Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem is a 2002 horror game developed by Silicon Knights and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. It was produced and directed by Denis Dyack. The game follows the story of several characters across a period of two millennia and four different locations on Earth, as they contend with an ancient evil who seeks to enslave humanity. The gameplay distinguishes itself with unique "sanity effects", visual and audial effects that confuse the player and often break the fourth wall.
Development on Eternal Darkness began after Nintendo, impressed with Silicon Knights' Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain (1996), contacted the company to propose a collaboration on an original mature title. Silicon Knights based their concept around Lovecraftian horror and the Eternal Champion concept, and decidedly avoided making a survival horror game. It was originally planned for the Nintendo 64, and was mostly completed before development was moved to Nintendo's forthcoming home console, the GameCube. It was the first game published by Nintendo to receive an M (Mature) rating from the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB).
While Eternal Darkness was widely acclaimed by critics and won numerous awards, the game was not a commercial success, selling less than 500,000 copies worldwide. A direct sequel to the game was explored but never materialized, and Silicon Knights went bankrupt and disbanded in 2013. Attempts by Dyack to make a spiritual successor entitled Shadow of the Eternals with his new studio Precursor Games failed both of their Kickstarter campaigns, leading to the project being placed on indefinite hold. In the years since Eternal Darkness release, it has been regarded as one of the greatest video games of all time, as well as one of the best horror games ever made.
Gameplay The game is conducted from a third-person perspective. It has an in-game map which tracks the player's bearings. The inventory system stores weapons and items that can be used to solve puzzles, some of which can be combined with other objects, even enchanted with magick, for different effects.
Combat focuses on a simple targeting system. Players may attack in a general direction, or lock-on to an enemy to focus on individual parts of its anatomy. Decapitating most enemies effectively blinds them. There are many classes of enemies the player must either defeat or avoid. Each class also comes in a few varieties, and subtle differences between each variety exist as well, having slightly different appearances and traits. Some of the more common enemies vary very little in appearance, usually only changing in hue and aesthetics, but may have some behavioral differences. Boss and mini-boss enemies, however, tend to vary quite significantly.
The narrative of the game's story switches between two phases. The main phase focuses on a series of chapters in which players take control of a new character each time. The other phase acts as an intermission, exploring the mansion in order to find chapter pages and other items in order to progress. The game boasts twelve playable characters, split between four distinct locations, and from different periods of time, at times in anachronic order. Each of these characters are different in terms of the game's three main parametershealth, sanity, and magickand have access to a small selection of weapons that they can use in combat, though what they can use is determined by the time period that they lived in. For example, characters from the more ancient eras are restricted to mostly melee weapons such as swords, with the occasional crossbow or throwable. Meanwhile, characters from the colonial era onwards have more access to ranged weapons, including modern-day firearms.
The story features multiple paths that can be taken at the end of the first chapter. This choice not only determines which of the game's other three antagonists are aligned to the plot, but it also has subtle effects on the gameplay in chapters and intermission periods. Some changes include slight differences in puzzles and items, but most changes revolve around enemy placement, which will determine how the player engages them. This can even have an effect on the relative difficulty of the game in certain situations. Red tinted enemies for example, are generally tougher, having more health and dealing more damage, making that story path a kind of unofficial hard mode. After the game is completed down one path, it becomes unavailable in future playthroughs, until the player completes all three paths.
Magick can be used by most characters and consists of spells that can be used to damage opponents, protect characters and heal them, and be used to solve certain puzzles. The player is also able to assign spells to buttons for quick-use during the game. After discovering a spell it can be used in subsequent chapters and intermission periods. All spells are fundamentally affected by what alignment rune is used to power them. The game incorporates four types Red, Green, Blue, and Purple. Each alignment affects spells on a specific parameter. On top of that, they operate on a rock-paper-scissors principle of gameplay. All spells require the player to combine a series of Runes together in order to cast them. Runes can be freely experimented with by the player. This robust mechanic of experimentation has been praised by game critics as unique, and something that sets the magick system in this apart from most magic systems of most other game titles.
"Sanity Effects" A distinctive gameplay aspect comes from "Sanity Effects", the game's standout concept that Nintendo patented in 2005. Upon beginning the game's second chapter, players must keep watch on a Sanity meter a green bar which decreases when the player is spotted by an enemy. As the bar becomes low, subtle changes to the environment and random unusual events begin to occur, which reflect the character's slackening grip on reality.
