Cursed Mountain

[Hero-of-Time]

I was reading Gonintendo and they had a brief story which gave a link to IGN and this newly announced game.

 

US, July 30, 2008 - On Wednesday, publisher / developer Deep Silver revealed to IGN its new Wii-exclusive survival horror game, Cursed Mountain. The title, set in the late 1980s, follows an experienced climber who sets out to scale a huge mountain in the Himalayas in order to find his recently-lost brother. According to Deep Silver, "As he ascends the mountain, he encounters an ancient curse: the souls of the people who died in that region are stuck in limbo, caught in the Shadow World." Players must content with villagers, pilgrims, mountaineers, Buddhist monks, and evil ghosts and demons as they unravel the mystery of the location. And for what? The climber isn't at all convinced that his missing brother is still alive.

 

"With a fresh setting, gloomy atmosphere and the innovative use of the Wii controls, Cursed Mountain will deliver a unique, terrifying game play experience," said Hannes Seifert, Managing Director at the Deep Silver development studio. "Deep Silver is confident that Cursed Mountain will help to further establish our international presence, and help expand the survival horror game genre on the Wii platform."

 

According to Deep Silver, Cursed Mountain will boast advanced graphics and amazing scenery. Since the game is set on the "roof of the world," players will be able to see the entire game world from any level. In addition, the title will feature IR / pointer and gesture-based controls for exploration and combat respectively.

 

Although Deep Silver is still unwilling to divulge too many details about the project, we did get a few extra tidbits from Hannes Seifert, who also serves as executive producer on the game. Exactly who is the main character -- other than a climber, that is? "He is an experienced high altitude climber, well known in the international climbing community. He cares a lot for his younger brother, also a climber, and has deep concerns about his overambitious, high risk-taking nature," Seifert said. "Somehow he always knew his brother would get into trouble one day and sure enough, on a particularly difficult route that has never been successfully completed, his brother is lost."

 

Seifert also elaborated on the game controls. "Controlling the character in the physical world is straight forward. In certain situations we utilize motion sensing for climbing, balancing, chases etc.," he said. "But when you enter the Bardo, the shadow world, you sense the enemies with the IR pointer and you use praying and fighting gestures to defeat the evil sprits. Depending on the difficulty of your opponents you will fight with simpler or more complex gestures and with one or two hands."

 

Exactly how will the gesture system work? "Talking about gestures is like dancing about architecture (or so they say)," Seifert mused. "The basic idea is: simple to learn movements with your hands represent movements of attacking, defending and praying. You will sense what gestures can defeat the enemies and bosses, and then you can use the motions to 'redeem' them. I think we have been really innovative here but managed to keep it pretty easy to learn. It balances very well across the entire game."

 

With a wealth of gesture-based battles planned, can Wii owners expect an over-the-top violent game? "That's a difficult question," said Seifert. "What the player experiences is very scary and violent. Half of the people that climb these mountains die up there and are left behind. You will encounter dead bodies, frozen mummies, and fear inducing archaic Buddhist rituals. On the other hand the game is not about chopping up zombies or splashing blood all over the place. It's violent in the sense of ever present danger and very aggressive environments and enemies. But you can't be violent against ghosts and mountains. So Cursed Mountain is violent, yes, but in a very unorthodox way."

 

Although it definitely is a survival horror experience, Seifert doesn't believe that Cursed Mountain can be compared to a title like Resident Evil. "Besides the fact that both are horror games, you can't easily compare them. Resident Evil is a great game in the normal horror mould, but Cursed Mountain is about exploring a realistic environment coupled with a very versatile fighting system," he said. "You encounter spiritual enemies and it's about the main character discovering his physical and mental limits in a very hostile part of the world. These are just two really different games, but both would probably appeal to a similar audience."

Deep Silver has developed a game engine that makes the most of Nintendo's console. "The entire game is realtime 3D," said Seifert. We really push the Wii hardware regarding lighting, shaders, geometry, audio, and animation. Cursed Mountain is not about technology, but about the gameplay experience, but many current games really seem to underutilize the hardware."

 

It is exactly this engine that enables some impressive multi-tier views of the expansive world. "The setting requires a great impression of distance. The entire country is set at such high altitude that looking up at over 26,000 feet high mountains and also looking down again is a vital part of the experience. You start from a typical Himalayan valley and continuously get higher and higher," he explained.

