Dark Sector on Wii “definitely possible”

Dark Sector on Wii “definitely possible”
Wesley Yin-Poole Updated on by

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Upcoming third-person PS3 and Xbox 360 action game Dark Sector is “definitely possible” on the PC and the Nintendo Wii, developer Digital Extremes has said.

Dark Sector, a gory action game which looks a bit like Gears of War and Resident Evil 4 all rolled into one, is made with Digital Extremes’ own in-house game engine, Evolution. The decision by Digital Extremes to stick with its own engine for Dark Sector, originally unveiled in 2004, and not switch to the much-used Unreal Engine 3, raised eyebrows because of its close link with Epic Games. Digital Extremes co-developed the original Unreal game and subsequent Unreal Tournament games.

Speaking in an interview with VideoGamer.com, Dark Sector associate producer Dave Kudirka said that “as of right now there are no plans for a Wii or PC version” but “with the Evolution engine, those are definitely possibilities”.

While it’s easy to imagine Dark Sector coming to the PC, the idea of the game, which has impressive visuals, coming to Nintendo’s Wii, which isn’t known for its graphical prowess, will surprise many.

Kudirka added: “We developed the Evolution engine in house at Digital Extremes. It’s got all the bells and whistles you’d expect of a next-gen engine plus a few more we’ve thrown in to raise the bar. The biggest strength is our ability to compile the game simultaneously on Xbox 360 and PS3. Of course there’s challenges. Each system is a little bit different in its hardware. But the Evolution engine has made a lot of that work really easy. The chaps back at the studio have put a lot of time into it.”

When asked why the team decided to go with their own engine for the game, Kudirka responded: “When we first announced the game Unreal Engine 3 wasn’t available and there were things we wanted to do that we didn’t see in any available engines. So we decided, you know we have experience building game engines, let’s do it on our own, let’s see what we can do and let’s try and get the best out of it.”

Kudirka also rebuffed suggestions that Dark Sector may suffer from appearing too similar to Epic’s massively successful third-person action game Gears of War.

He said: “Any gamers that want to give it the time, give it a chance, get some hands on, they’ll notice that the game is very different from Gears of War. In Gears of War, to me it’s the kind of game where you’re picking up just bigger guns as you go. For us, Hayden is evolving, he’s getting new powers. It’s not just a matter of I’ve got a bigger gun, I’ve got a grenade launcher, I’ve got a rocket launcher, I’ve got a sniper rifle. Now you’ve actually got these powers that come from within the character and really that’s what sets it apart from Gears of War.

“These are great games, we all play these games in the office. But we watch a lot of movies, read a lot of comic books, so we draw our inspiration from good games, good movies, good stories. And we just found the right combination ourselves to see what works.

“Some people fall into the trap of saying this looks like Unreal because the engine is similar and the art style is the same. That’s entirely not true. These engines can be used for all sorts of different games. Sometimes it’s frustrating hearing this is just like Unreal Engine 3. But it’s also a compliment in a sense as well. They’ve done so well over at Epic. We’re just trying to make a place for ourselves and show everyone what we can do.”

Is Dark Sector possible on the Wii? Will the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions suffer from being too similar to Gears of War? Let us now what you think in the comments section below.