More Regarding “Eternal Darkness”

 

(This is the front cover of the soundtrack album to Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. It was only sold through Nintendo Power, which was Nintendo's official magazine in the US 🇺🇸 that was run by Nintendo of America 🇺🇸, so it wasn't available in stores and was a limited edition kind of thing. The whole album is available to listen to YouTube in a playlist, which I'll link to right here 🔗. The reason why I'm using this image as the cover image for this post is that it's the first thing I think of when I think Eternal Darkness now because I listen to that soundtrack album all the time. And I didn't feel like using the video game cover for this. Especially since this isn't really about the game, or at least not entirely.) 

 

 

 

 

I'm going to take a short break from the reviews, and write a post that's been a long time coming for this blog. You see, before my Internet 🛜 was disconnected for over three months and before I got bogged down in writing my 199th and 200th posts, I had plans on writing a post about the Lovecraftian horror game, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, which was developed by Silicon Knights and published Nintendo. Releasing on the GameCube and becoming the first M rated game that Nintendo ever published. It was actually developed for the Nintendo 64 (N64), Silicon Knights started active development on this game, they were initially thinking of releasing it on the N64, as an N64 exclusive. But the development on the game had gone on so long that Nintendo's next console for the sixth generation, the GameCube was released or about to release when the game was almost complete. 

 

So not wanting to release the game on an outdated piece of hardware and miss out on the new console, Silicon Knights shifted gears and decided to release the game on the GameCube, as a GameCube exclusive. And so it was released exclusively on the GameCube in 2002 and became Nintendo's first ever M rated game. It broke some new ground. It opened the door for other M rated game to released on the GameCube and all other Nintendo consoles in the years after. That's you have games like Resident Evil Requiem and the complete edition of Cyberpunk 2077 releasing on the Nintendo Switch 2. Even the new Hellraiser game, Clive Barker's Hellraiser: Revival is going to get a Switch 2 release, or already has since the game released on all major video game platforms including PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch 2, and PC on October 8, 2026, which was last week. 

 

Apparently the game's gotten some pretty mixed reviews from critics and hardcore gamers, but what do they know right? I haven't even watched any of the Hellraiser movies, but this game may finally give me an excuse to watch them all, or at least, all the first four before Clive Barker left the series and Dimension Films fully took over the franchise, and started churning out Hellraiser movies that weren't really Hellraiser movies. They just took completely unrelated scripts and just haphazardly turned them into Hellraiser movies, adding in Cenobites, including the main man ♂︎ himself, Pinhead, and not really anything else from the Hellraiser lore. Which isn't so different from the Die Hard approach to making sequels, you know, most of the Die Hard sequels weren't actually written to be Die Hard movies at first, and just got turned into Die Hard movies later on. But obviously to much different results than the Die Hard sequels. No one's going out there saying that Hellraiser: Hellworld is the Die Hard with a Vengeance of Hellraiser movies. 

 

I might check out Hellraiser: Judgment because that was a real attempt at making a real Hellraiser movie and to bring the series somewhat back to its roots, after it strayed so far away under Dimension Films. I'll definitely check out the 2022 Hellraiser reboot, simply called Hellraiser (2022) since that movie had Clive Barker's involvement (he was one of the producers), and was actually trying something new with the Hellraiser series while also bringing it even closer back to its roots than even Judgment did. I mean, I am planning on watching and reviewing Nightbreed, another Clive Barker project, and it'd be kind of weird to review the movie that Clive Barker directed after Hellraiser (1987) and never review Hellraiser (1987). I also plan on reviewing Rawhead Rex, but that movie wasn't directed by Clive Barker. It was just based on one of his short stories. 

 

None of that would've been possible if it weren't for this game. It was followed soon after by Geist, a first person shooter game with supernatural elements. I've seen a little bit of the longplay of that, it's basically about this soldier who dies during a mission to capture this scientist who's working for an evil corporation, and comes back as a ghost 👻. Or rather he doesn't actually die, and his soul just gets separated from his body by this machine that the scientist he and his team were after built, and he has to use his newly ghostly abilities to defeat the evil scientist and the evil corporation he works for and stop whatever it is they're doing. I don't know the exact details because I've seen the first half of the game, but that's the basic plot of it. 

 

A  soldier's soul gets separated from his body by a machine built by the bad guys, he becomes a ghost 👻 essentially since he's just a disembodied soul (a soul without a body), and then the rest of the game is you playing as him as a ghost 👻, possessing people, plants, animals, and inanimate objects, and trying to complete the mission that he was sent to do in the first place before his soul got separated from his body. Since the bad guys are playing with supernatural forces that they don't fully understand, and only the protagonist can stop them since he's a ghost 👻 now. That is an M rated game, and it is Nintendo's second ever M rated game since like Eternal Darkness, it was a GameCube exclusive. I also think that movie has the potential to be made into a movie just like this game, in fact it'd probably work better as a movie than even this would since it's a much more straight forward story. I could totally see this working as an action thriller with supernatural elements. 

 

But unfortunately, Eternal Darkness was a major flop upon its original release in 2002, despite the unanimous critical acclaim that it had received. Only managing to sell 500,00 copies, and the game was very quickly forgotten about, if it was ever known at all. Given that it was a GameCube exclusive and it had sold so poorly, I'm pretty sure that most people didn't know about it. I didn't even know about it until a couple of years while I was doing research for my post about Mario Kart 🏎️ having a story mode and the canceled Nickelodeon racing game, SpongeBob and the Nicktoons: Gravjet Racing 🧽. I watched the longplay to Eternal Darkness a couple of years ago now, back in 2024, from beginning to end, and I fell in love with it. 

 

I started gushing about it in the foreword of my review of Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (which has its 25th anniversary next year in 2027, along with everything else that was released in 2002), and basically turned it into a review of that game. I mostly liked the historical aspects because I was really into history back then (still am), but I liked everything else about it. I just liked this lore that this game created, and I wanted to see more of it. And I'm not alone in feeling that since in the years since the game's disastrous release in 2002, it has gained a pretty strong cult following. There are videos now on YouTube, many of them over an hour long, talking about how great of a game this is and how underrated and obscure it is. And people have been saying that they either want a sequel, a remaster, or a full-on remake. 