 

So does Seifert have ay final words for fans who might be intrigued by the concept powering Cursed Mountain? Absolutely. "We think Cursed Mountain features a very original and also current topic that's been unused in video games so far. We are really picky with staying true to the real thing. Based on that, we've worked hard to bring you a game that's easy to pick up for the majority of Wii players but that will lead you into what's called 'hardcore gaming.' I think we've come a long way already and hope that casual and hard core players will really enjoy the final results," he said.

 

According to Seifert, Deep Silver is about 25 people strong, but because the game is being developed across multiple companies -- Sproing Interactive, Rabcat, Perspective Studios and more -- the team working on Cursed Mountain is actually comprised of more than 140 people. The title is scheduled for release next year.

 

Deep Silver has not yet released any gameplay screenshots or movies of Cursed Mountain in action.

[david.dakota]

sounds interesting, but the battles may prove boring.

[...]

Yeah, sounds interesting to me too.

[Noku]

Will have to see what they mean with "praying."

[Gaijin von Snikbah]

 

Sounds like a great setting. Concept art looks very skillful. You easily get the feeling they spend 5 minutes thinking about this one.

[Noku]

I somehow can't get over the fact that you're being ironic. But hey, that'll probably just be me

[Gaijin von Snikbah]

That was an attempt at making an interested face going "Oooh". A scary game in an Himalayan setting sounds like fun to me.

 

[Guest Maase]

Another Horror game, hooray.

 

Looks interesting

[Retro_Link]

Is that concept art for this game? if so, looks great!

 

 

EDIT: More concept art,

 

[david.dakota]

 

 

LIES.

Thats just a picture a core gamer after Ubidays.

[James McGeachie]

Hope they can keep the setting interesting throughout the game!

[Deathjam]

LIES.

Thats just a picture a core gamer after Ubidays.

 

I LOL'ED so hard that my belly hurts now. Could be the fact that I just had a heavy dinner too...

[Meo]

Some new engine details.

 

Sproing Interactive Media GmbH, Vienna, today announced that it's currently developing the Wii Survival Horror game Cursed Mountain for, and together with, Deep Silver. The player takes on the role of a fearless mountaineer as he climbs into the Himalayas on a quest to find his lost brother. As he ascends the mountain, he encounters an ancient curse: the souls of the people who died in that region are stuck in limbo, caught in the Shadow World. Deep Silver announced the first details of the upcoming Wii hit title Cursed Mountain on July 31st.

 

"Aside from the challenge to develop an innovative title with spectacular levels and new controls, the focus in Cursed Mountain is the overwhelming environment of the Himalayas," said Harald Riegler, CEO of Sproing. "It is really important to us that the player experiences nature's powers as realistically as possible, and that the game's viewing distance allows the player to see the monumental landscapes at all times. We are also going to great lengths to make the dead souls look as convincing as possible in order to deliver the level of immersion necessary for really effective and believable survival horror."

 

To deliver on these goals, the Sproing team relies on its proprietary "Athena" game engine, which is rendering the Himalayas on Wii at a quality never seen before. The engine highlights of "Athena" include amongst others, HDR-Rendering, shader simulations developed especially for Wii in order to display ice, heat and water (realistic reflections and refractions), an ultra-fast particle system for amazing snow storms, soft particles for realistic fog and smoke, depth of field, motion blur, dynamic soft shadows, spherical harmonics lighting, as well as a high performance level-of-detail and streaming system in order to provide long viewing distance of the entire surrounding. In order to create an exciting atmosphere when battling the ghosts, the game employs a number of custom-created special effects such as the shader simulations as well as a newly developed post-processing framework. "Our engine technology really takes the Wii hardware to its limits and Wii gamers can really look forward to a heart-stopping, and breath-taking world that comes alive with this title," said Gerhard Seiler, Technical Director of Sproing.

 

Cursed Mountain will be released worldwide for Wii in 2009. More information is available at: http://cursedmountain.deepsilver.com

 

http://wii.ign.com/articles/897/897888p1.html

 

A trailer would be nice.

[DCK]

Sounds awesome, but I really wonder whether the Wii can pull off HDR rendering. It was first introduced years after the original GameCube hardware was designed.

 

Great news though!

