https://www.polygon.com/2018/7/24/17607706/forsaken-remastered-release-date-windows-pc-xbox-one
Forsaken, the landmark 1998 console and PC shooter, will be the latest remaster from Nightdive Studios, launching on July 31 for Windows PC on both Steam and GOG.com, and Xbox One, the studio announced today.
Nightdive is taking care to remaster the work in a way that will remind fans of the game, more than just give it a modern-day makeover, said Nightdive's founder and chief executive Stephen Kick. The original polygon counts of objects in the game will be preserved, he said, but thanks to the Kex remastering engine Nightdive has used in dozens of projects, it will all perform at 60 frames per second. Original versions of the game struggled to hit half as many fps.
"This is how the developers saw themselves," Kick told Polygon, "this is the goal they had in mind, they just didn't have the hardware at the time. I feel like it's the ultimate experience for Forsaken."
Forsaken was a first-person shooter offering six degrees of motion and perspective, building on the tradition and appeal of titles like Descent. It launched on Nintendo 64, Windows PC and PlayStation in April and May of 1998. Probe Entertainment and Iguana Entertainment were the original developers; Acclaim was the original publisher.
Acclaim went bankrupt in 2004. A big part of the challenge in what Nightdive does is tracking down who now owns the rights to classic games that are long out of print. "The toughest part of our job is doing the detective work in finding out who has the rights now," Larry Kuperman, the studio's director of business development, told Polygon.
Sometimes, Kuperman explained, those who own an IP aren't necessarily developers or those with experience in publishing, so it can take a lot of conversation to put together this kind of a deal.
"We were successful with Forsaken, but it took quite a bit of time to get the folks involved with it to recognize there is an opportunity," he said.