 

Silicon Knights actually did explore the idea of making a sequel to this game a decade ago, and tried to get something off the ground. They even launched a Kickstarter for a game that they said would be a "spiritual successor" to Eternal Darkness called Shadows of the Eternals. But nothing ever materialized, Silicon Knights went bankrupt and shut down in 2013, and this one game is all we got, and even though it was the game that opened the flood gates to other M rated games (many of them third party titles but still) getting released on Nintendo consoles, and despite still owning the patent on the game's Sanity Effects, Nintendo themselves haven't done anything with this game and it seems like they refuse to acknowledge its existence in any way. They haven't remastered it and re-released as part of their Nintendo Switch Online subscription service, they haven't a physical remastered re-release, they have done a remake, and they haven't done a sequel, even though there totally is a demand for one. Granted, it's not a huge demand, but it is still there, people still want to be able to play this game on a modern console (legally). 

 

But despite how much I love this game (despite me never actually playing it myself), I never wrote a dedicated post about it for this blog. I didn't want to write a dedicated review for the game since the foreword for my Attack of the Clones review already is a review of the game, and I didn't think there was anything more that I could say about the game itself in a review that I didn't already say there. But, I still wanted to write a post completely dedicated to this game, so that people wouldn't have to search for my Attack of the Clones review on my blog to find anything Eternal Darkness on here. So I decided on writing a post that would act as companion piece to the review I wrote within the foreword of my Attack of the Clones review, and discuss topics related to the game. Like questions that I have about certain characters or plot points, talking about the possibility of a remaster or remake, and even talking about the possibility of a film adaptation. Like, could Eternal Darkness actually work as a movie, or even a streaming series? 

 

I was thinking of starting it some time after January earlier this year, after I finished my 199th and 200th posts, and I even started rewatching the longplay so I could refresh myself about the game and be better informed to talk about it on here since it had been a couple of years since I first watched the longplay. And also so I could write about anything that stuck out to me while rewatching the longplay, anything that I didn't notice before or think of while coming up with the idea to write this post, and before I started rewatching the longplay. But then our Internet 🛜 got disconnected by T-Mobile due to our inability to pay the bill since we were behind on it (my grandma was in really bad debt 💸 back then), and it completely derailed all of my plans for this year. 

 

I was going to write a post about a potential Iron Chef video game before or after I finished writing this one, but because we had no Internet 🛜 for over three months, starting in February right until sometime in April, I couldn't do that. I decided to put all those posts on hold and just focus on finishing my 199th and 200th posts since I started work on my 199th post when our Internet 🛜 got shut off in February, and I didn't get to finish it until after our Internet 🛜 got fully restored in April. Of course, I did write some posts during that time when our Internet 🛜 was off like my Riddick (2013) review, my review of Crime 101 (2026), my short story, Bed Bugs, my post recommending movies for Double Toasted 🍞 to review, my post recommending movies for CoMiC to review, and my Super Mario Galaxy Movie review, but I didn't want to post any of them until I finished both my 199th and 200th posts. 

 

But now, I've posted several posts since then, including all of those ones I mentioned, and now I have the free time to actually write this post. Of course, because our Internet 🛜 got shut off, I didn't get to finish rewatching the longplay, and because my YouTube History is set to delete any videos that I may have seen after a three month period or so, I lost my place. I don't want to have to rewatch that thing all the way at the beginning again because that would take too long, and I want to get this post done sometime, and have to time work on other posts, like a review of the 2026 South Korean zombie movie 🧟‍♂️🇰🇷, Colony and a post about a potential American Gamera movie 🇺🇸 and why we haven't gotten one yet, and get those out before the end of this month. 

 

I'm really hoping Colony (2026) is a lot better than We Bury the Dead 🧟 (read my review on that if you want to know more about my thoughts on that), I'm pretty sure because the trailer looked pretty good and it seems to have a lot more high octane action (a lot more zombie kills 🧟‍♂️ and human deaths) compared to We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️, which tried to be a drama more than anything else. So, I'll just have to go without it. Don't worry, I know enough of the story to write about certain things, and I wrote plenty of notes along the while I was rewatching the longplay, and I was already almost at the end of the longplay anyway. If I'm remembering it correctly, I got past the chapter focused on the character, Roberto Bianchi, which is one of the final chapters in the game before you get to the final boss, who is Pious, the Roman Centurion who was turned into a lich and became a servant to whichever Ancient he touched the artifact of. I may or may not have gotten to the chapter focused on Edward Rovias, but I know for sure I didn't get to the chapter focused on Michael Edwards, which is the last chapter in the game before you get to the final boss. 

 

 

 

 

 

(This is the front and back cover of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, provided by The Cover Project. This is the image I was referring to in the caption of the cover image at the top of this post.) 

 

 

 

 

 

The first things I'm going to talk about here are things that I noticed about the game while rewatching the longplay months ago, and questions that I have about the game and the characters and plot specifically. And then I'll talk about the possibility of a remaster or remake of the game and which one I would prefer, and talk about the possibility of an Eternal Darkness movie and whether or not I think it could work and how I think it could work. The first thing I’ll talk is the plot point about Pious wanting to kill Dr. Edwin Lindsey, the archeologist who visits Angkor Thom (the ancient Khmer city located in Cambodia 🇰🇭) discovers the Tome of Eternal Darkness and gives it to Edward Rovias. It’s funny how they have very similar first names. You see, the game jumps between four major locations: the Forbidden City (not the one in China 🇨🇳, but a fictional one located underneath modern day Iran 🇮🇷 and parts of modern day Iraq 🇮🇶 and/or Kuwait 🇰🇼 since the game depicts the Kuwaiti oil fires 🇰🇼🛢️🔥 and those of course happened in Kuwait 🇰🇼), Oublié Cathedral in Amiens, France 🇫🇷, Ehn’gha in Rhode Island, USA 🇺🇸, and Angkor Thom in Cambodia 🇰🇭. 

