Shadow Complex demonstration (jump to 00:40 to skip the embarassing technical difficulties).

I don’t normally talk about XBLA titles here, but I found this 2.5D “Contrastlevanoid”* title super interesting, something that Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi could perhaps learn from. The hookshot and interaction with background enemies are particularly rad.

This seemed like a really strange project for Epic, the leading “bald space marine” game studio, but Epic is just publishing the title. Chair Entertainment (Undertow) is handling the actual development duties.

Apparently, Shadow Complex is based on Orson Scott Card’s novel Empire. I’m surprised that Empire has nothing to do with Card’s Shadow series, though I suppose it would be odd to have an action game based on Bean. Chair, however, is working on an Ender-related downloadable game titled Ender’s Game: Battle Room.

*Props to Daphaknee for inventing this term.

tags / e3 2009 / shadow complex / xbla / xbox 360 / epic games / chair entertainment / metroidvania / ec