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Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Thu May 03, 2018 5:07 am
by Metaldrgn
When I think of remaking a game I want to make it look something like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDsRfbfnC_A

I think the realization that none of us have the knowledge to do this level of work nor do we have sufficient time to get to that level for this is something I'm starting to see. I may at some point import the old Arokh model w/ textures and start rebuilding him in ZBrush. While I'm still a ways off on my anatomy, I can start playing with it. I still have commitments until roughly the end of this year, but I will have some free time that I may start messing around with it. I'm also planning to also buy Substance Painter. Not because of this, but it could be a good reason to start using it. I actually would like to get into dragon character design someday at least for my own perspectives if nothing else.

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Thu May 03, 2018 9:17 am
by Mechanist
Yes, but we aren't talking about such levels of quality - well, not yet at least.

For one thing, this is a relatively easy task - because it's a recreation of an existing game, first and foremost.
YanGez has already done a lot of great work on recreating many of the levels.
The game mechanics are rather simple and straightforward, and there isn't even much in the way of cutscenes: I might be wrong on this, but I think that if all the STOMP sequences from OOTF were brought together, they still wouldn't add up to even half an hour of length.

Creating a new game completely from scratch would easily take five, maybe ten times the effort. You'd have to start by creating a coherent setting and plot, then make the levels, design the characters, enemies and cutscenes, hire voice actors, etc., yadda yadda yadda.

Additionally, in this case, it can be an incremental effort: start by making "simply" a playable recreation of OOTF, and improve it from there: better combat system, better AI, add some extra content... maybe eventually throw in a TAG remake in there, as well.

With enough improvements, it'd then be feasible (and relatively easy, at that point) to use the resulting well-developed game engine to create a completely new, marketable game, without using any of OOTF's assets or IP.

Hmm, out of idle curiosity, I wonder just how expensive would it be to buy the IP rights to Drakan... :?:
Probably far out of reach - but then again, I've personally witnessed a 2-man "garage company" grow into a multimillion-dollar major manufacturing plant over the course of about a decade and a half, so the bounds of possibility are clearly far wider than they appear to be...

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 1:43 pm
by yangez93
Hi :)

OpenOOTF:A Drakan Remake Tech Demo

I'd like to annouce that I finally release OpenOOTF:A Drakan Remake Tech Demo with Ruined Village level.

There is link directly to Google Drive folder so you can download this:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1TAQuM ... lF8VxmAnUE

Everything you need to play is just unpack OpenOOTF_A_Drakan_Remake-_Ruined_Village.rar file, size of it is 1,05GB packed, 2,07GB unpacked. You need to execute file ruinedvillage.exe. Don't need to download any other assets, just click and play :)

Commands:
W,S,A,D-moving
Shift-Sprint
Alt-switching run/walk
1-Toggle weapon

Actually way of extract only Ruined Village is by option "Select Dependencies" of Ruined Village scene and export package-> and import in another project, this project called Dracon, it'll be "basis" of OpenOOTF and make this organized. Removing unused assets takes a time and release Tech Demo with all made levels it will give a very large capacity of project. Better just release one level with no huge size. We have hard work ahead of us, I hope we can finish it :) I will be very happy if you check this Tech Demo and write your opinion, of course, be forgiving I know Rynn can fly using "Shift" key :) Thank you very much for your previous posts, we discussed much about IP issues, so to be carefull, nice to have original Drakan before you play this :)

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Wed Jun 06, 2018 5:40 pm
by Arokhs Twin
Excellent, I'll give that a try and let you know any feedback.

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 7:58 am
by Morell
once I get a job and bring my computer to my new flat, I'll give it a try too. can't wait. :-)

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Mon Jun 18, 2018 6:45 pm
by Mechanist
Ok, so here's a collection of some of my ideas for a not-Drakan game. Let me know what do you think.

I'm basing this on broadly keeping the overall premise of the game similar to (or at least inspired by) Drakan - while making the story different enough to avoid any possible IP infringement issues, as well as any claims of being just a blatant ripoff.