 

The game follows a non-linear timeline, and we jump between these four locations at different points during the millennium leading up to the year 2000, where we get to the present day stuff focused on Edward Rovias’s granddaughter, Alex Rovias. BTW, if you didn’t figure it out by now, Rovias is savior spelt backwards. You couldn’t be anymore on the nose that this one family are the saviors of humanity if you tried. And whole game is focused on different individuals throughout time, including members of the Rovias family, as they get caught up in the machinations of Pious and the Ancient he’s aligned with’s plan to plunge the Earth 🌎 into eternal darkness, and even try to stop them in some cases. Many of them fail, and end up dying, either from Pious himself or by one of the monsters he created using the Ancient he’s aligned with Mantorok’s essence. When visited Angkor Thom in 1983, he ended up in the crosshairs of Pious because he wanted to prevent him from discovering Mantorok, the fourth Ancient that he had bound there centuries prior, and his essence. 

Pious ultimately fails, and Dr. Lindsey makes out of the ancient city alive with Mantorok’s essence and gives it to Edward Rovias, who had his own run in with Pious and the Ancients and their evil plan to plunge the Earth 🌎 in eternal darkness, back in Rhode Island. He stumbled upon Ehn’gha, the ancient city underneath the Rovias estate that his ancestor, Dr. Maximillian Rovias discovered back in 1760 and was driven insane by and the creatures he found inside. In typical Lovecraftian fashion, you know, a character stumbles on incomprehensible creatures or an incomprehensible godlike being, and is literally driven insane by what they see, because what they saw was so terrifying, so beyond human comprehension that their mind cannot take it. 

 

That’s what happened to Maximillian, he lost his mind after he caught up in Pious and the Ancient’s evil plan, and visited Ehn’gha. The question that I have is, if Pious wanted to kill Dr. Lindsey to prevent him from finding Mantorok’s essence, why would lead him to that temple? Why not just kill him way before he even got there? Like, the moment Dr. Lindsey announced that he wanted to go on an expedition to Cambodia 🇰🇭 to find a hidden temple inside of Angkor Thom, alarm bells 🔔 should’ve immediately gone off in Pious’s head, and he should’ve immediately killed him as soon as he made that announcement. Like, just before he gets into his car, whack him right there, or, if you want to want to wait until he gets home, whack him there. Oh, and try to make it look like an accident or suicide for good measure, so no suspends a thing. I mean, Pious is a magical being, he has magical powers, bestowed upon him by whichever Ancient he aligns himself with (Chattur’gha, Ulyaoth, or Xel’lotath), he should be able to do that quite easily. He could’ve kill him in ways that are completely unnatural, that defy rational explanation. 

 

But no, instead, he not only funds Dr. Lindsey’s expedition, but leads him right there to the temple, and then tries to kill him at the last minute 🤦‍♂️. Sorry dude, but you should’ve already done that a long time ago 😑, before he even got there. You should’ve  never led him there in the first place. What were you thinking? If you fail to kill him (which he did), then he’s just to going to travel further into this temple, and literally and figuratively dig around there 🪏, to find answers as to what’s going on and what’s in this temple. He’s going to be more intrigued now that he knows there’s something supernatural going on, and someone tried to kill him to prevent him from venturing further. It’s like the Streisand Effect, if you tell people not to do something or look at something, or if you go out of your way to prevent them from doing it or looking at it, you’ll just spark their curiosity even more. People will be more curious and intrigued to do that thing or looking at that thing, if only to see why you didn’t want them to do it or look at it. It’s basic psychology. For an undead warlock who’s lived for two millennia, Pious makes some really dumb decisions and doesn’t think very far ahead. 

 

Maybe the Ancient he’s aligned himself with did have more of a justifiable reason for bad mouthing him and insulting him every chance they get, because Pious is kind of terrible at his job sometimes. I feel like they only made Pious do dumb things or make stupid decisions like this so that the plot could progress, and so that the playable character could survive longer. Or in this case, so the playable character doesn’t die at all, since Dr. Lindsey is one of the few characters in the game who doesn’t die at the end of their chapter, and live until the very end. Because if Pious only made smart decisions, and was successful 100% of the time, we wouldn’t have much of a story. It would just be one long series of instances throughout history of evil triumphing over good, people dying needlessly for a sake of one Ancients breaking free, and it would end with the Ancient that Pious aligned with plunging the Earth 🌎 into eternal darkness, with no hope of any of the human characters ever stopping them. There wouldn’t be an Alex Rovias there to save us at the last second, the world would’ve come to an end in the year 2000. 

While we’re still somewhat on the topic of Mantorok, if you play through the game in all three different main paths, whether you play the game with Pious being aligned with Chattur’gha, or Ulyaoth, or Xel’lotath, you get a fourth ending, which is the true ending. Where, in a bit of narration on the part of Edward Rovias, it’s revealed that the whole thing was orchestrated by Mantorok, even in his weakened state, in attempt to destroy all of his enemies, and all of the other playthrough paths and endings were all canon and all took place in parallel universes. Because Eternal Darkness takes place in a multiverse, but not a lame bullshit one like in the MCU or DCEU/DCU 😒, an actual cool and interesting one. 

 

This was all possible because of Mantorok’s ability to control and manipulate spacetime, and perceive the past, present, and future simultaneously. Meaning that Mantorok is actually the most powerful Ancient out of the four that we see, and the most manipulative and conniving one. He’s also the only one whose spells can counteract the spells of the other Ancients. That’s why the other Ancients were so afraid of him, and why they wanted Pious in their own timelines to weaken him and keep bound to the temple inside Angkor Thom. That’s really cool. It means Mantorok kind of saved humanity and bought them more time by another millennium, even if he ultimately did it for selfish reasons. 

