In Deep Shadows

Remember Boiling Point: Road to Hell? The ambitious, sprawling “high-maintenance” 2005 PC FPS title that in many ways beat Far Cry 2 to the punch and was, erm, sternly chastised for being released in unfinished state, but ultimately got patched up with several then-massive patches and in the process became a minor cult hit among the PC shooter crowd. Despite the proven updates, the game nevertheless became a bit of a poster boy for bad launches.

But did you know a sequel for the game exists and has been out for years? Running on the 3rd version of Deep Shadows’ Vital Engine, White Gold: War in Paradise was released in October 2008. The sequel, set on the Caribbean islands in the year 2010, very much structurally mirrors the first entry to the series: Like in the first game (which is called Xenus I in its motherland; the sequel is therefore titled Xenus II), the player is sandwiched in the power struggle between a government military, drug cartels, local natives and other islanders.

But that’s not nearly all; Deep Shadows have also published, in-between then and now, their other project, Precursors, which was released in Russia this previous December.

Precursors is characterized by the studio as a freeplay RPG/FPS/space combat mash-up with an economical component. This rather Outcast-looking game also contains vehicles, space shuttles for travelling in a seamless universe  as well as organic weapons that you have to feed and care for.

As influences, the developers have name-dropped David Braben’s classic Elite and Andre Norton’s science fiction novels; a presentation for the game wonders why the three aforementioned gameplay styles have never been combined before, perfectly illustrating the ambitious derring-do of the Russian studio.

Why have we not heard anything of these projects, then? Neither game is currently distributed in the English-speaking world, that’s why. While the developers worked with Atari on distributing Boiling Point, no suitable publisher has apparently been found for these two games. While there might still be some small hope left for Precursors, with more than a year having already passed with White Gold, I’m afraid there is relatively little hope of seeing an official English language release materialize for the game.

Therefore, the only concrete hope of playing either game in English are fan translations! In the Deep Shadows forums, dedicated Russian-to-English translation threads can be found both for White Gold and Precursors. While neither translation is close to being ready, some success has already been displayed, and since both games have been released on the same version of the Vital Engine, translators seem to have a good grasp of the situation (there are traces of unfinished English translations left in the Russian versions of the game) as well as access to a working SDK.

Here’s to hoping these two games will be playable sooner or later!