Gameplay Footage, Near Death Experiences, and Happy New Year

So things keep moving right along with Dark Sector going into this New Year. It has been a busy couple of months since my last post, and we are all stolked about the progress we are making and the coverage that the game has been getting.

Steve and I were in San Francisco at the beginning of December to demonstrate the game to some of the online press. In spite of a good number of drinks, we managed not to pull a “Jaffe” and kept it together through the whole event. Steve did a few on-camera interviews that are linked below.

The surprising thing about the event was the gameplay video that came out of it. Essentially, our good friends in Marketing wanted some “b-roll” footage of the game that they could use as a back drop for Steve’s interviews. It was a bit of a last-minute request, so we cut together some stuff from the actual demo. As it turned out, the video was released by itself and I think that, combined with the teaser trailer, you can get a pretty good feel for both the gameplay and atmosphere of Dark Sector.

On the flip side, the flight back from San Fran was crazy – Essentially, aside from ‘the pillow incident’, we mirrored the plot of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Our plane couldn’t land in our hometown of London (Canada, not UK), as a freak snow storm shut down the airport, so we were forced to land in Detroit. Unfortunately, Detroit was having wind gusts that, at the time, I was sure meant that a 30-seat prop plane was going to be my coffin. Once on the ground, we were told that we could be waiting in the airport for about 24 hours. So, we crashed at the Detroit airport hotel, then grabbed a car to take us across the border, and then hoped on a train back home. One and a half days, for what is usually 6 hours. Traveling sucks.

But, getting back to the game…. Another thing that came up recently was the decision for us to not do a PC version of Dark Sector at this time. Basically, this came from respect of our PC audience and the large number of PC gamers we actually have in the office. We have to focus our efforts on the console versions, and that would have meant that the PC version would be a port. Being the “victims” of a few games that took this approach ourselves, it just didn’t sit well.

It’s great to hear all the comments people have on the game. I know there is a plan to get a forum up and running on the site in the coming months – as soon as I have more details on that, I’ll definitely post it up. Speaking of more posts, we have made a resolution to post here a little more frequently.

Happy New Year from everyone here at Digital Extremes.

Sheldon

23 comments:

Unknown said...

To be honest, I just want you guys to make an awesome game, and I know you can. The change in art direction left a bitter taste in my mouth. But, if you guys can come up with that cool idea, I'm sure that this idea is gonna be cool too.

Anonymous said...

Happy new year, and best wishes! Glad to hear you guys had such a good showing at San Francisco, and glad you all got home safe. It was a great treat to see the new footage and the interviews! I do hope there are more frequent updates to the blog and official site (and more screen shots too!), but I know you're busy making this game great. :-)

One big fan signing off-
aec

Anonymous said...

Happy New Years to all the guys/girls? working on the DS.
I have been waiting TOO long for thise game to take its course, feels like we need Jack Sparrows compass haha.
Anyway, this game is gonna be amazing, I can just feel it. And I hope you guys can add great realistic firearms like AK, MA41, Glock, MK.23, G36C...etc. Wouold add to the game so much to get that great futuristic but yet feel modern to some extent.
I know this game looks amazing already for me, and I cannot wait to sign p for the forum with images, posts, news...and whatnot.
Great job guys, great job!

Anonymous said...

Happy new 2007!

I may be blind or something,but where are the links to the new game footage you mentioned in this post?

Btw, could you post some stuff from your concept art team? I`d like to see some of the character/weapon & environment designs.

cU

Anonymous said...

xenoforge@ http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/action/darksector/screenindex.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=tabs

Anonymous said...

No PC?!?!?!?!
but you guys invented Unreal! it was the shit! what happened to PC love?

Anonymous said...

We need more games like this. However excited I was for Dark Sector based upon my initial viewing of the first trailer, this new direction you have taken DS is leaps and bounds from that said trailer. Your visuals are anything but short of beautiful, intriguing and straight up haunting. I can see ques from RE4 with a touch of "Destroyed Beauty" in the movie captures. Keep up the great work and I look forward to see a new trailer in the upcoming months. Good luck!

rthompson
art director
toledo, ohio

Anonymous said...

