The “Break it Down” Blog

I was a big fan of The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay; I’d even suggest that it was a sleeper hit with no one I know having played without my urging years later. Given the relatively unknown name of the studio that did the title (Starbreeze) at the time, I was more or less floored with the production quality of the game; namely the texture and lighting work.

One of my favorite parts of the game was the bare-fisted fighting in the prison yard that you could get through. The game was story-driven with the help of many NPCs… and beating some of those rough-and-tumble NPCs to death with your fists as you bloody them up was awesome.

Given my existing affinity for all things Starbreeze (and the Riddick storyline in general), I was so happy to see that Starbreeze is getting closer to a release of the continuation of that story line: Assault on Dark Athena.

The badass-est part of this release is that Assault on Dark Athena is so tightly integrated with Escape from Butcher Bay, that it literally picks up right where Butcher Bay ends. Starbreeze is rounding out this offering by taking an approach that I’ve never seen a game company do before: they have decided to completely remaster Escape from Butcher Bay ontop of the new engine powering Assault on Dark Athena and ship both games together in the form of:

• Chapter 1: Escape from Butcher Bay
• Chapter 2: Assault on Dark Athena

Considering how good Assault on Dark Athena is shaping up I’m psyched to think I can play back through Butcher Bay in it’s full next-gen wonderment for the full Riddick effect.

We’ll keep you posted as more unravels about Assault on Dark Athena… we are excited about this one.

Thanks Kotaku!