roncli.com blog: Descent: Underground

I posted a couple weeks ago about Descent: Underground, a game being created by Descendent Studios with the blessing of Interplay.

As little as I care for the shell of a company that is the modern-day Interplay, the game Descent (and Descent 2 and Descent 3) holds a special place on my hard drive. I played Descent 3 pretty hardcore for about 5 years, and even ran a Descent 3 Teams League for a number of years. Some of my favorite memories involve Descent LAN parties and Descent moments. No other game can get my blood pumping like Descent.

Yet, no game has filled the void that Descent has left since its last release in 1999. Others have tried, and others will continue to try, but to me, Descent is not Descent without a community supporting the game.

Parallax Online was an online service specifically for Descent 3 that transformed the game into something that was extremely accessible to play. While smaller than some communities, there was a time when you could get into a multiplayer game at any hour of the day.

Today, if you want a game, you have to hang around in a mumble server and hope there are other people available to play. Games still do happen every day, but you might not be able to find a game that you like, because so few are being played today.

I am hoping that Descent: Underground changes that.

No matter what you think of Interplay, this is Descent. It is being created by a team of developers with a pedigree of success and a proven track record of communication with their fans. They have shown their love for the game, and in turn the community has slowly began to get behind the team. One of the ways that I have done this is to create the Unofficial Descent: Underground wiki, a place where all of the information about the game is organized, and attributed to the source where the development team talked about it.

This could be big. Descent: Underground is going to be the most accessible Six Degrees of Freedom game ever, which will let new players hone their skills while the veterans go toe to toe with each other. New game modes promise to bring a whole new dimension to Descent that it hasn't had in the past. And, of course, with 16 years of new technology, even in pre-production, the game looks BEAUTIFUL.

Descendent Studios is asking for $600,000 to make the game. As of this writing, they are nearing $430,000, over 70% of their goal, with about 55 hours to go. If you are any kind of Descent fan, I strongly recommend giving them some of your money. This is our chance to bring back Descent, let's do it!

Labels: Descent: Underground, Gaming

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