(BTW, obviously new names would be needed; I'm using the names from Drakan here, so that there's no confusion as to what I'm referring to)

So, let's start from the beginning (more or less):
  1. Initial history of conflict between dragons and humans :arrow: That's a fairly generic theme, and can be left as is.
  2. The Dragonstone :arrow: Instead of what it was in Drakan, make it an obelisk covered with inscriptions in ancient Draconian, containing arcane knowledge (a gift from the gods) - including a "soul forge"-type spell used to form the Bond.
  3. The Order :arrow: initially just a very-loosely-affiliated bunch of the Bonded, who were keepers of the peace (mercenaries, more or less?) in service of the local lords; subsequently slowly rising to prominence as an independent, highly respected group over the course of several decades; eventually de facto in charge of things (a'la Knights of the Round Table?), thus gradually relegating the existing rulers to a primarily representative/ceremonial role (posessing little actual "ruling power"; eg. the IRL Queen of England) - so no true "Age without Kings".
  4. The Betrayer - idea 1 :arrow: Not a human, but a dragon - who grew up in the days of peace (so never knew REAL conflict), and was indignated at the idea of bonding with the (apparently inferior) humans. Started out by absorbing the soul of his own rider to extend his own lifespan/power, and then proceeded to capture humans wholesale, for the express purpose of draining their souls as well.
    This would inevitably lead to 2 dragon factions forming: those who preferred to Bond, and those who resented it.
    Obviously, in this scenario, the Dark Union would consist of both humans AND dragons - the human members, in this case, being non-Bonded who sympathized with the latter dragons' cause, and/or wanted the Order out of the picture to further their own agenda.
  5. The Betrayer - idea 2 :arrow: First part is same as #1 above - but that was actually a ruse by the human, who successfully managed to transfer their soul to the dragon's body (because they needed the powerful form of a dragon to perpetrate their own evil schemes) - and in the process made it look like the dragon was actually the Betrayer! This would of course promptly lead to boycotts of the Order, eventually culminating in a mass dragonslaying campaign?
  6. The Betrayer - aftermath :arrow: This is where I start to run out of ideas for now; I thought I had something good going there, but then I realized I've basically reinvented the rest of Drakan:OOTF; which is obviously a no-starter in this case.

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 5:28 pm
by yangez93
Hi here :)

Because some time has passed since the first Tech Demo was released. I'd like to put some news about progress of OpenOOTF:

First.
I added sounds, sound ambience from original Drakan, Rynn footsteps that you can check on latest gameplay that I put link on my YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFSOIdFkVko.

Main sounds are footsteps with random play footsteps sounds from original Drakan (dirt sounds).Example of used sounds: sounds triggers on: cliffs, Rynn's comments when she discovers Grimstone or Arokh's Lair, sound ambience in Crypt, waterfalls or wind ambience sounds.( Of course mixed 2D and 3D sounds and changed pitch a little in some areas)

Thanks to BuXXe's DBReader that I was able to extract sounds in wav files. Another way was Mechanist's method with recording sounds from Level Editor using Stereo Mix. Not an important method, an important final effect :)

Thanks to Zalasus that he sent me a file with extracted RRC Data that contains inventory, main menu, HUD, health orb etc. I've put in into remake. I made intro level with main title OpenOOTF. Thanks to Morell model I put Drakan Owl but I had to edit UV coordinates after exporting obj model it was impossible to get the desired results with an immediate texture layout. Maybe I do not know much about Pepakura software :D

After releasing recent utilities such as BuXXe's blender scripts with importing REO files. I next problems with glitches won't be anymore. Especially with Temple, Heron's Tomb, Tavern, houses and another structures.

For Wartok Canyons. Level is almost completed in terms of terrain and general sketch, with snowy part as well. There aren't details of course. There is also to do exact location of waterfalls. Ruined Village as well is almost completed in terms on general sketch.

Main Menu has effect of rotating only one crystal(New Game) so far. It also changes color( in the appropriate hover crystal script). But I have problem with finding a script on continuous sound after hover crystal no as playOneShot().

Resulution and overall settings, with JSON utility now in Remake it is possible to save settings and re-loading json file.

I put on camera -> Collsion script. And adding Mesh Colliders to most of objects since there was main observation of Mechanist when he tested Tech Demo and of course computing Occlusion Culling on Wartok Canyons. He also noticed drop of FPS on grass areas in Ruined Village.

One of the important note about legal issues:
The main assumption is that it will be release as MOD and players before playing they will have to have original copy of Drakan:Order Of The Flame since Remake use original files from this game.

