Descent: Underground

Descent: Underground

Steam store header of Descent: Underground
Developer(s) Descendent Studios
Publisher(s) Descendent Studios
Director(s) Eric "Wingman" Peterson
Producer(s) Andre "Opossum" Veicher
Designer(s) Rob Irving
Programmer(s) Jason Spangler
Artist(s) Tobias Loeffler
Writer(s) Keith McCormic
Composer(s) Dan Wentz
Series Descent Alternate
Engine Unreal Engine 4
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, Game Cube
Release Early access
October 22, 2015
Genre(s) First-person shooter, shoot 'em up
Mode(s) Single-player, multiplayer

Descent: Underground is an upcoming 3D first-person shooter video game being developed by Descendent Studios. A prequel to the 1994 video game Descent, it was successfully funded via crowdfunding website Kickstarter on April 10, 2015, and released on Steam as an Early Access title on October 22, 2015.

Development

In November 2014, several former developers for the game Star Citizen, led by Eric "Wingman" Peterson announced that they were forming Descendent Studios to work on a multiplayer game similar to Descent in play style, and with the working title Ships That Fight Underground. The company approached an Interplay shareholder in December who set up a meeting with the CEO of Interplay and Descendent Studios. A deal was then struck to license the Descent name to Descendent Studios.[1][2]

In March 2015, Descendent Studios announced a Kickstarter campaign for Descent: Underground, a new prequel using Interplay's existing trademark rights to the Descent franchise which only includes the name "Descent" (with Parallax Software owning all remaining properties, such as the original "Pyro GX" ship and likeness, sound effects, design and copyrights to the descent universe which includes weapons, story and all level assets including expansions.).[3] It is powered by Unreal Engine 4 and was initially scheduled to release in March 2016. The full release is now scheduled to take place between Q1 of 2018 or Q3 of 2019 according to Descendent Studios forum posts and releases done on brightlocker.com.[4][5]

In August 2015, Descendent Studios allowed live play of an early Pre-Alpha build of the Descent Underground game and engine at the “Rooster Teeth Expo”, or RTX, in San Antonio Texas. The game demoed was an RTX crowd favorite, with attendees waiting in line up to an hour for an opportunity to play.[6] The game was also demonstrated to function with the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset.[7][8] The demo game highlighted the work of music composer Dan Wentz, who worked on the original Descent series sound design and MIDI music. Dan Wentz has been hired to score a new soundtrack for Descent Underground, as well as produce sound effects for the new game.[9][10]

In October 2015, Descendent Studios released their first playable, Online Multiplayer build to select members with Proving Grounds access (this includes "Underground" subscribers).[11] The game features several modes, single player vs bots, Co-op vs bots, survival vs bots, multiplayer deathmatch, multiplayer CTF with Miners, and conquest game-modes.[12] On October 22, 2015, Descendent Studios released the game on Steam Early Access. The game has been recently hit by increasing amounts of negative reviews and now holds a 54% rating on steam. A single player campaign is in development, and is expected to be released when they leave early access.[13]

As of July 19th 2017, Descendent Studios is now using Bright Locker for additional funding and publicity. They have also released a free playable demo, downloadable on the Bright Locker website.

References

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