Why no Crimson Skies sequel/remake

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3 comments, last by BarefootPhilospher 10 years, 10 months ago

hey guys,

As the topic above indicates, With a whole generation now gone by, I'm astonished that there has been an official sequel or at the very least a remake of Crimson skies, a title first released on the PC and followed up by the High Road to Revenge installment on the original Xbox. I think it sold well and is one of the most commonly asked for game remakes that I'm aware of.

Imagine a game made in the milieu of Crimson Skies that takes advantage of the technical advancements offered by the Xbox 360, let alone the Xbox One or Playstation 4. Imagine huge, highly detailed open world terrains for players to fly and dogfight in the skies above, the ability for players to exit their planes and move around the world on foot or drive ground vehicles. Perhaps the game could take a leaf out of Avalanche's book by incorporating hijaking and "stuntposition system" mechanics from Just Cause 2. The game could draw on popular aviation related forms of entertainment such as barnstorming, airshows, and wing walking which were fixtures of the period. What other activities and mechanics would you include in such a game?

Which team do you think would be most capable of bringing a faithful successor to the move loved game to life?

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I'd never heard of it until I saw this post, but a quick Google suggests it may have been less popular -- and certainly less profitable -- than you may be thinking.

According to the Wikipedia article the game is considered a "cult success" and has a limited following, suggesting only limited commercial success. Although the article body states that reviews were generally positive, the listed review scores from various publications are good but not particularly outstanding or noteworthy, and the article also suggests the game suffered from numerous technical problems. High Road to Revenge sounds like it solved some of those issues and appears to have scored a little better in reviews -- although still not brilliantly -- but is still listed as having only limited commercial success.

Based on all of that, I'd say no sequels or remakes were made because there doesn't seem to be much money to be made, and unfortunately that's what drives AA and AAA development.

- Jason Astle-Adams

Imagine a game made in the milieu of Crimson Skies that takes advantage of the technical advancements offered by the Xbox 360, let alone the Xbox One or Playstation 4. Imagine huge, highly detailed open world terrains for players to fly and dogfight in the skies above, the ability for players to exit their planes and move around the world on foot or drive ground vehicles.


Sounds like a job for the Outerra engine.


I'd never heard of it until I saw this post, but a quick Google suggests it may have been less popular -- and certainly less profitable -- than you may be thinking.

Sounds right. There was a TV show about the development of video games, focusing on the process of developing Crimson Skies in particular. The game very nearly got cancelled -- the execs reviewing the game during development were quite unhappy with the gameplay. I was surprised it ever got released, after seeing the program on TV.

-- Tom Sloper -- sloperama.com

hey thanks for the response guys though it wasn't as positive or encouraging as I'd hoped.

Many game properties have gone through troubled development cycles only for the technical or design issues to be later ironed out during the development of later installments.

Its impossible to get an accurate picture of the sales of the two games, because I haven't been able to dig up sales statistics after extensive searching. Regardless there is definitely a passionate and vocal demand on the web for a remake and if a developer invested effort and money into making a quality title and marketed well I think it could be both a critical and financial success. Perhaps it may not have such a broad appeal as the likes of Call of Duty or other IPs based in the real world, especially to an American audience, but few games do. With the exception of those that don't already have a large player based from other media like Baldur's gate had or properties created by developers of an already successful and popular games.

FLeBlanc, my thoughts exactly.

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