People News Guido Henkel is back with a new game - Deathfire

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Tags: Deathfire; Guido Henkel

After the stinging failure of his Thorvalla Kickstarter back in December, Realms of Arkania maestro Guido Henkel seemed out for the count. However, according to a post on his blog today, Guido is back with a new project that he's been planning for months, an RPG with the (most likely) temporary name of Deathfire. Here's an excerpt:

I am certain it has not escaped your notice over the past few months that I’ve been working on some game-related things lately. I am sure my posts and tweets about Unity were a dead give-away.

Well, I have decided that it may be time for me to share with you some of the things I’m doing, because with every new day that I am working on my current project, I get more excited about it. As you may have guessed, I am working on a new role-playing game. I have to point out, however, that it has nothing to do with Thorvalla, the project I tried to Kickstart a few months ago. Thorvalla is dead and off the table. There was not nearly enough interest and support for the concept to make it happen, so that continuing on would have been a fruitless endeavor. Instead, I decided to learn from the experience as a whole and move forward.

The new game I am working on is called Deathfire… for now. It is kind of a project title currently, but the longer we’ve been using it, the more it grew on us and there is actually a chance we may use it for the final game. We’ll have to wait and see. There’s going to be a lot of water going under there until we cross that bridge.

[...] Deathfire is using a first-person 3D role-playing environment, and I am glad that we can rely on the muscle of Unity to make sure that we do not have to limit ourselves because the technology can’t keep up. Unity may not be a bleeding edge engine, but it can sure play ball with the best of them, and the fact that it is so incredibly well thought-through, makes developing with Unity a lot of fun. More importantly, we can focus on creating the game, instead of the technology to run it on.

I know, you may have a lot of questions now, about the game. What, when, where, how… I’ll get to all that some time later down the line. For now, however, I simply want you to let the info sink in, and hopefully you’ll be as excited as we are. Visit this blog regularly. I plan on sharing more of Deathfire with you as time goes on. In fact, after some deliberation, I’ve decided that I will cover the development process like a production diary of sorts, right here on my blog. And also, don’t forget to follow me on Twitter (@GuidoHenkel) for a constant vibe-meter as to what I am up to.

Talk to you again soon…

First person 3D? I hope Guido isn't misjudging the reasons why his Kickstarter failed. In any case, it's not yet clear whether or not Deathfire will also be a crowdfunded project. We'll see what happens.

Based on what we witnessed during that Kickstarter, Guido appears to be painfully lacking in self awareness.

It's not really certain he's going to try another KS.

Even so, lack of self awareness isn't exactly a recipe for failure. Merely for considerable loss of potential. Just look at LB's kickstarter. But yeah, we know next to nothing about this Deathfire.

Not sure that Shroud of the Avatar's problem has anything to do with a lack of self awareness by LB. Garriott is well aware that he isn't giving older Ultima fans what they want. He just has no intention of giving it to them. In fact, he seems somewhat self aware. He's being intentionally vague with his wording and has conned some people into believing that there will be a solid single player game in there, rather than coming out and saying he wants to make a shit MMO.

1st person 3D might be easier to sell, outside of the oldschool crowd at least.
But even there it can work. Some very good games have been 1st person 3d, some of them even great rpgs.

I wouldn't hesitate to back a Arx Fatalis/Ultima Underworld kickstarter (if those franchises were free for kickstarter projects).

Pointless to do much discussion (or get all butthurt about it) as long as there isn't more info, though.

I actually (badly) want a M&M successor kickstarter, so first-person is not a problem for me. I haven't played any for quite a long time though, might just be nostalgia talking

Hobz, have you played Swords and Sorcery - Underworld

Couldn't help but notice that Guido jumped at the chance to fund Lord British's whatever but couldn't be bothered to fund Torment. Ah, snubbing. I love it.

No I haven't. Thx for pointing that out. Looks more like a dungeon crawler but as it happens I also like that kind of game . Downloading the demo right now.

Edit :

Ok I don't into reading.

Unless it's some kind of blobber it does not really interest me.
But then you always have the possibility of something totally extraordinaire like Deus Ex.

Fair enough. I also think LB is stuck with thinking that the casual market is the future.

In before a Skyrim clone, cause that will spark enough interest from gamers.

he should have kept that pocket change for himself, he's gonna need it for his own project...

what publisher worth their salt will even look at him and his 3-man-band at this point anyway?

Fargo should make a video with that child executive driving off in his limo with mud splashing over Henkel's face, just for laughs.

Didn't fund Wasteland 2 either. What is it with all these retarded feuds from the Interplay days?

It really sounds like that's the case, by the way he worded it.

It could be Betrayal at Krondor-ish, especially if Neal is involved with this one as well.

Nope http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/neal-hallford-working-on-the-bak-sequel.81198/

Interplay changed their nature.


As for W2... well, the campaign ended on April. And Guido started Thorvalla on December, which was when he probably created his account.

He did back PE

I don't get the hate / indiference that Genkel gets here.

He's a good designer, but he just doesn't stand out like the other big names. Everyone knew Tim Schafer, Brian Fargo, Obsidian, even Richard Garriott. But how many people know who Guido Henkel is? Not to mention his horrifically failed kickstarter recently does a lot to tarnish a reputation.

I'm glad he hasn't given up. If he wants to get funding via kickstarter again, I hope he either shoots for a much lower budget game or learns some marketing. He should also take his pitch seriously, as if he were pitching the game to a publisher. He isn't Obsidian or InXile and he isn't that famous. In a lot of ways he needs to approach kickstarter funding is if he was just some guy no one has ever heard of. I liked Shadows over Riva and would certainly back a similar kind of game, but with more up to date Unity graphics.

I don't have any hate for him and I'm even a fan of some of his past works.
I just think that his Kickstarter was just awful and if he's into the delusion that what made it fail so hard was the general concept, instead of the poor effort he made in selling his ideas, he's kidding himself.

First I've heard of Interplay dramas. I thought they were one big happy family, except for Herve.