Nightdive has a view to rearranging Powerslave, if the latest teaser from its CEO is something to go through.
Nightdive Studios has created a name for reinventing classic games for modern hardware. From the System Shock franchise to Turok, and a few others, Nightdive has proven itself adept at harnessing nostalgia and turning what is old into something new.
Now it seems that Nightdive has a look at the classic first person shooter from the Doom era. Nightdive CEO Stephen Kick recently tweeted a picture which appears to show part of the 1996 Powerslave UI element.
Better known as Exhumed in Europe, Powerslave first arrived on Sega Saturn in 1996 courtesy of Lobotomy Software. It then quickly headed to the PlayStation 1 and PC for MS-DOS. Just like Doom, it’s a sprite -based 3D shooter, but instead of killing demons from Hell, you take on the role of a soldier trying to stop an alien invasion. Only a foreign invasion plan involved stealing the mummies of King Ramses to revive the ancient Pharaoh to steal his power and rule the world.
Everything is a bit convoluted. What makes it even more confusing is how the PC and console versions of the game have big differences. On the PC, each level is laid out linearly, but on the console, you can return to the previous level to find a key that can be unlocked in Metroidvania style. Levels, weapons, UI elements, enemies, and ends are all different between the two versions. They even use a different engine, with the console version powered by the SlaveDriver Lobotomy Software engine while the PC version uses the Build engine licensed from 3D Realms.
As PCGamesN points out, Samuel “Kaiser” of Nightdive Villarreal is launching an unofficial remake of his own called Powerslave EX, which may serve as a starting point for a more official remake.
Nothing official yet, but we may not have to wait long for Nightdive to make an announcement. 3D Realms will host Deep Realms next month, which seems like the right time to announce a remade retro shooter.
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