 

Edward Rovias insists while Mantorok’s manipulation of the other Ancients into destroying themselves ultimately worked out in humanity’s favor, he is not on humanity’s side. He too is evil, just as evil as the other Ancients, and likely has his own agenda. What that agenda is, it’s not known, but the only thing really preventing Mantorok from becoming a real threat to humanity is his own weakened and dying state. But the fact that he was still able to do all this while being bound and slowly dying, just shows how powerful Mantorok. If he was at full strength, then well, god help us all, even though he might actually be our god. It’s overtly stated or hinted at, but I like to think Mantorok is the one who created life on Earth 🌎 because one of his nicknames is the “Corpse God,” and he’s this fleshy blob of eyeballs and teeth. Could’ve easily have called him the “Flesh God.”

 

But I just think the idea that this godlike being that is responsible for creating all life on Earth 🌎, from the most simply single-celled organism to the most complex multicellular organism is so indifferent towards us, and may even want to destroy us. Or at least, he was his own plans, plans that are on a cosmic level, and we’re just the collateral of that. If we die as a result of his schemes, then so be it. It doesn’t really affect him any way or another. This is all really fascinating stuff to me. The idea that we’re at the mercy of indifferent gods squabbling with each other. Mantorok’s other nickname is the “God of Chaos,” due to his propensity to sow chaos, especially as a way to destroy his enemies like Chattur’gha, Ulyaoth, and Xel’lotath. 

 

All of the other Ancients have cool nicknames of their own, like Chattur’gha is the “Great Being of Matter” because his powers emphasize physical strength and resilience, Ulyaoth is the “Absent Horror” because of his magical powers and ability to phase in and out of reality (never really existing but also never really not). He also strongly resembles a jellyfish 🪼, which many fans of the game have noted over the years. And Xel’lotath is the “Goddess of Insanity” because of her ability to create illusions and distort the mind. She’s the most Lovecraftian out of all them because she’s the strangest looking one out of all of them, she’s the most like an incomprehensible horror (though that could also describe Mantorok since he’s literally a blob, where Xel’lotath is a four-armed cyclops with no legs and all hips since she’s a goddess 😉) and her power is literally to cause people to go insane (she is the source of the Sanity Effects experienced throughout the game if you let your Sanity Meter go low), and is also a little bit insane herself.

 

She has two voices, one louder, more ominous, and authoritative, and other softer and more whispery, but still very eerie and sinister, and the two voices (the two halves of her personalities) often argue with one another and disagree with one another. If the two voices see eye-to-eye, and they’re in agreement, you know it’s bad. Ulyaoth maybe the Absent Horror, but Xel’lotath is more absent minded, and she’s the only one that can counter his magic and dimension hopping abilities due to her own ability to create illusions and distort the mind. Nullifying the Absent Horror's powers and driving him insanity. Destroying his best asset, which is his mind. Though according to the Eternal Darkness wiki, Xel'lotath is actually the most intelligent of the three main Ancients, despite Ulyaoth's own pompousness and sense of intellectually superior. He thinks he's smarter than everyone else, including the other Ancients, even though in reality, Xel'lotath is smarter than him despite her own insanity and split personality. Which makes sense I supposed, I mean, her powers do heavily deal with the mind. It would stand to reason she's pretty intelligent herself. Still though, Ulyaoth does have the better lines in the game. Can’t get any better than “The universe is yawning chasm, filled with emptiness and the puerile meandering of sentience.” 

Another question that I have about the plot is how did the pages of the tome get scattered? I assume it was Pious and his minions that tore the pages out, and scattered them throughout the house, and not Edward. It doesn’t seem like something Edward would do, you’d think he’d want all the pages of the tome in one place, so that he, or whoever finds it after him, can read the tome in full and learn about Pious and the Ancients, and use that knowledge gleaned from two millennia to figure out a way to defeat them. Pious is the one who’d have the most interest in tearing the pages out, and scattering them so that no one can read the tome in its entirety, and learn the secret of the Ancients and gain the knowledge necessary to defeat them. But, if that’s the case, then why would he scatter them throughout the Rovias mansion? Why wouldn’t he scatter them further away, in places no one would think to look for them, or why wouldn’t he just destroy the pages or the tome itself? 

 

There’s nothing in the game’s story that suggests that the tome can’t be destroyed, just that it’s really old, and that it was created long before humans existed. Because, by scattering them in the house, Pious pretty much ensured that whoever found the tome and started reading it, could just search through the house, and find all the pages and complete the story. And then find a solution to the Ancients problem, and pretty much undo Pious and the Ancient he’s working for’s plan, based on what they learned from reading all the stories inside the tome 🤦‍♂️. Again, this just seems like one of those things where they did it like this so that there could be a plot, and so that there would be some sort of framing wrap around narrative holding all these different stories together. And also, to facilitate the gameplay, and give the player something to do inside the mansion in-between the chapters. Give the player more of an incentive to keep playing the different chapters, so that they can gain the knowledge necessary to solve different puzzles, and find the next page of the tome, and unlock the next chapter, to repeat the process of finding a page, playing the chapter, and then using whatever knowledge you gleaned from that chapter to solve the next puzzle to find the next page.

The last plot related thing that I wanted to talk about in this post before I talk about the things I really wanted to talk about here, is why did Pious and the Ancient he’s aligned with want to kill Charlemagne the Frank? Was that such a key part of their plan? Because there’s this plot point earlier on the game about the Pious and the Ancient he’s aligned with plotting the assassination of Charlemagne the Frank, the King of the Franks from 768, the Emperor of the Carolingian Empire from 800, and the founder of the Holy Roman Empire. A Frankish messenger named Anthony tries to warn Charlemagne of the assassination plot, but fails and is too late by the time he gets there. Charlemagne is dead. But, it’s never explained exactly why the Ancient who Pious is working for wanted him to kill Charlemagne, and why that was key to their millennia long plan to plunge the Earth 🌍 into eternal darkness.  