For Mechanist ideas: We discussed mainly on our Discord channel.

1.Initial history of conflict between dragons and humans -> there were many fiction stories with humans defeating the dragons, freeing the princess from the tower where the dragon is, evil and good dragons etc.
2.The Dragonstone -> I always find out that in games with Dragons main player has to find artifact to defeat or ride the dragon. Sounds good.
3.The Order-> Often found in popular titles, sounds good. Especially in terms of fantasy games
4.The Betrayer - idea 1-> interesting one, only good dragons live everywhere on world with various creatures. Suddenly appears evil dragon? Is it more about the dragon betrayer in the order?
5.The Betrayer - idea 2-> something like a human who wanted to take over the world? By getting good Dragon soul and turn him into evil?
6.The Betrayer - aftermath-> here I would add that evil start to conquer new territories. Where war between Dark Union and Order is beginning to spread more and more in the fictional world.

I've had ideas about Heron's origins of the Legend. Something like starting game by priest like Atimar who tells stories/legends about Heron and Arokh to peasants/villagers but not everyone believes him, the action will begins from the time when Heron was an ordinary peasant who bond with the Dragon-> founded The Order. Similar to this is very interesting one of Fan Fiction : Uniting of Heroes by Arokh’s Twin

Here some screenshots of recent progress of OpenOOTF as always:

Main menu as I mentioned in this post
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Here basic menu with some graphics options, antialiasing, VSync and apply settings with JSON utility
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Drakan wise owl :) Thanks to Morell's model. Mechanist's updates of Level Editor with exporting Alpha channel textures(tree branches). I tried to recreate this one as it is in original Drakan
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Tavern
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Mechanist discovered that in original Drakan mace is upside down :) Check also firefly lamp and particle system //Edited In Remake is upside down :)
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Here we have camera collision script. See also original Drakan barrels
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One of inner house in Ruined Village, every model has of course mesh collider. See also health orb or health potion on bookshelf.
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Temple:
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Snow in Wart`ok Canyons:
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And of course, I'll try to release next version of Tech Demo :)

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 6:43 pm
by Mechanist
Looks very good, better with every update :)

yangez93 wrote: Mechanist discovered that in original Drakan mace is upside down :)
Actually what I meant there was, the mace in the remake was upside down... not in the original Ruined Village level - which is also why I made that remark about dropped maces in the Witcher 1 nonsensically coming to rest vertically, standing on their handles.

The way it's placed against the wall with the handle down makes no sense... not only would it fall over faster than immediately from that position, it would be very awkward to place/retrieve from its current placement. (think about what a real mace user would do when faced with the need to put his/her mace away in a situation like that...)

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Thu Oct 11, 2018 6:53 pm
by yangez93
Actually what I meant there was, the mace in the remake was upside down..
Yes, you're right :) My fault, I just wrote wrong. In remake is upside down :) Of course, mace is incorrectly rotated, but it goes to be fixed

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Sat Nov 24, 2018 10:22 pm
by Svarr
All that looks pretty good so far, very promising.

I was thinking about doing a Drakan remake with Unity as well, which is why I found this thread. So, is this supposed to stay a one-man-show? I could help, mainly with scripting.

Drakan is abandonware, so shouldn't the assets and name be free to use, as long as it's non-commercially?

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2018 7:06 am
by Mechanist
Hi, and welcome to the forums :)

You are correct in assuming that YanGez is doing most of the work.
A few other people did contribute to the project in one way or another, but that only accounts for a small part of it.

Svarr wrote:Drakan is abandonware
Correction:
Drakan: OOTF is abandonware.
However, Sony still holds the rights to the Drakan intellectual property, which includes at least some parts of Drakan: TAG as well.

None of us knows exactly what that entails (because we aren't lawyers) - but the bottom line is, the only way to "safely" do anything like this is to have it be some form of mod for the original game, and require a copy of it to be installed for the mod to run.

In this case it's kinda silly, because OpenOOTF doesn't even (directly) use any of the assets from the Drakan data files, but there you go.

Incidentally - for much the same reason, that also means there's exactly 0 hope for a "Drakan 3", as long as Sony still owns any rights to Drakan.

