Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

Are you ready to return to Butcher Bay and escape the prison once again? Starbreeze seems to think so; they’re developing a remake of the classic Xbox title with upgraded visuals, and for the first time bringing Riddick to a Sony console: the PlayStation 3. Starbreeze’s previous Riddick outing, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay, was something of an anomaly among licensed games in a sense that it was vastly more interesting than the generic action movie on which it was based.

The marketing staffers are hyping it up a little too much, with quotes like this: “The Chronicles of Riddick is a genre defining game that helped shape the modern first-person shooter”. The ‘hype train’ is certainly running up a high carbon credits bill.

Although to be fair, Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay was a great game. It even set the visual benchmark for the Xbox port of Doom 3. This remake for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 will ideally only improve on them. Given it’s largely a remake - or “retelling”, as Starbreeze put it - fans familiar with the original will know the bulk of the story. With that in mind, Starbreeze is developing new levels and features, and adding multiplayer options for PSN and Xbox Live play to keep it fresh for the old fans, while introducing a new audience to the franchise.