Too Human Preview

VideoGamer.com: You've said in the past that you don't think it's a good idea for the press to see games before they're finished. Is that something you still believe now that you're coming to the end of Too Human's development?

DD: I think that's totally true. Our industry is still young, but showing things before they're done is a left over habit from ages ago that we still just perpetuate and continue to do because no-one thinks we should change. If you look at the movie industry, they just don't show movies till they're finished. They still have previews, they still have the same kind of introduction into the press junkets and stuff, but you just don't show things so early. Too Human is a really good example of, there's a lot of baggage with the history. And often when you see previews or reviews they talk about the length of the development process, blah blah blah. None of that really matters when you're looking at the final product. Is the final product good or not? It's these kinds of things that I think the industry could evolve, both press, development, publishers, everyone would benefit from not showing these things. But you know that's my opinion. Opinions vary but my mind isn't changed though.

VideoGamer.com: Is it something that's likely to change?

DD: I think it is changing. I think GTA 4 is a really good example. They didn't show much of the game right up until it was ready to be released. And I think they took the opposite approach and used that to their advantage and gave people three days to review the game, and they got like 11 out of 10s across the board! But yeah, you're going to see that more and more. The more publishers I talk to, people just don't want to show stuff now. I think it's good. I think the press are becoming more critical, and I think they should. But now it's a matter of balancing the criticism with cynicism and taking really valid criticisms to games and what really will affect the gamer. There's so much noise out there, like how many games you guys have to look at. Last November there were 350 games released. There's just too much work for everyone right now. It's almost like that's one of the problems in a myriad of a ton of problems in our industry right now.

VideoGamer.com: Is there scope within Silicon Knights to do something else at the same time as the Too Human trilogy?

DD: Yeah, we're already working on something else that's already announced.

VideoGamer.com: Everybody always points to the other game you've done in the past that everyone loved...

DD: Oh Eternal Darkness!

VideoGamer.com: Is there scope for you to be working on a new Eternal Darkness game at the same time as Too Human?

DD: Yeah. Actually we have plans for multiple titles at all times. Silicon Knights has this perception, and we want to avoid the curse of success. Legacy of Kain, Eternal Darkness, Too Human, they're all very different games. We don't want to be caught into doing the same games over and over again, like just first-person shooters or something like that. We want to make sure that we vary it up a lot. People stay at Silicon Knights for a long time. We want people to be able to rotate through different genres, different types of games, to make sure we can keep current and keep our signature strong content but at the same time vary through the different genres as much as we can. So you're going to see that a lot with us.

So our next game, not including the trilogy, so we have the second and third in the trilogy coming, but our next game that we'll probably announce will be totally different from anything you see here.

VideoGamer.com: And what about Eternal Darkness? Is there anything you can say to the fans who are hoping for a sequel?

DD: It's possible to do another one! People always ask if it's possible and it is possible, we're just not talking about anything right now.