 

Considering their whole problem with Charlemagne the Frank, and why they killed him, was he was trying to unite all of Europe by creating the Holy Roman Empire, did Pious and the Ancient he’s aligned with also orchestrate the downfall of Napoleon because he too was trying to unite Europe under his Continental System? Did they also orchestrate the downfall of Hitler, since he too tried to take over all of Europe, rule it as part of his so-called “Third Reich?” If so, they were right to stop Hitler because he was a pretty bad guy ♂︎, even for them 😬. Or maybe they would’ve liked Hitler because his attempt to take over Europe by expanding Germany 🇩🇪’s empire (yes I know that this 🇩🇪 wasn’t Germany 🇩🇪’s flag the time; Apple doesn’t do emojis for historical flags, and even if they did, they wouldn’t do the Nazi German flag, or even the swastika like they do the communist hammer and sickle ☭, because the Nazi flag and the Nazi swastika are hateful symbols that are banned in certain countries; just go with it) to the rest of Europe led to a global war that killed millions of people (around 70 or 80 million 💀, including 6 million Jews ✡️ 💀 during the Holocaust 😔); and then led to a half-century long stand-off between the capitalist West and the communist East ☭, the Cold War; which then led to more conflicts, and millions more deaths when you add it all up together (even more when you include all the famines and genocides that took place during the Cold War). Thereby stifling the progress of humanity, and keeping them down, which is what the Ancients want. 

 

Hitler, World War II, the Holocaust, the Cold War, and all the conflicts, famines, and genocides that took place during the Cold War actually would’ve benefited Pious and the Ancient’s plan, rather than hurt it because it kept humanity divided and fighting amongst themselves, killing each other, rather than working together as one species; strong enough to stand up to the Ancients, and maybe even defeat them. And even though their plan didn’t expand beyond the year 2000, would they also have a problem with the EU 🇪🇺, since it’s a supranational political and economic union that seeks to unite all of Europe? Would they have tried to destroy the EU 🇪🇺, or prevent it from even being formed at all? The EU 🇪🇺 was formed in 1993, so it was within their timeframe, since they also interfered with the Gulf War, and influenced the outcome of that war to suit their needs and fulfill their plan. They certainly would’ve had a problem with NATO, since it arguably tries to do the same thing the EU 🇪🇺 does, only in the defensive realm.

 

Maybe, they didn’t go there because they didn’t want the game to be too political. They were already kind of skirting the line by including a chapter centered around a Templar knight, which they removed and replaced with the Gulf War chapter with Michael Edwards to avoid any controversy after 9/11. But, it is something to consider since the lore of this game establishes that the Ancients hate it when humanity unites, works together in a positive or productive way, or progresses in any way, and use whatever power and influence they have at their disposal to stifle it, to keep humanity divided, and therefore weak and powerless. So that they can achieve their own goals, which are mainly to destroy humanity and bring about eternal darkness. The Ancients have been manipulating the progress of humanity for two millennia, and every major event throughout history was the direct or indirect result of the Ancients’ sinister machinations.

 

Now we come to the thing I really wanted to talk about in this post, whether or not they should be a remaster or a remake of the game and whether or not there should be a movie of this game. I'll start with the remaster/remake discussion since that'll probably the shortest. For years, fans of the game have either been asking for either a remaster or a remake of this game because they're nostalgic for it and they  want to get the chance to play it on modern consoles without backwards compatibility and without needing an emulator. And they want others to get the chance to experience it for the first time. Like, even though I know this game and I reviewed it, I never actually played it and I want to get the chance to play it, at least once. After all, other games from the sixth generation have been either remastered or remade entirely. 

 

The most high profile example of which have been the older Resident Evil games, which have all gotten remakes. Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 3, Resident Evil 4, and coming soon, Resident Evil – Code: Veronica. They did Resident Evil 4 first before jumping into Code: Veronica, which is kind of baffling to me because chronologically, Code: Veronica comes first, before Resident Evil 4. The events of that game happen before the events of Resident Evil 4, and sort of lead into the events of that game, particularly the storyline involving Ada, Krauser, and Wesker. And each of those remakes have been very successful and well received, with Resident Evil 2 (2019) becoming the highest selling Resident Evil game of all time, and still is to this day, though Resident Evil 4 (2023) followed very close behind, selling pretty well and getting great reviews from critics and fans alike. The only one of the Resident Evil remakes that didn't do that well is Resident Evil 3 (2020), which didn't sell as well as either Resident Evil 2 (2019) or Resident Evil 4 (2023). 

 

It underperformed and received much more mixed reviews compared to either Resident Evil 2 (2019) or Resident Evil 4 (2023). Maybe because it came out so soon after Resident Evil 2 (2019) and a lot of people felt like it was just DLC for Resident Evil 2 (2019) and wasn't enough of its own unique experience to separate it from Resident Evil 2 (2019) to make it worth buying. Or people just didn't like the changes they made to Resident Evil 3 in the remake like they did the changes made to Resident Evil 2 in its remake. And Resident Evil 4 too, they made a lot of changes in the remake, but those changes for the most part seem positively received. Much more positive received than the changes made in the Resident Evil 3 remake. At least the game gave us a new design/character model for Jill Valentine that made her 20 times more attractive than she was more 😍. Way hotter than either Resident Evil 5 look or her Resident Evil: Revelations look. 

 

Let me tell ya, ever since Resident Evil 3 (2020) came out, Jill has been pretty well represented on certain sites I visit on occasion whenever I feel horny and am in the mood for what the kids these day call a "gooning session" 😏. Same goes with Claire Redfield and Ada Wong after they were in Resident Evil 2 (2019) and they gave them new designs/character models (using the likenesses of real life models) and Ashley Graham after she was Resident Evil 4 (2023) and they gave her a new design/character model. People find the remake version of Ashley so much more attractive than the original version 😍. People just thought the original version was annoying, and didn't really having to look out for her or protect her, even though that was the whole point of that game. But people want to protect the remake version of her, if only so they can get some of that overtime she was offering Leon at the end of the game 😏. Or at least look at some NSFW artwork or animated videos 🔞 with her in them. Ada was also in Resident Evil 4 (2023), as just as she in the original, but she has largely the same design/character model as well as the same voice actress. She was just wearing a different outfit. 

