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8 months ago
Feature: Through the looking glass
This is not a review of the wholly unfinished Underworld Ascendant
Having poked around at the earliest stages of Underworld Ascendant, I've reached the conclusion that it's just not in a fit state to be released, and as such, not in a fit state to be reviewed. Announced in 2014, this spiritual sequel to the seminal Ultima Underworld games of the early 90s was Kickstarted $860,000 in early 2015, with a ridiculously optimistic release date of…
Underworld Ascendant is out now, OtherSide Entertainment's crowdfunded spiritual sucessor to Ultima Underworld. For the younger among us, or those who had better things to do in the early 90s than trawl imaginary dungeons, that means it's a first-person action RPG with a focus on puzzling out creative solutions to problems. There's stealth, parkour and multiple ways through every level, with your choices on a…
9 months ago
Underworld Ascendant sneaks in one last trailer before next week’s launch
We might have escaped October, but there's still plenty of skeletons in Underworld Ascendant, OtherSide Entertainment's successor to immersive sim great granddaddy Ultima Underworld. Backstabbing, sneaking, turning traps on their owners and generally being a high-flying swashbuckling so-and-so looks to be order of the day, according to its new launch trailer. The game is launching in just over a week now - next Thursday, November…
11 months ago
Several years after escaping the dungeon hell of Kickstarter but a little later than planned, Underworld Ascendant has announced a release date of November 15th. Y'know, the action-RPG coming from OtherSide Entertainment? Y'know, the studio co-founded by Ultima Underworld designer Paul Neurath and Deus Ex director Warren Spector? Y'know, whose legacies are felt in immersive sim-y elements from sneaking to stacking boxes to pass obstacles?…
1 year ago
Feature: Fans of lots of text, rejoice!
Clear 100 hours in your calendar, ‘cos CRPGs are here to stay
In the mid-to-late 2000s, publishers abandoned the CRPG genre – an acronym describing the very specific genre of video games adapted from tabletop RPGs to be played on computers – which a decade earlier had been a cornerstone of PC gaming. They were more interested in accessible, console-friendly series like Mass Effect and The Elder Scrolls, and PC-centric RPGs all but died out. Then, around…
OtherSide hopes you’re smarter than Underworld Ascendant in first trailer
Underworld Ascendant is the first in a series of titles where Looking Glass studios alumni are moving to reclaim their former mantle. Under the OtherSide Entertainment banner, they're working on a proper System Shock sequel, but the game we'll see out of the gate next is the Ultima Underworld sequel we deserve. The Dungeons & Dragons flair is mixed into an immersive sim setup that…
Feature: Blissful abyss
Underworld Ascendant is a game for anyone who has ever tormented a GM during a tabletop RPG session. The maps have been drawn up, the traps have been primed and all of the plans are coming together. You're deep in a dungeon and the story is about to take a very unpleasant turn. And then... “You said the spikey pillars are made of the same…
3 years ago
We've seen a little of Underworld Ascendant [official site] in action since OtherSide Entertainment crowdfunded their revival of ye olde Ultima Underworld games, but we've not seen its final look. They've been talking about what they call an "authored look", an art style inspired by the unreality of tabletop games. Today Otherside shared a few new screens showing exactly what that means for the game's…
In the kind of Getting The Band Back Together news that makes me hyperventilate ever so slightly, the news just broke that Warren Spector has joined Otherside Games, the studio working on System Shock 3 and Ultima Underworld spiritual successor Underworld Ascendant.
4 years ago
Feature: Will the prophecies come true?
The holidays are now over, and it's time to get back to what matters - saving a million accident-prone fantasy realms from their own past mistakes, evil gods on the rampage, and all that pesky loot that they clearly don't have anything better to do with than stick it in barrels at the bottom of dungeons. This is why so many of them have no…
"A rogue's view of the dwarven magic controlling the flow of lava in the Stygian Abyss' Volcanic core." That is how the folk at OtherSide Entertainment teased a video for a prototype of their RPG Underworld Ascendant [official site]. I'm a sucker for wanting to peer into Stygian Abysses (provided they don't start peering back into me) and thus here we are. They did not…
Two years ago, if you'd asked me how a spiritual Ultima Underworld sequel made by assorted Origin/Looking Glass veterans would fare on Kickstarter, I'd have said "funded in 60 seconds!" then smiled smugly. In 2015, that really doesn't happen unless you're a funny watch or a card game about weapons of mass kitty destruction. It looked a little touch and go for Underworld Ascendant for…
Even a few years ago, the idea of getting to watch assorted Looking Glass and Irrational alumni play and talk through revered sci-fi immersive sim System Shock 2 sounded like an absurd fantasy. Twitch and Twitter, whatever else they might be throwing at the world, have broken down so many barriers. For instance: two of hours of System Shock 2, with live commentary provided by…
Oh goodness me. If Underworld Ascendant [Kickstarter] can at least match my hazy, confused memories of Ultima Underworld 2, the first game I ever played on my dad's PC, then I'll be a happy bunny. If it can match what's being said by the team about their "improvisation engine", then my jaw will hang agog. They are, it seems, attempting to create a setting where…
Feature: Experimentation and improvisation
Underworld Ascendant [official site] has some big shoes to fill. Big shoes of Nostalgia +8. As a continuation of the Ultima Underworld series, with a team led by Looking Glass veteran Paul Neurath, Ascendant is picking up where the immersive first-person RPG left off a couple of decades ago. The game is currently well on its way to a $600,000 Kickstarter target and I spoke…
Edit - links fixed As old school PC gamers' desires for a comeback go, a new Ultima Underworld is right up there with new System Shock or new true-blood X-COM. While a huge number of '90s PC devs have burst back into the limelight thanks to Kickstarter and a legion of people who are terrified of new things, I don't believe we've yet seen anyone…