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2018 4:26 pm
by yangez93
Hello :)

Yes, I'm working on this project alone at the moment :). Here the problem certainly would be the problem with the organization with couple of co-creators due to the large size of the project, analysis, different time zones, importing models from other contributors, communication etc. Although the help I have already received is great(thanks also to Drakan Discord Channel), especially when it comes to importing the original models (BuXXe's blender scripts or Heckfluff's tools) and other members that I will mention below. Here is also the issue of updating the project version of Unity Engine(so some of the previous assets are not working properly). Or in my case even changing the IDE because MonoDevelop it is no longer supported by Unity Engine. So I changed to Visual Studio Code which I personally recommend, it starts very quickly in opposite to Visual Studio Community software.

Fortunately, a lot of people are willing to help me. One example of help is the help of the Mechanist eg transcripts from OOTF cutscenes or Zalasus with extracted rrc data. Or even Duncan and Alchemist in the organization of the project. Duncan mentioned setting up different action plans(plan A, plan B etc.).Or Alchemist was more based on completing the project as soon as possible, setting a deadline and then doing something like Drakan-Like-Game. However, one of my ideas is to set up couple deadlines: eg to finish the draft menu at the end of December, to complete Ruined Village for next 2 months, to complete the Wartok Raid cutscene by the end of the week, etc. The advantage of this solution is faster completion of various features.
For OpenOOTF main goal for now is to make SplashScreen-> Intro> MainMenu (Options, Credits, NewGame, LoadGame) -> WartokRaidCutscene-> RuinedVillage-> InnerTavern-> Heron's Tomb-> Arokh's Lair.
In fulltech demo, players will be able to load any other level: Islands, Grimstone mines, Wartok Canyons or Volcano for exploration purposes. Certainly,the exploration itself can be interesting even without NPCs, eg solving numerous puzzles, labyrinths as they are in Drakan.

The last progress with OpenOOTF has to do with completed couples cutscenes. At the beginning I did the easiest ones. So I first made The Farmer conversation with Rynn, next Awakening of The Arokh then the Wartok Raid. Or cutscene with flying Arokh along with Rynn to Rift World. (In the meantime, an improved version of the Arokh's flying animation appeared, with the addition of a transform position keyframe and not only the rotation of wings or legs, for making dragonflying more realistic). I used Unity Timeline for these cutscenes.

As for the models, they are original, that's why I called OpenOOTF as mod. UlrichGenova made Wartok model, but it has high resolution textures that cannot be easily imported to Unity. Anyways, he made great work.

Currently the player controller is changing, the question is whether the player movement will be scripted or root motion based, but rather it will be scripted. In the case of root motion, it would involve more work on the animations. I tried to make humanoid avatars with existing Drakan models and then put on animations from other asset but of course the problem occurred with the chaos of such animations. For me it is much easier to make a generic, these animations are easily edited in a blender.(it's better to do animations in own way :) )

My idea for Arokh's controller is to make it like "spaceship controller" :D. But these are ideas that I will have to implement after Ruined Village and Arokh's Lair will be fully finished .Anyways, the Arokh controller is not a goal for this moment.

One of good move was to place on ModDB OpenOOTF in order to reach a larger audience and it is more visible here as a mod. I strongly recommend authors of other projects to upload their works for example: OpenDrakan or Community Patch.
https://www.moddb.com/mods/openootf-a-drakan-remake

Of course recent screenshots. Thanks to Saad Khawaja asset (Instant screenshot) I took couple of highres screenshots

Heron's Tomb swing blades(Pendulum) With scripted motions. I'll show you on next gameplay video
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Original hallway of Heron's Tomb, unfortunately, the way of fitting is the same as in the Riot Engine, exactly I have to put them to be matched correctly.
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Heron's Tomb. I have idea to make stairs motion in animation event of grabbing Heron's Crystal that triggers these stairs.
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I recreated Book of The Legends timeline. I added normal maps on these paintings to make them more realistic and masking low resolution of these textures.
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I've spent a lot of time in order to making animations for Rynn,Arokh and NPCs such as Wartoks(Trolls, Orcs and even Scavenger)
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In this case it's kinda silly, because OpenOOTF doesn't even (directly) use any of the assets from the Drakan data files, but there you go.
You're right.Even exported models and sounds are modified in some way. My view: OpenDrakan or Annivesary works similarly. The point is that recreated engine(so another engine?) imports Drakan content. OpenOOTF(another engine imports changed Drakan content)
All that looks pretty good so far, very promising.