 

The success of Resident Evil 2 (2019) probably motivated, not just Capcom to remake the other older Resident Evil games prior to Resident Evil 7: Biohazard ☣️, also motivated other studios to remake and/or remaster their own games. That's why remakes and remasters of older games from the 1990s and 2000s has suddenly become so much more common now. We get as many remakes and remasters of old games now as we do sequels, prequels, and spinoffs in long running franchises and new and original games. So, why can't Eternal Darkness get the remake treatment too?  Personally, I would like to see both a remaster and a remake. That way, people like me can play the original (or at least an approximation of it) and then play the remake. Because if we just get a remake, and not a remaster, people like myself will never truly never know what it feels like to play the original. Or at least, an approximation of the original. 

 

And of course, for the remaster, I would want them stick as closely to the original as they could, preserving the gameplay as much as possible while just increasing the resolution of the graphics the best they can...without using AI ☝️😠. Anytime AI is used to restore a game or a movie, the results are always terrible. It's why I refuse to buy any of James Cameron's older movies on 4K because he used AI on all them, including The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which is the most ironic one of all considering how anti-AI those movies are. They're the quintessential anti-AI movies, the anti-AI movies in which all the others made after them were inspired by. Directly or indirectly. And I refuse to play any video games that use AI assets, or use AI at any point during the development process, which is becoming harder and harder to do because so many game studios are resorting to AI. It's why I avoided Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, despite me finding the main villain, Emma Kagan attractive 😍, and why I'm unsure about playing Crazy Taxi: World Tour 🚖 when it comes out. If an Eternal Darkness remaster or remake used AI at any point during development process, and I knew about it, I would refuse to play it 😤. 

 

As for the remake, I'm not sure what they could change about the game to update it for the modern gaming audience without removing what made the game unique in the first place. Without completely stripping the game of its identity and making a completely different game entirely. Just making it a third person shooter probably wouldn't work. Not to say you couldn't make a Lovecraftian game that was also a third person shooter, or rather a third person shooter that's also a Lovecraftian game, but that's not what Eternal Darkness is, and to make it that for the remake would be disingenuous and would be straying too far from the original. Some aspects of the original gameplay would have to be maintained for it retain its identity. 

 

But what aspects to maintain and keep the same and what aspects to change or remove to update the game would be a tough decision on the part of the developer handling the remake, and I would not envy them. You'd have to strike a balance between staying true to the original and respecting it so that it does feel like the same game, while also updating it so that it works in today's gaming landscape and doesn't seem outdated. I do think it would be a great opportunity for them to do things that they didn't get to do in the original, mainly having the Templar knight chapter that they cut out of the game because of the political climate at the time of the game's release. 

 

They wouldn't even have to remove the Michael Edwards chapter set during the Gulf War, they could still keep that chapter in there, while just adding this one with the Templar knight. And they could add another chapter in one of the other four primary locations to balance it out so that we don't go to the Forbidden City more times than we do the other locations. My vote would be another chapter set in Angkor Thom, set during either the Cambodian Civil War 🇰🇭 or the Cambodian Genocide 🇰🇭 during Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's rule. Or perhaps, they could alter the Dr. Lindsey chapter a little bit to acknowledge the Cambodian Genocide 🇰🇭. 

 

Like the only reason he why got to go to Cambodia 🇰🇭 in 1983 is because the Khmer Rouge regime led by Pol Pot was overthrown by the Vietnamese 🇻🇳 in 1979 and a new communist Cambodian regime 🇰🇭☭ (one that was more sympathetic and loyal to Vietnam 🇻🇳 and the Soviet Union ☭), and the Vietnamese 🇻🇳 were still occupying the country to prop up the new government and prevent the Khmer Rouge and other insurgent groups (mainly of whom were supported by the United States 🇺🇸, the United Kingdom 🇬🇧, Singapore 🇸🇬, Thailand 🇹🇭, North Korea 🇰🇵, Romania 🇷🇴, and China 🇨🇳) from retaking control of the country. 

 

Because when the country was under Khmer Rouge rule, it was closed off and isolated from the rest of the world, and that isolation was largely self-imposed by the Khmer Rouge regime because they despised the Western world and Western culture, and wanted to restore Cambodia 🇰🇭's distinct Southeast Asian identity. Or at least their interpretation of it. Khmer Rouge weren't just a communist movement ☭, they weren't just a communist party ☭, they were also a nationalist group that was heavily skewed towards the Khmer ethnic group. And many non-Khmer ethnic groups in Cambodia 🇰🇭 were targeted during the genocide. They were isolationists and they were nationalists, and specifically, ethno-nationalists, as well as being communists ☭. Specifically, Maoist communists ☭. So this was one of the few instances throughout where regime change by a foreign power was actually welcomed by the local population. The Khmer Rouge were so horrible that the Cambodian people 🇰🇭 welcomed the invading Vietnamese 🇻🇳 as liberators from their tyrannical oppressors.

 

Something that the Americans 🇺🇸 expected to happen in Iraq 🇮🇶 when they invaded and toppled Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003, but largely didn't. It only happened at first, after Saddam was overthrown and he fled the capital, Baghdad and went into hiding in his home town of Tikrit, but any and all good will that the Iraqi people 🇮🇶 had towards invading Americans 🇺🇸 and coalition forces faded away once the Americans 🇺🇸 and the coalition forces stayed there, and began occupying the country for an unspecified amount of time, and they started sending some of their people to this prison, Abu Ghraib (which used to be Saddam's prison for political dissents) and torturing them there; suspecting them of being terrorists or insurgents. Something that only poured fuel on the fire 🔥 of the insurgency against the US 🇺🇸 and other coalition forces within the country, as well as the terrorism problem, which only got worse once the occupation started. 

 

Which brings me to the movie question, would Eternal Darkness work as a movie? Yes. I mean, I guess it could also work as a streaming show. That's always the clichéd suggestion that fans of a video game or video game series always make whenever the question of adapting their favorite video game or video game series into a medium over than video games, they always saying streaming show without fail. They always say, "make it a streaming show. It's too big for a movie, and they wouldn't be able to fit everything in there for a 2 hour movie, it's better to do it as a streaming movie so you can let the story play out across a longer stretch of time and you can flesh out the characters a lot better, and establish their personalities, their goals, and their relationships." 