Minor effects include a variety of things, such as a skewed camera angle, heads of statues following the character, and unsettling noises. Stronger effects include bleeding on walls and ceilings, entering a room that is unrealistic before finding that the character never left the previous room, or the character suddenly dying. Fourth wall breaking effects such as "To Be Continued" promotions for a "sequel", and simulated errors and anomalies of the TV or GameCube can happen either from low or depleted sanity, or by a scripted event. While the latter does not affect gameplay, they can be misconstrued by the player as being actual technical malfunctions.
Story The story of Eternal Darkness takes place over four fictional locations which the game moves between. They include the "Forbidden City" underground temple complex in Persia; a Khmer temple in Angkor Thom, Cambodia; Oublié Cathedral in Amiens, France; and the Roivas Family Estate in Rhode Island, which leads to an ancient underground city named Ehn'gha beneath the mansion. The story moves between these locations, with each chapter occurring during a different time period (between 26 B.C. and 2000 A.D.), and from the perspective of a different character. The chapters in the game are not in chronological order.
Plot
In 2000 AD, Alexandra Roivas returns to her family's estate in Rhode Island after her grandfather, Edward Roivas, her only living relative, is found brutally murdered. Two weeks later, the local police have gotten nowhere with the investigation. Alex decides to investigate the mansion for clues, and stumbles upon a secret room containing a book bound with human skin called the Tome of Eternal Darkness. Deciding to read it, she finds it contains accounts of various people in the past, beginning with the story of Pious Augustus in 26 BC.
Pious, a respected Roman military commander, is sent to Ancient Persia to locate an important relic. Lured away from his men by mysterious voices, Pious ventures into an underground temple complex called the Forbidden City. He comes across three artifacts. Each possesses the essence of powerful godlike beings referred to as "The Ancients": Chattur'gha, Xel'lotath and Ulyaoth. Upon attempting to touch one of the artifacts, Pious finds himself corrupted by its power, resulting in him becoming undead yet gaining a significant amount of power,Eternal Darkness, Silicon Knights (2002)Pious Augustus: Aeons have passed since then, and I have learned much.The following lines vary depending on which artifact the player chose via Augustus:Pious Augustus: Chattur'gha's power filled me, invigorating my dead body. With a touch, I could level buildings, rend the ground asunder, and channel power such as mortal men could only dream...Pious Augustus: I was once as naive as a child, but now my mind is sharp. With the power of Xel'lotath, I can now read the thoughts of others, and make them raving mad with a mere suggestion.Pious Augustus: All at once I understood. The forces of the multiverse all made sense under the transcending power of Ulyaoth. No mountain too high, no city too far.Pious Augustus: Face me, and you shall surely perish! whereupon he pledges his allegiance to the artifact's Ancient and begins working on summoning them into the universe. The remaining two artifacts that Pious did not claim were put out of Pious' reach. One of the other artifacts represents the Ancient that is stronger than Pious', and the other represents the Ancient weaker than Pious'.
The artifact representing the weaker Ancient remained in the Forbidden City. In 565 AD, a young swordsman named Karim, ventures to the Forbidden City to locate a treasure for Chandra, a woman that he loves. Upon finding it, and learning more about it from the enlightened spirit of the recently murdered Chandra, Karim sacrifices himself in order to guard it with her. Pious returns to Persia in the Middle Ages to construct a Pillar of Flesh at the Forbidden City, as part of his master's plans. In 1460 AD, Roberto Bianchi, a Venetian architect traveling through the region, is captured by Pious under the guise of a warlord. While under involuntary servitude, surveying the site of the monument's construction, he encounters the spirit of Karim, who entrusts him with the artifact in his possession. Roberto attempts to warn Pious of the dangers within but is thrown into the tower, becoming part of its foundation along with many others. Centuries later in 1991 AD, a Canadian firefighter named Michael Edwards works with his team to extinguish several major oil fires in the Middle East, following the end of the Gulf War. After an explosion killed his entire team and trapped him in the Forbidden City, he is approached by Roberto's spirit, who gives him the artifact and instructs him to take it to the Roivas Family Estate. Michael then moves to destroy the Forbidden City with a magickally enhanced bomb. A few years later, Michael delivers the artifact to Edward Roivas in secret, telling him that "[he] won't last the night".