Hey You Down There: Requels

Prequels, Sequels, Reboots, and other crud happens in the gaming industry...but what happens when a game goes off the radar only to become a new game mid-development? Lights..Camera...REQUEL!

It happens to the best of games, these requels. One such example is Dark Sector, a game teased as early as 2000, and it wasn't until late 2004 to early 2005 that the game surfaced again, just to disappear and reappear as altered again.

This game has gone through so much requeling that sites like IGN who have tracked the game since the original tease can only note the fact that the developer had no clue at any point in development of what to make the game about.

The original Dark Sector was gonna be...for lack of more proper explanation; an Unreal style game on an MMOFPS scale...needless to say that concept of the game never solidified. The second concept was a space-faring duo who explored the "Dark Sector", the main character having a kick-butt stealth suit and the pilot being some ritualistic girl. The final concept still features a stealth approach but the suit less stealth (though still bearing the "horn-like" helmet), and no real indication of a second main character of a female pilot. That and the addition of a boomerang-shaped blade that is used to make gore-like melee throws.

The reviews from such as IGN note the fact that, while the final concept is acceptable...That some of the original concepts, even the mid-developing concepts would pose more potential than said final concept. Then again the project was first announced when Digital Extremes(the developers behind Dark Sector) were just merely peeling off being a co-developer of the Unreal series, thus there initial intentions to develop something similar to what they helped co-create. At this point Dark Sector seems to be the ONLY original title developed by this company...and by far with the mixed success of Dark Sector's almost decade-long developed...will they even attempt to make amends while still being a developer who develops for other properties such as Bioshock, The Darkness, and now even a game based on the Star Trek reboot movie series.

I can probably give more examples, but to my knowledge Dark Sector is one of the biggest requel-doing games that was popular enough to track the process.

Needless to say, It would be best for developers to take lessons on such a obscured fate as Dark Sector and keep away from Requeling.

That's about it for now, thanks for reading!