[Meo]

Well, I don't know how they're going to implement it (the HDR), but something along these lines would work quite well: Shadow of Colossus Making-Of

 

It's fake HDR, but it works and looks good. As an off-topic, I think it's impressive how much the PS2 was pushed by this game, and how much it was pushed during it's last days. I remember being very impressed with the motion blur on this game.

I can only hope to see Wii being pushed as hard as the PS2, in it's late life.

 

That said... I hope they release a trailer soon.

[Gaijin von Snikbah]

They could do as 1080 with mountains just being a background image. Whatever looks and feels the best is fine with me.

[mcj metroid]

we seem to be getting a load of survival horrors on wii don't we? strange that..(and of course bar resident evil 4 they are all terrible)

 

but fatal frame/project zero WILL be brilliant. I'd bet on it but we'll see how this will turn out

[...]

HOw many are out? Bug Island, Obscure II, Fatal Frame 4 and Resi 4. 2 are bad and 2 are good. Others are in the making.

[DCK]

Well, I don't know how they're going to implement it (the HDR), but something along these lines would work quite well: Shadow of Colossus Making-Of

 

It's fake HDR, but it works and looks good. As an off-topic, I think it's impressive how much the PS2 was pushed by this game, and how much it was pushed during it's last days. I remember being very impressed with the motion blur on this game.

I can only hope to see Wii being pushed as hard as the PS2, in it's late life.

 

That said... I hope they release a trailer soon.

That is really awesome work by the SOTC team, it looks amazing too. Even though it's not real HDR it looks really great.

 

The fact that this team is using tricks to simulate high-def effects really shows that the engine they're producing is going to be a great effort.

[Emasher]

we seem to be getting a load of survival horrors on wii don't we? strange that..(and of course bar resident evil 4 they are all terrible)

 

but fatal frame/project zero WILL be brilliant. I'd bet on it but we'll see how this will turn out

 

According to IGN the controls in Fatal Frame are messed up.

 

Dead Rising shouldn't be too bad.

[Noku]

According to IGN the controls in Fatal Frame are messed up.

 

Probable explanation for that is that they're no fans of the survival horror genre This game is no RE 4, more like Ringu, Ju-On, and such. Which explains why the girl moves slowly, you don't use IR to shine the torch, and photos aren't made using the Wiimote (although I'm with you on the whole photo-mechanic though).

 

Enough ot for now, want some new info stat!

[david.dakota]

Probable explanation for that is that they're no fans of the survival horror genre This game is no RE 4, more like Ringu, Ju-On, and such. Which explains why the girl moves slowly, you don't use IR to shine the torch, and photos aren't made using the Wiimote (although I'm with you on the whole photo-mechanic though).

 

Although Project Zero is a definate purchase for me, i'm really underwhelmed, no seriously disappointed, by the controls. For months before Wii's launch, we have Nintendo singing from the rooftops 'new ways to play', 'we'll revolutionise genres', they cried. Two years on and the vast majority of Nintendo's published titles lack anything like new ways to play- Project Zero included.

 

What the freak would've proved wrong with IR torch? It'll make it easier? WTF, no it wouldn't, design the game around the fact that you have IR, and you'll find a way to get round that problem- if indeed it would exist. I can think of plenty of ideas to counteract any decrease of difficulty- and i'm not a games developer.

 

 

Lets hope Cursed Mountain does something new.

[tapedeck]

The fact that this team is using tricks to simulate high-def effects really shows that the engine they're producing is going to be a great effort.

 

We see this time and time again. Devs get to intimately know a machine and then "bang" next-gen is here and their titles are "the great swansong" of their respective systems. Resi 4 is another (obvious) choice just like DKC, Perfect Dark, Majoras Mask, SOTC and even Twilight Princess on GC.

 

If the lifespan of a system is to increase, we will again see developers create similar "OMG!" titles.

 

Anyway, back on topic. - Can't wait to see some genuine in-game screens of this. Is it at Leipzeig? Can't remember.

[D_prOdigy]

Debut Trailer

 

All round, it's sort of a weird one. Various murky (average Wii) textures mixed with some genuinely impressive building models. All brought together in a seemingly Fatal Frame-esque mesh of combat with typical zombiefied enemies. Some scenes appear to have decent atmosphere, though.

 

Still one to keep an eye on.

[Noku]

Obviously some lower res models in there, but for a game with a year's worth of development ahead, it's looking mighty fine already. Got me psyched.

Also, the trailer is filmed off of a screen, diminishing the quality.