UPDATE (5/10/2013): According to a recent article by Polygon, Precursor Games is not required to refund any pledges to this game, even if they don’t complete the game. Quoted from the games’ TOS:

[box style=”quote”]“Precursor Games is under no obligation to complete the Game, or in the event completion is impossible, return any of the donations it has received.”[/box]

And

[box style=”quote”]”However, in the event that Precursor Games cannot raise enough money to develop this project, all donations will refunded to their respective contributors.”[/box]

These two statements seem to contradict each other. We reached out to Precursor Games and are awaiting a response.

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Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem was the best options for having your pants, ahem, soiled, on the GameCube back in 2002. Even though the “Cube wasn’t the dynamo it should have been, Silicon Knights crafted a slick, clever number that sold well, turned a few heads, and then slowly slid into obscurity, remembered by only a handful of loving fans. Precursor Games aims to resurrect their survival horror series with Shadow of the Eternals with their own private crowdsourcing. Since they’re Canucks, no Kickstarter, but that may change.

Check out the teaser trailer below:

Some words: Here’s the official plot synopsis:

[box style=”quote”]

When Detective Paul Becker is called to one of the bloodiest gang massacres in Louisiana state history, only two survivors remain from a brutal conflict between two rival cults. As Becker begins his interrogations of the suspects, their combined recollections will uncover the truth about the ‘Eternals’.

Featuring an ensemble cast of heroes and villains, Shadow of the Eternals will span over 2500 years of history throughout Egypt, England, Hungary, and the United States. Players will question the perception of reality as they try to balance the mechanics of combat, magick, and sanity events to progress through the adventure.

Shadow of the Eternals will take players on a memorable journey throughout time; weaving historical fact with disturbing fiction to create an experience unlike any other.

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The game may or may not take place in the same universe of the original, or may strike out on its own terms in the same gameplay style. Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem did a one-up on Resident Evil by a: not having stupid fucking art puzzles (but rather clever brain-twisters), b: not relying on lazy guns for action and c: having a sanity meter that depleted if you spent too much time looking lovey-dovey at the baddies. Similar to Amnesia: The Dark Descent, but like huffing paint thinner in a train station bathroom. When your Sanity Meter gets too low, the game starts having… issues with you. You start walking on the ceiling, spooky ghosts appear, your head explodes, your inventory seems to empty. After a while, it also gets extremely meta: the game itself appears to actually crash (like a blue screen), you get warnings that your save card has been corrupted, or the game abruptly ends with a splash card for a non-existent sequel.

Here’s 9 minute of gameplay, courtesy of IGN:

It’s good times! Shame the original’s not available on the Nintendo E-Shop or Virtual Console. That’s probably a licensing thing since Silicon Knights had been pretty much defunct since 2008, only releasing X-Men: Destiny in 2011.

Shadow of the Eternals will be a FREAKIN’ 12 PART EPISODIC GAME THIS IS ACTUALLY INSANITY. Each episode will be approximately 2-4 hours. Considering Dennis Dyack’s previous outing, Too Human, screwed the pooch on release time and was generally a broken piece of dog shit, let’s hope a newly found sense of crowdsourcing freedom keeps them to their word. Honestly, this looks good. I don’t pimp crowdsource projects I wouldn’t donate to, so check them out here.

Shadow of the Eternals, if funded, will release Q3 2014 for PC and WiiU.