The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is almost finished. The game is a remake of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, a first-person action shooter that was released last generation for the original Xbox to rave reviews that praised the game for it’s grittiness, mature storyline, and unique gameplay that included hand-to-hand combat and spots where the camera would zoom out to third person. It was later released for PC.
And now the same Swedish developer who created the first game, is enhancing it for it’s debut on the Xbox 360 and PS3 under the title The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena. The game is almost finished, but it still lacks a publisher. That despite the game being a collaboration between Starbreeze, Universal Pictures, and Vin Diesel’s own Tigon Studios.
A forum post on the Starbreeze official web-site forums stated that “Dark Athena is just about done.” And in regards to a publisher, the poster also confirmed that “the big boys are deciding who is going to publish it.” Which we can take to mean that they are actively searching for a publisher to get the game on retail shelves when it’s finished.
Dark Athena ended up losing it’s publisher when Sierra Entertainment when Activision and Vivendi Games merged earlier this year. Dark Athena was not the only promising title left publisher-less, others included the Double Fine-developed Brutal Legend and the Terminal Reality-developed Ghostbusters.
Dark Athena will include a full and updated version of Escape From Butcher Bay in addition to new levels that are set after the original game’s conclusion. Graphically, the game will look like what you’d expect from a next-gen version. According to a quote from the developers last year, where they stated that, “All the textures are being redone so it truly looks like a next-gen game.” What’s even cooler than that though is that the new Dark Athena for PS3 and Xbox 360 will also include full online multiplayer!