THE MAKING OF ETERNAL DARKNESS Sanity's Requiem
DIRECTOR DENIS DYACK TAKES US THROUGH THE MAKING OF HIS WELL-REGARDED, TIME-CROSSING, CULT HORROR ADVENTURE
Videogame mechanics don’t progress anywhere nearly as quickly as the visuals that power them, so cinematic storytelling and character evolution are becoming increasingly important in modern gaming. The Last Of Us, Detroit and Enslaved: Odyssey To The West are just a few of the more recent games that have tried to blur the boundaries between two very different forms of entertainment, but they certainly weren’t the first. 18 years ago, another game was also slowly blazing a trail, a trail that would guide its developers to the forefront of the industry, but eventually see it collapse under its own hubris. The game was Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem; the company, Silicon Knights. Both were spearheaded by Denis Dyack, and when we talk to Denis about his magnum opus we speak to a man who loves Eternal Darkness and the art of storytelling as much as he loves his three cats, Gracey, Willie and Owen.
“I’m a big Babylon 5 fan,” reveals Denis when we ask him about Eternal Darkness’ origins. “I think it was a hallmark series because, for the first time on television, they actually told a story that was continued over the whole year and then they had a story arc that was meant to go for five years, and that had never been done on TV before. We looked at Babylon Five and said, ‘This is groundbreaking, we love it,’ and it was more about the storyline and the arcs that happened in the background. There were also a lot of characters, but they were less important than the story. We sort of looked at Resident Evil, looked at this whole phenomenon happening at the time with Babylon 5, and we said, ‘We should do something like that.’ So the idea was to have lots of characters and really tell a story arc that meant something over a long period of time.”
Plans for Eternal Darkness were put into motion, and Denis and his team began looking for a suitable console. Although Silicon Knights had previously found success on PC and Playstation, thanks to titles such as Dark Legions and Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain, Denis and his team eventually settled on the N64, mainly due to its relationship with Nintendo that had recently begun to blossom. “It was a great system and it did a lot of things at the time that other systems didn’t,” explains Denis about the decision to release Eternal Darkness on Nintendo’s 64-bit console. “We were running at the time in high-res without an extra memory card, which was really rare. I think it was 640x480, back then if you went to that, you had to put the extra memory in and it cost a lot more to manufacture. We actually figured out a way to do it without the extra memory, so from that perspective it garnered a lot of attention. At the same time it was a very mature take on storytelling which was rare at the time in the industry, but also I think it was very different as far as Nintendo’s portfolio went.”
Work progressed well, but the game began to hit several delays – something that later Silicon Knights games would become infamous for – and as development time dragged on, Nintendo began preparations to launch its next console. Eventually, development of the game pivoted so Eternal Darkness could move to Nintendo’s successor console, the Gamecube, where it was initially planned as a launch title. We’re keen to find out if Denis was happy about the decision. “It was shortly after the Gamecube was
“WE SORT OF LOOKED AT RESIDENT EVIL, LOOKED AT THIS WHOLE PHENOMENON HAPPENING AT THE TIME WITH BABYLON 5 AND WE SAID, ‘WE SHOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THAT’” DENIS DYACK
announced and we were fairly far along in the process of the N64 version,” he remembers. “As a matter of fact, I’m sure we were perhaps past alpha and getting close to beta, so it was quite a shock to me and to the whole team, but this was a decision that Nintendo made and it had nothing to do with their opinion of the game at all. They really liked the game, but it was a global decision where they said, ‘We need to move forward with the Gamecube now, this is a new set of hardware and this is what we think we should do.’ A lot of people were particularly worried if that was the right thing to do, but it was and we could certainly do a lot more with the Gamecube hardware. It had a lot more RAM, it had a disc, and in the end I think we’d all agree that it turned out to be without question the right decision.”
Denis speaks highly of Nintendo, and it’s clear he has a lot of respect for the company. What’s less clear, however, is just how much hand-on involvement Nintendo had.
Some have said it was a lot, and turn to the lower quality of Silicon Knights’ later games as proof of this. Denis remembers a nurturing environment, one where Silicon Knights was allowed to create its own vision, with Nintendo giving help and advice when needed. “We worked very closely with Nintendo and some people came down from Nintendo to work with Silicon Knights for quite a while,” he reveals. “Miyamoto is really, really good at what he does and works extremely hard. We went through different cameras, what would be best for the game, and I would say that they generally would respect what we were creating and at the same time say, ‘What about this idea? We think this would be better,’ and we would sit back, think about it, digest it, and we would agree as a team whether we wanted to go in one direction or another. There was a team of people from Nintendo who worked with us, and certainly Miyamoto oversaw our project like he oversaw everyone else’s project, and we collaborated within that hierarchy. If they were unhappy with the project, it wouldn’t have gone forward.”
Eternal Darkness did go forward and was eventually released seven months after the Gamecube’s US launch. The delay wasn’t due to problems at Silicon Knights, but more due to world events. The tragedy of the 11 September 2001 attack on the World Trade Centre shocked the world and resulted in several games being delayed – or, in the case of Propeller Arena, cancelled outright. Large parts of Eternal Darkness’ story takes place in the Middle East and several chapters were extensively reworked, meaning Eternal Darkness missed its launch window. We were keen to know if the delay was due to painting that part of the world in a specific way, only to be given an emphatic, “No!” by Denis. “But there was just a lot of stuff going on at the time that just got people nervous, so we did have to change certain things,” he adds. “If we hadn’t have had to have done that, we would have made launch on the Gamecube. We were tracking extremely well but we had to change some
“WE WERE FAIRLY FAR ALONG IN THE PROCESS OF THE N64 VERSION” DENIS DYACK
chapters and it’s just one of those things that happens. It’s totally out of your control.”