I was thinking about doing a Drakan remake with Unity as well, which is why I found this thread. So, is this supposed to stay a one-man-show? I could help, mainly with scripting.

Drakan is abandonware, so shouldn't the assets and name be free to use, as long as it's non-commercially?
Thank you :) Here is strangely a bit, just as Mechanist said, Drakan franchise still belongs to Sony, it seems to me that it all comes only to the TAG. Although many mods and different types of fan art content have already been created and they are still on the internet. Even Barry Leitch's soundcloud channel has Drakan OST(Drakan content) uploaded.

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 12:06 pm
by UCyborg
Drakan is abandonware, so shouldn't the assets and name be free to use, as long as it's non-commercially?

Absolutely not! Abandonware is nothing more than a term used to refer to software that is no longer maintained. Copyright expires in no less than 90 years according to US laws.


Twisting words and calling OpenOOTF a mod for Drakan won't change the fact that it's a new game made on a new engine with assets ripped from Drakan. Trademark protection is a thing too, so can't use the name either. The only thing you might be able to do safely on another engine is a spiritual successor to Drakan. Or Drakan mod developed solely by the tools provided by Surreal Software; Level Editor and Modeler.

The project in its current state raises a number of red flags. The only way to proceed safely in the direction it's heading is getting permission from Sony to do this. Or let the project rest in peace.

Otherwise, you're treading on a minefield; you can't say you haven't been warned if it blows your legs off some day, so not only you'd be disallowed to share your creation with your fans, also countless hours of work would have gone to waste.

It doesn't take much to research matters, so here's the starting point: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/investi ... ames-legal

TL;DR Sony has the every right to shut this project down if they see fit and there's no other way to develop this remake legally other than getting permission from them to do so.

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 3:37 pm
by Mechanist
UCyborg wrote: Copyright expires in no less than 90 years according to US laws.
Actually make that "sometime between one million years and never", in the US at least, because of Walt Disney.

UCyborg wrote: Trademark protection is a thing too, so can't use the name either.
That remains to be seen. IIRC, Sony's trademark rights to the Drakan name expire this February?
It's doubtful that they would renew the rights, given the circumstances... still, that only concerns the trademark, not the IP rights?

UCyborg wrote: Or Drakan mod developed solely by the tools provided by Surreal Software; Level Editor and Modeler.
Well if we go by that criterion, then our patches also don't qualify either... since technically they are a "mod" which changes the way the engine works.

UCyborg wrote: (...)it's a new game made on a new engine with assets ripped from Drakan.
(...)
The project in its current state raises a number of red flags.
Oh yes.

Personally I find the decision to rip the Drakan assets baffling, to say the least: that would work fine as a placeholder for development, maybe - but it seems counterproductive to put in all the effort to recreate the world of Drakan as seen in OOTF, just to populate it with the same old low-poly low-res assets.

UCyborg wrote: Sony (...) getting permission from them to do so.
Now I'm no clairvoyant, but I think it isn't particularly hard to see that one coming from a mile away.
The Drakan series might be well and truly (commercially) dead - but as soon as there's any prospect for any amount of money to be made from it, it will suddenly become more priceless than a priceless Ming vase.

Re: Drakan Remake by YanGez93

Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2018 7:00 pm
by UCyborg
I'm not a lawyer neither so I can't give any better advice than to tread really carefully. While Sony indeed seems not to give a damn, which so far has been proven to be the case and even asking them anything might remain ignored (this is yet to be tested), their inaction today does not guarantee their inaction in the future. The point about potential popularity of the project in the future indeed is a good one as that could attract attention. This is the issue I wanted to raise, you don't want them to go against you after you've already put considerate amount of work in the project.

Theoretically, they could even embrace it, but we just don't know at this point in time what their reaction might be, should they come across the project. Something similar did happen with Black Mesa AFAIK, Gabe Newell was even positive about the fact alone that the re-make of Half-Life was inevitable, so that was the case of implicit embracement. Later, we see the game come to fruition over years to the point of being sold on Steam, though it's not finished yet.

