcy. As for Ken McCulloch, the co-founder of Precursor Games, he was arrested in 2013 for possession of child pornography.
Too Human after all
While Too Human seemed to have gone into limbo for good, it reappeared completely unexpectedly in 2019 during the latest wave of backward compatible Xbox 360 games. An unlikely thing that rarely happens alone, the Silicon Knights software became free. Without dwelling on the reasons, Microsoft and Epic have both officially announced that this return was not a mistake. Even today, Too Human can be downloaded without spending a single euro in order to be played on Xbox 360, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S.
Discovering Too Human today, when you know the whole history of the project, has a special flavor. While the planets seemed to be aligned for this software to disappear definitively, today we can enjoy it like video game archaeologists. If Too Human certainly doesn’t belong in your toy library of the best games of all time, it definitely does belong in a museum. Crossing the generations (of consoles), dead then resurrected, the title of Silicon Knights is necessarily fascinating. If you have a little space left on an external hard drive, it’s time to give this cursed project one last chance.
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