One thing that wasn’t out of Silicon Knights’ control was the epic story of Eternal Darkness, a tale that spans time and space and has plenty of connections with the work of HP Lovecraft. The game begins with a section that takes place in 26 BC and ends over two millennia years later in 2000 AD. It tells the story of a young girl, Alex, who is investigating her grandfather’s mysterious death. As she continues to explore his huge mansion – cleverly presented as a gaming hub – she uncovers a book called the Tome Of Eternal Darkness, the chapters of which acts as levels for the characters you control throughout the game’s duration. Alex soon uncovers a plot by Pious Augustus, a fallen Roman Centurion, to awaken an ancient evil that will enslave and devour the world, not unlike the creations described in HP Lovecraft’s own macabre stories. “What I particularly like about Lovecraft in general is that Lovecraft didn’t say that these monsters were magical he just said they were extremely advanced and ancient,” continues Denis when we quizzed him about the obvious similarities. “We’re like bugs to them, we really don’t affect their world in any way, but at the same time they have their own limits and they’re trying to come into our dimension, but they really can’t. Lovecraft was so strong in that area. Look at Babylon 5 – [which is] quite frankly, ancient beings that have been around a long time, and mankind stumbles into them. We’re in space, but it’s still the same themes. It’s that type of recurring idea, which I think is the stuff that’s worth telling.”
If you have stuff that’s worth telling you need a way to convincingly convey it. Silicon Knights did it by allowing you to control 12 characters, ranging from Pious Augustus, the man who puts the story’s events into motion, to a Persian swordsman named Karim, and a Franciscan monk who uncovers an insidious plot at the cathedral he visits. Each character not only handles completely differently, but also has his or her own strengths and weaknesses. Roberto Bianchi is a portly Venetian artist with a lumbering gait and low health, while firefighter Michael Edwards can shrug off most enemy attacks thanks to his great stamina and access to advanced weapons. “If you’re going to tell a story you want some pivotal events that you think are significant in human history, which is what we did,” explains Denis. “From that point it just becomes a case of creating fiction around this point of historical accuracy. So we went around and chose spots that we thought were unique and interesting and gave us a perspective that wasn’t just North American centric. The whole Lovecraftian overtones with the universe that we had created, that part was obviously fiction, but a lot of the stuff that we did was as close to history as we could research. We looked for interesting locations, interesting time periods and went from there.”
While controlling so many different characters did set Eternal Darkness apart from its peers, it also caused technical problems, mainly because so many different weapons were shoehorned into a single set of combat mechanics. It means that the controls and fighting can occasionally feel clunky, which can cause frustration. “It was very hard actually and I think you’ve exactly pinpointed some of the challenges we faced,” agrees Denis about the combat system used. “If you do something completely different every time, the player is going to get really
frustrated because they have to learn something new. It’s kind of like when you’re playing a game and lose all your weapons and have to start over. I hate that feeling, personally. We wanted to make it consistent where you use the same techniques as a player, but as an overall metagame it feels like they’re accelerating and learning new stuff and then at the same time you want to introduce different experiences. It’s always a challenge.”
No matter how challenging Eternal Darkness’ gameplay may have been at times, it certainly couldn’t compare with the sheer horror you received as a player when the avatar you had been controlling for the past 30-odd minutes dies – often in very brutal circumstances. It felt revolutionary at the time, and while it could aggravate, it also told you in no uncertain terms that this was Silicon Knights’ story and you were just participating in it, lucky to be along for the ride. It works exceptionally well and still makes Eternal Darkness stand apart from many newer games. “Let’s face it, even in a lot of popular culture it’s not done that much,” continues Denis. “I think, for example, Game Of Thrones does that now. When you’re trying to entertain somebody you really want an emotional catharsis. [A moment] that sticks out in my mind is when you’re playing Paul Luther. You know that there’s a boss fight coming. You see that greater guardian and you’re like, ‘Okay this is going to be an awesome boss fight,’ and then you look up and you’re squashed like a bug. And it’s over. I remember when we did focus testing on that people were just like, ‘Wow…’ They were really upset and there was a concern whether that was the right thing to do. I think it is. From a standpoint of real life, sometimes the good guys lose. Life is not always fair, and I think from that standpoint Eternal Darkness really stands out as something that made a statement in that area.”
Another area where Eternal Darkness stood out was with its brilliant insanity effects. As characters succumb to various atrocities, they slowly lose their grip on reality, and the player begins hallucinating. Initially you’ll just witness blood running down your TV screen, or your TV’S volume seemingly getting lower, but as the adventure progresses, things get more and more severe, with one of the best emulating your memory card being erased. It’s a terrifying moment the first time it happens, and we still fall for it on subsequent playthroughs. Unsurprisingly, the idea came from Denis and his team wanting to do something a little different to the norm. “It was another chance for us to play with the genre,” admits Denis. “With this type of structure you could do it at multiple levels. You could break the fourth wall. It was something that I found very teresting and there were a lot of challenges with that stuff. It wasn’t something that was so easily done at the time, that was for sure.”
And that’s the real beauty of Eternal Darkness. It isn’t a perfect game, but it’s certainly ambitious, often going out of its way to give players a unique interesting experience that similar games of the time simply weren’t offering. It’s one of our favourite early examples of marrying videogames to the cinematic narratives that have become so popular, and it marks a high point for Silicon Knights, which it never quite replicated before its collapse in 2014. For those lucky enough to have experienced its unique blend of horror and innovative design, Eternal Darkness remains the definition of a flawed masterpiece.
“FROM A STANDPOINT OF REAL LIFE, SOMETIMES THE GOOD GUYS LOSE” DENIS DYACK