I simply want to reply just because of the fact there isn't gonna come a pc-version of Dark Sector, just a port maybe.

You would disappoint a lot of pc gamers (including me) if there isn't gonna come a pc release.
For this sort of games the PC is the best system and it isn't fair if there ain't gonna be a release on this platform. I hope u all @ Digital Extremes re-consider about it cause PC is the system that made such games world famous. And now u are letting stay the pc owners in cold?

I think many many many PC gamers are not having the same idea about it as Digital Extremes but I think such a great game as DS is gonna be, it deservs a pc release and not a "port".

I think this is fighting against nothing but I come u all see I have a point. I do game al whole lot of years now and I know where I walk about.

But since it's worthless I think, I absolutely would do a attempt with this to make u all re-consider your decision about that.

Also the pc gaming market is a lot bigegr than other consoles and also many young console gamers are (when thet grow older) buying a pc and gaming on that system. I know I am right and if u think about it, u may come to the same conclusion. You have to think about the future. And the gamers from now ARE the future!!!

I also want to wish u success with making more great games like Unreal and Dark Sector. I hope many will follow after these!!

Anonymous said...

Hey Digital Extremes, I am back with more great ideas, and if you are reading this, I hope I can get a respond.

----------
I wish that Dark Sector has like a great Bonus Missions, with couple of hard difficaulty added to it. And I do not mean that one version get something and the other version get bonus features, and I am tlking about the 360 and PS3 versions.

Meaning that the 360 have some stuff, and PS3 suddenly gets bonus stuff that the 360 don't have, and knowing that both versions will have the same release date it is not gonna go that path, thankfully.

I was thinking by difficaulty there would be as following;'

Easy
Normal
Hard
Surivial (Very Hard)
Nightmare (Extremely hard)

Would add so much to the game you know. Would be awesome as well for the 360 version for its achievements points. Like kill 50 soldiers with the disc and get 25 points or something.

And the Bonus Missions can be like the highest scores...each game version for PS3 and 360 have its own leaderboards, and these bonus missions can be played by hopefully more than 1 character like RE4...like if DE adds more than Hayden into as good guy, like some other dudes and women in the game that can handle weapons, would be so much greater.

The bonus missions can have difficaulties as well, meaning smarter AI and less items to grab...etc.

This is what I think what would make Dark Sector more enjoyable to keep going and reach to top of the leaderboards you know.
Gonna post the exact same thing on the blogg on Dark Sectors official site and hopefully some devs notice it.

bobby said...

There have been a lot of comments floating around about how people are disappointed by the new direction the game has taken. Even the recent OXM printed a few letters from upset gamers.

But I want to applaud you for the new direction. Before, it just looked like another sci-fi game. Now, it's something more intriguing, and I LOVE the glaive. Takes me back to my childhood memories of the movie Krull.

At any rate, the recent videos and screenshots look amazing. Please keep up the great work.

Anonymous said...

I have been loking forward to this game since i heard that it was being developed.

I can't wait for you guys to put up the forum and some more posts. congrats on the showing in San Fran. though.

Although when i had heard that the PS3 version was going to have additional bonus features that the 360 does not have, i was somewhat dissapointed.

I have seen the concept art, and i must say that everything looks awesome,especially the metal dog-looking monster.

I love the concept of the game, and can't wait to start using the glaive to rip apart enemies.

Good luck with the rest of the production, and G'day.

Anonymous said...

I've read with great interest about how you implement some biotech stuff into your game. Like that rash condition that gave Hayden ultimate powers. Where did you get all the research for the game?

Anonymous said...

This game looks like it could have an AMAZING multiplayer experience!(minus the spinning blade of death). This game looks like it suits me so well! Like it's exacly what I've been waiting for, I love it. And it's killing me to have to wait but I love seeing this game progress and more gameplay makes me happy. But at this point, a fall release really has me pumped, you guys are great, good luck with Dark Sector, aka Potentially the greatest game I have played(and it's not even out yet so that means a lot.) haha.

Anonymous said...

Hey guys, im back, good to know the game is still running great.

Saw the new video with comment in the background with Steve Sinclair, and it was amazing.

I love the customized finishing moves you could do, the graphics are improved and the boss, OMg the boss is like a mini version of King Kong covered in steel.