 

Book readers 📖 also say the same thing when it comes to adapting their favorite book 📖 or book series 📖 into a medium that's not literature, they always streaming show, and they give the exact same reasons why as the gamers do. And as someone who more into movies than TV shows, streaming shows, video games, and books 📚, and is advocate for the theater going experience and physical media, this infuriates me 😤. A lot of these games and books 📚 for that matter would 100% work as movies. Not everything needs to be a series and not everything needs to be on streaming, I'm tired of everything being a series and being on streaming. Like, I would've been more interested in watching The Last of Us, or Fallout, or Halo if they were movies instead of streaming shows. I really do wish that we got that Halo movie from Neill Blomkamp, even if he has turned to AI slop in recent years, according to one comment that I saw on Matthew Buck's review of Ice Cream Man 🍦♂︎ (2026). 

 

But that would've been in his prime, when he still made good movies with actual human beings, since that was the movie he was supposed to direct instead of District 9 and would've directed instead of District 9 if things had gone better. So if we did get that Halo movie, we wouldn't have gotten District 9. Which is fine with me. As much as I like District 9 and think it's a good movie, I would've preferred to have gotten that Halo movie instead. It might've actually gotten me more into Halo if it had gotten made and if I had seen it. So even though Eternal Darkness would work perfectly fine as a streaming series, since it focuses on multiple different characters throughout history, while having an overarching arc story that leads to the present day. Or at least, the present day when the game came out, although the game was released in 2002 while the "present day" stuff with Alex takes place in 2000 (it's supposed to be a take on the Y2K apocalypse, or an explanation for it and why it didn't actually happen), so it wasn't even technically the present day when the game came out. It was still the past. 

 

Though, if it the game had been made for the N64 as originally intended, it might've been released in the year 2000. But it was made for the GameCube and it came out in the year 2002 instead, making it a period piece by a default. It'd be even more of a period now if they remade the game and still had it take place in its original time period, or if they made a movie out of it and had it take place in its original time period. I would still prefer a movie. And I have the perfect way on how to do it. Some of you may disagree with me on this one, and that's fine. You can voice your disagreements in the comments below (I'd really appreciate it if you left a comment). Make it an anthology film. The story of the game is already kind of structured as an anthology film since it's focused on multiple different characters, in a non-linear timeline across different points throughout history, it wouldn't too much of a leap to take that extra step and make the movie adaptation an anthology film. 

 

You could even bring in different directors to direct each segment, and have them fit the tone and feel of that specific segment and the personality and temperament of the character that segment is focused on, while still keeping it all consistent and making it feel like this is all one story and it's all in the same universe, even though each segment was directed by a different person and was perhaps made by a different set of people, with the directors bringing in their own crews to direct their own segments. Sort of like what that 1984 fantasy movie, The Dungeonmaster did, where it was an anthology film with seven segments directed by a few different directors, but it was all supposed to be one story, rather than a traditional anthology film, where the segments don't connect to each other and aren't part of a larger continuous story. We'd be doing that, but on a much bigger scale, depending on the budget we'd be able to get for this thing. 

 

The only question I would have is how would you, if at all, incorporate the mechanic in the game where you have Pious select which Ancient he aligns himself with when he goes into that room with the artifacts of the three available Ancients and touches one of them. Would you just have him touch one of them, and just have that be the Ancient he aligns himself for the rest of the movie, and don't even have him touch the artifacts and explore the other possibilities of him aligning himself with the other two Ancients? It's a lot easier to do this sort of thing in a video game, since once you finish one playthrough with Pious being aligned with one Ancient and all the changes that come with that, you can play the game again and have him align himself with the other two Ancients, until you've explored ever single possible playthrough path and you get the true ending of the game. 

 

It's not as easy to do a movie, which is a more passive experience and you usually only get one perspective, unless you either cut away to a different perspective or you make another movie with that other perspective. This is a TV example, not a movie example, but sort of like how The Fairly OddParents did two episodes that happen simultaneously focused two different perspectives of those same events. They made one episode in Season 1 called A Wish Too Far that was from on Timmy's perspective and then did another episode in Season 3 called The Big Scoop that focused on the same events from that episode but from Timmy friends, Chester and A.J.'s perspective. Which was one of the cooler ideas from that series, The Big Scoop is genuinely one of the best episodes of the series because it runs parallel to A Wish Too Far and makes A Wish Too Far a lot better knowing that this is what Chester and A.J. were up to during that episode. But again, that's something that's easier to do in a TV show where you have multiple seasons and you can more easily separate them out and justify remaking the same episode but from a different character's perspective than you could in a movie. You could do it in a movie, but it wouldn't be as accepted as it would be in a video game or a TV show. 

 

The only time that I can think of where that sort of thing has been done in movies is the dual World War II films that Clint Eastwood directed, Flags of our Fathers 🇺🇸 and Letters from Iwo Jima ✉️, which do run parallel of each other. But, that was only done with two films ✌️ and were from genuinely different perspectives. I'm not sure if you would be able to justify doing it with three movies and not have much of a change in perspective. The differences between the different playthrough paths are very subtle and are often cosmetic, with having different monsters, having different spells at your disposal, having slightly different strengths and weaknesses, and having certain locations look slightly different depending on which Ancient you had Pious align himself with. The biggest changes are in the cutscenes when Pious is interacting with the Ancient he aligned himself with. The interactions are slightly different depending on what each of the Ancients say during dialogue, but they largely play out the same. Again, the differences are a lot more subtle and as drastic. 

 

One neat idea that I think would be neat to incorporate the different scenarios, in which Pious selects a different Ancient than the main scenario you're following, is having different cuts of the film. You could film these scenes three different times with the different Ancients, and then in post-production add in the different monsters that correspond with the Ancient that Pious is aligned with using CGI. Since let's face it, a lot of the creatures in the game, including the Ancients themselves, would probably be CGI if this were adapted into a movie. Or a streaming show for that matter. But, if was directing this, if I was in charge of the production, I would try to use as many practical effects as I can and only use CGI when absolutely necessary. For the scenes with practical creatures, they'd have to be filmed thrice, and for the scenes with CGI creatures they could be filmed once (or the normal amount of times that multiple takes of a scene are filmed) and add in the different creatures for each cut. One cut could be called the "Chattur'gha Cut," one could be called the "Ulyaoth Cut," and the one could be called the "Xel'lotath Cut," and you could make each cut available on home media. Ideally, physical media. 