On the other side of the coin, there is a project, a mod, whose author was spooked with lawyers due to usage of unofficial Xash3D engine instead of the original engine. The former does use bits of Half-Life SDK to tie loose ends and according to that SDK's license, you're not allowed to use it to develop a game that runs on anything else besides the original engine, even if we assume Xash3D is mostly legal due to a good chunk of re-written code. Practically, they haven't taken any legal action against the developers of the said engine and neither people using it to develop stuff on it AFAIK, but distribution of such mods or games on Steam is certainly a no-go.

Anyway, I just wrote these posts to emphasize it's important to keep these things in mind at the very least. Taking my mind completely off Drakan for a good time made me realize these things are more important than I deemed them in the past. Though I didn't really come up with anything that wasn't already raised in the past, Jage made the same point back then.

As a precaution, I did remove public access to Drakan Gold Repack from my personal cloud storage. Let abandonware sites deal with potential repercussions. I guess it could be updated and original assets stripped, so it'd be just a huge map/mod pack for Drakan. I don't have interest in doing that ATM and the important stuff is already in Community Patch anyway, though it'd still be handy for people who prefer to avoid automagic installers. Oh well, innounp is a thing.

Which brings me to a point with unofficial patches. Few weeks ago, Google did block public access to one of my patches (the one for The Suffering games). The reason was not given and the link to supposedly ask about it does not function, so I guess I'd have to find someone to contact personally or start with the general question about these things on their forums. I suspect there's a fair chance it could be simply due to stupid anti-virus programs flagging it as malicious. Even unpatched binaries raise red flags with more than 10 such programs and patched binaries actually reduce that number a bit according to TotalVirus report. Change program a bit -> IT'S A VIRUS! -> do it again -> now it's okay -> repeat -> OMG IT'S WIN32.HEURWHATEVER. You can twist it whatever way you like and get the accurate behavior of so called heuristics engines, a snake oil marketed at gullible people to give anti-virus companies their money in exchange for a (false) sense of security.

OK, done with ranting and heading to the main point. Looking around, unofficial patches are one of those things that can fall under the fair use clause. No cases have been made directly against any unofficial patch AFAIK. We could debate the redistribution part. Game binaries certainly fall under parts of the copyrighted work, although they're useless on their own and at least unmodified ones are often packed with official patches. So the question is whether a random mortal person can publish modified versions of it. Practically, it is done that way with the sole purpose of fixing defects in abandoned product, which by itself is "fair use". So even if "fair use" doesn't override prohibition of distribution of patched binaries, you can workaround this by making a patch program that only knows how to patch the original binaries and distribute that. If you distribute binaries with the assets, that does allow for misuse, as anyone who didn't buy the game can use it then. But what can you do with binaries alone except to study them and redistribute them in either modified or unmodified form, so we could be back at the "fair use".

The important difference between a remake and unofficial patch to note, if it hasn't been obvious from these discussions, is that the intellectual property holder may like to carry their trademark and what's associated with it, in this case, Drakan series, forward and under such scenario, they wouldn't want someone else to do their thing. At least that's the worst case scenario. On the other hand, Surreal is no more and you'd need a dev team anyway, so theoretically it could happen they would see you, YanGez93, as someone who enjoys working with Unity and the whole thing may develop into the actual job opportunity, perhaps at the already established game developer. We all know what chances of Drakan 3 emerging are though; none, unless some very specific event flow changes that.

Really, it's a crazy world and anything can happen. Unfortunately, without a solid word from Sony, nothing beyond speculation is possible. And I'd feel guilty playing prophet seeing all will turn well and saying yes, go ahead, finish it, only to later feel guilty about the worst case scenario that came true. My opinion is that there are good chances that you can continue without anything bad happening, especially if the project stays under the radar. Does anyone see Drakan's genre and its unique concepts stepping out of the niche land any time soon? Historically, Sony took legal action against copyright infringements when it came to their consoles, those things they've actually developed and are making them money, but nothing regarding the intellectual dust in their basement. LOL, how silly does that sound? While we can study other examples of legal cases, that doesn't explain what happens in our case. Maybe calculate statistical probability of what's more likely to occur.

Should've thought about some of the original assets being in the remake ATM just serving as placeholders. It's true it won't be very attractive with Drakan's orginal models and textures in place. Music and voice acting is the bigger obstacle though. Remastering everything in the same style as the levels is indeed the goal here and will make it original in a sense that everything except the story and such was recreated. It's just that in the worst case scenario, even that can't save you.