I actually did not know that the bosses would be that big.

I have one question though, why did you guys change the sound of the glave swirl from a cool sounding sound that actually feels that is made of steel to the new one with the tiger sound?

I liked the previous sound much better, unless the tiger sound is somewhat of a power up element to the glave that you could upgrade it to that it sounds like that.

In the end, I am most definitely the most and biggest fan of this game ever.

I hope we can hear samples of the new music you guys are planning. I hope it is full out orchestra with choir here and there, would be great.

Great job guys, keep up the excellent wont.

Anonymous said...

Oh guys I forgot to say something here.

Are you guys gonna be in this years GDC in San Fransisco?
It is gonna begin on Monday so I hope you guys show up with more exclusive stuff of what you guys have been doing.

I hope there is a playable demo, and I hope to God that there is a marketplace demo so people can play it, especially me, haha.

I haven't seen any framerate problems or buggs or anything with it, so I am hoping for a demo, if not on marketplace at least and If you guys are gonna show up on GDC, a public demo for sites to upload more gameplay footages so I can drool over it.

PS. The music in the background of the teaser was just amazing, reminded me of some of the tracks from the movie Batman Begins. I have the soundtrack for the movie and it is great, with orchestra...just love it.

Another PS. On the latest footage I loved the scenery when Hayden is walking one some railroad like path kind of like a bridge or something, then all of a sudden there is a big military combat chopper flying over Hayden head. I hope there is like helicopter combat, reinforcement, like fast paced action when things get very intense and the chopper arrives with jeeps, tanks...etc.

Is there any possibility to get the music that was played on the teaser trailer or the latest footage?

Keep up the great work.//Sath.

Unknown said...

The game is amazing so far, I actually did my first article about this game yesterday maybe you guys would like to see it. The game is really brilliant, and is shaping up well. I'm just curious as to if there will be a connection from the first work on it, and the new darksector (besides that they are both Hayden) Keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

Hey Flippa!

Good to know there is "underground" fans of Dark Sector. This game is gonna be amazing, can't wait for it.

I would really want to read that article of yours, so post it here or give a link or something, as long as I can read it.

Unknown said...

This is going to look like a very cool game in MP. Do not run into the ground like Far Cry with horrible lag issues with thier graphics(and with the help of UBI). Can't wait for it.

Anonymous said...

Bill, there won't be any online play, and I hope they won't add any.
Any game that doesn't had the online concept from the beginning of the project is gonna suck just to add a bonus for online.

If Digital Extremes is smart enough to add a beautiful cool character like Alyx Vance in the game, then I most definitely want to see ONLY co-op online play.

No death matches, or any stupid stuff like, we have enough of that.

Unknown said...

From:
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/dark-sector/

Dark Sector PC
Developer Digital Extremes
Publisher D3 Publisher
Genre Action
Release Date Q3 2007
ESRB TBA
GameSpy Score N/A
Multiplayer Internet and LAN

Then this is wrong.

Anonymous said...

That site is soooo wrong man.

First of all, PC version is canceled, and Digital Extremes haven't talked about online what so ever.

But check out the PSU site for the latest video and screenshots from GDC 2007. They are gonna put it up this week.

Anonymous said...

Hi Team Dark Sector!

Well it has been quite a time that the official site is up and all, but nothing has changed, and I wonder when you guys are gonna like updated it with screenshots, wallpapers even avatars, forums...etc.?

I I heard from PSU.com that you guys said that there will be a demo on Xbox Live marketplace and Playstation Network, so I can't wait until I get it on my 360.

By the way, because this game is set in Russia in the fictional Lasria, I wonder one thing.

Steve Sinclair says that there IS gonna be sci-fi elements in it, but it won't be like 10 000 years in the future, ok cool. But how far is it then?

The reason I am wondering is that there is this movie called "Avalon" from 2001, and the movie is set in Poland which is also in the Soviet-area, so I knew that the movie had sci-fi...however it was also modern.

It has the color or bluish-grey and with orange yellow look...but it was very futuristic, rather space sci-fi and I really love that.

I want to provide the link to the trailer, and I hope a response eventually comes up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knMW6VccuaA

Best Regards...Sath

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