There is no doubt that the sudden appearance of Precursor Games’ Shadow of the Eternals last week has stirred up some mixed emotions within the gaming community. On the one hand, the very thought of a spiritual successor to the GameCube classic Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem is more than enough to open up wallets for Precursor’s crowdfunding campaign. On the other hand, there is Denis Dyack.
Apparently, Denis Dyack’s role as creative lead on Shadow of the Eternals has resulted in so much angst from gamers, that Precursor CEO Paul Caporicci has updated the project’s website with a note defending the decision to bring Silicon Knight’s president (and last remaining employee) on board.
“As many people can relate, being laid off is an emotionally distressing experience. When this happened to me, I was determined to turn this toward more positive ends. I began reaching out to others to see if they were interested in starting something brand new, using lessons learned from past experiences. Denis Dyack was my first choice for Creative, as he has a keen understanding on the creative aspects of game development. It saddens me to read that people’s impressions of him are painted by anonymous accounts of other individuals. I’ve known Denis for 10 years now, and from first hand experience I consider him to be one of the most honourable people I know, and undeserving of the amount of negative accusations he receives.”
Caporicci did not reveal the specific “anonymous accounts” about Dyack that are the cause of the negative impression that people have of him, but it is a good guess that it could be a reference to this very interesting Kotaku write-up.
At any rate, I would say that the impression that gamers have of Denis Dyack is completely well-founded, and not entirely centered on the “anonymous accusations” against him. Most people have formed their opinion about Dyack based on his attack against the NeoGAF forum, his unfounded lawsuit against Epic Games, and that he completely failed to deliver on his last two games — Too Human and X-Men: Destiny.
The fact of the matter is that Denis Dyack quickly went downhill as a developer when his deal with Nintendo ended after the release of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes in 2004. In my opinion, this alone is enough to raise an eyebrow about his involvement with Shadow of the Eternals.
I really love Eternal Darkness, and I want nothing more than for Shadow of the Eternals to end up being the spiritual successor that the classic GameCube game deserves. I’m just not so sure that blindly trusting Denis Dyack with any amount of my money is such a hot idea.
