What’s old is new again—there’s a new title on the horizon from the mind that brought us the modern remakes of Turok 1 and 2. Samuel ‘Kaiser’ Villarreal was behind the coding on Nightdive Studio’s Turok revival, and now he’s working on an interesting reboot of the free-flying, frenetic game Forsaken, which you may remember from 1998. The game returns as an enhanced, augmented port called Forsaken EX. Get ready for a time warp.
Forsaken was an FPS inspired by the cult classic shooter Descent, which pioneered “six degrees of freedom” (6DOF) game mechanics. Forsaken features several changes to the formula to make it more arcade-friendly. The game takes place in the future, after science had advanced far beyond humanity’s ability to rein it in and control it. A nuclear fusion accident occurs and the entire surface of our planet Earth is utterly destroyed.
A year following the aftermath, it’s become legal for anyone to salvage anything left on the planet. That means anyone and everyone has come from far off planets and galaxies to scavenge what’s left of Earth. Players must not only battle against one another, but also robot sentinels left to guard the planet by the government. It’s some crazy stuff, but absolutely worth playing.
Say hello to Forsaken EX pic.twitter.com/CLbG6Uzk3O
— Samuel Villarreal (@SVKaiser) January 19, 2018
Villarreal took to Twitter to post a few of the first screenshots of Forsaken EX that he’s worked on so far, and it looks as slick as you’d expect. The new version isn’t just going to be a simple port, and as such it will bring back a lot of the “lost” content from Nintendo 64 to the game again. Out of the PC, PlayStation, and N64 versions that released, the N64 actually had the most content, with completely different content in various areas and even additional bosses. That, along with some “remixing” and tweaking, will serve as the foundation in the new version of the game.
Night Dive Studios has confirmed that when the project has been completed, it will help get the game onto Steam and promote it, which is certainly a good sign. If you’re looking for a healthy dose of retro gaming, this is a great place to start, at least whenever the game’s playable, that is.