 

But then the question becomes if the movie gets released in theaters (which I hope it would), which cut would you release in theaters? If it were up to me, I'd release the Xel'lotath Cut because that's the playthrough path I'm most familiar with. The longplay I watched this game on used the Xel'lotath path, and only showed the two other paths afterwards. Only showing the differences rather than playing through the whole game again but with Chattur'gha or Ulyaoth. Though each cut of the movie would have the true ending where it's revealed that the whole thing was a setup and that Mantorok had manipulated the three other Ancients into destroying themselves with his ability to see through time and space, and manipulate the events of other universes. It would be kind of weird not to include that ending since it acts a bow that wraps everything up, ties up loose ends, and brings the story to a close. 

 

The only obstacle I could see in getting an Eternal Darkness made is the fact that Lovecraftian horror films and cosmic horror films (they're kind of the same thing but also different slightly) historically haven't done that well at the box office, and aren't really seen as a worthy investment by most major studios. Sure, video game movies are more popular now than they ever have been before, and horror movies are really popular right now (they're pretty much the only kind of movies that come out now besides big budget blockbusters and maybe the odd drama here and there), but Lovecraftian horror isn't. It's still pretty niche all things considered. "Why would we invest in something that has limited appeal and won't make its money 💵 back?" most studios think. 

 

This hesitation to make anything Lovecraft or Lovecraftian horror related also stopped Guillermo del Toro's film adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness from getting made. Which he was going to make with James Cameron and Tom Cruise, and was likely going to be in 3D since 3D was all the rage back then in the early 2010s. The main obstacle del Toro faced while trying to get At the Mountains of Madness greenlit was the budget and the belief that Lovecraft was too niche to make a movie out of for a mainstream theatrical release. Studios believed, and still believe that Lovecraft adaptations and Lovecraftian horror films just wouldn't appeal to the vast majority of movie going audiences and wouldn't make back at its money 💵 and be profitable. Del Toro was asking for at least $120 million 💵, but Universal (the studio he was mainly pitching this movie to) thought that was too much, especially considering that del Toro fully intended to make it R rated. 

 

Studios back then weren't willing to make big budget R rated movies because they believe that they wouldn't make enough money 💵 to justify the investment. Sure, since then, we've had plenty of R rated movies that have made lots of money 💵, even billions in some cases, like Joker (2019) and Deadpool & Wolverine. But, those were comic book movies, while this was an adaptation of a Lovecraft story. A novella actually, one of the few that H. P. Lovecraft actually wrote since he mainly wrote short stories. The other thing that stopped Guillermo del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness from getting made is that Universal feared competition from 20th Century Fox's Prometheus (2012), which was a prequel to the Alien films directed by Ridley Scott that also featured Lovecraftian or cosmic horror elements. 

 

Which makes Universal's refusal to grant del Toro the budget he wanted because they thought it would've been too high and big budget R rated movies don't make money 💵 all the more insulting considering that Prometheus (2012)'s budget was $120–140 million 💵, cost pretty much exactly the same as del Toro's proposed film adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness would've cost, maybe even more. And it did make money 💵, it grossed over $403.4 million 💵, which is a pretty good gross for a movie that cost $120–140 million 💵. That's about as much as the MonsterVerse movies make, and they all have pretty similar budgets as Prometheus (2012), despite them being rated PG-13 while Prometheus (2012) was rated R. 

 

But maybe Universal figured that Prometheus (2012) was apart of a well established franchise with actual name recognition while At the Mountains of Madness was not, and if they did greenlight the movie, it would not stand a chance against the Ridley Scott directed Alien prequel. That he kept denying was a prequel in the lead up to the film's release 😒, saying that it only had "bits of Alien DNA 🧬" in it whatever that means 🙄, but is 100% a prequel. Which, regardless of how anyone feels about the movie, did have genuine hype surrounding it. How could it not? It was Ridley Scott returning to the Alien franchise after 33 years, how could people not get excited? Of course, many of us who actually saw the movie were pretty disappointed by it 😒, but you can't deny that in the lead up to it, the hype was real. 

 

Though if it were up to me, I would've rather have gotten del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness over Prometheus (2012), like if we could go back in time and have a do-over and we could choose which movie got made over the other, I would pick At the Mountains of Madness 100% of the time. I will never forgive how Ridley Scott treated Neill Blomkamp and how he canceled his Alien project. That movie had so much promise, and could've been what Alien fans (specifically those that like Aliens) have been asking for, it would've been the resolution that Aliens fan had wanted ever since 1989 and didn't get in either Alien 3 or Alien Resurrection. Blomkamp's movie would've pretty much written those two movies out of the canon, or at least going in its own direction, in its own timeline. And I just think it would've been an overall kick ass movie. I may not like what Blomkamp is doing now with AI if what that commenter I mentioned earlier said was true, but back then, he could make some seriously good movies. It's also why I would've liked to have seen his Halo movie, I think it would've been good. 

 

So, to me, Ridley Scott doesn't deserve to win, he deserves to lose, and I would take away his two Alien prequel pet projects if I had the power to. Especially if it meant getting del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness. I may have my issues with del Toro and his work (especially his more recent work), but I still like him better than Ridley Scott, that man ♂︎ that can kiss my ass as far as I'm concerned 😒🖕. So, if an At the Mountain of Madness adaptation directed by one of the most acclaimed horror directors of this century, and produced by a filmmaker as respected as James Cameron and was to star an actor as high profile as Tom Cruise, couldn't get made, then what chance does a film adaptation of a video game that didn't even sell that well in the first place have? If it's not likely to ever happen, I would like it to happen. If I'm ever able to get into filmmaking, I'll try my best to make it happen.