I hope this Avatar isn’t blue
Looking Glass Studios released some of the industry’s perennial favorites. The System Shock series, Thief: The Dark Project, Thief II: The Metal Age, and the two Ultima Underworld games are all part of the company’s ten-year history. The developer may be gone, but its legacy lives on in OtherSide Entertainment, formed by veteran designer and Looking Glass co-founder Paul Neurath.
OtherSide intends its in-development Underworld Ascendant to be a modern sequel to the Ultima Underworld series. The team has permission to use any and all assets from the first two games, except for the Ultima name. The game will not be a “spiritual successor,” but a return to the Stygian Abyss of the original series.
Unlike most dungeon crawlers, this one will be alive with multiple factions and societies vying with each other. Your actions will have a direct effect on the world, and OtherSide promises a ton of choice when it comes to approaching situations. Ultima Underworld was super innovative for its time, with a fully realized 3D world that was one of the first to attempt a more “lifelike” approach to its world design instead of endless corridors, so hopefully this one will do its predecessor proud and offer the same rich gameplay tradition.
OtherSide hopes to raise $600k with its Kickstarter to fund the rest of development, with stretch goals including new enemies, areas, and co-op play. As of the time of this writing, the studio was approaching $100k with 29 days to go. I personally hope it makes it. I’m usually weary of Kickstarter, but a team with this pedigree and a game with this kind of legacy has me pumped.
No firm release date has been set for Underworld Ascendant, but the Kickstarter has a tentative delivery date of November 2016.
