The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena arrived on April 7, 2009, for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC, and later Mac, and it carried a strange burden. It was a sequel to The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, a 2004 game that had no business being as good as it was. It was also a remake of that same game, bundled in the same box. So the question was never whether Assault on Dark Athena could stand alone. It was whether the new campaign could justify the package, and whether Starbreeze Studios and Tigon Studios had learned anything in the five years between.
The short answer is yes. The longer answer involves a mercenary ship, a man who can see in the dark, and a design philosophy that trusts the player to be patient.
Trailer, via IGDBcom.
A Remake Built Because Microsoft Could Not Do It
The decision to remake Escape from Butcher Bay was not a marketing gimmick. According to Ian Stevens, Head of Production at Tigon Studios, Microsoft could not make the Xbox 360 backward compatible with Escape from Butcher Bay. That is a technical failure, not a creative one, but it had a creative consequence. Stevens said the team also wanted to get the Escape story to a larger audience before progressing further.
So the package is honest about what it is. You get the original campaign, rebuilt with improved graphics and artificial intelligence, and you get a new campaign that picks up where the first one ended. The new campaign is the reason to buy the disc. The old one is the reason to keep it.
Richard B. Riddick Wakes Up on the Dark Athena
The new story begins in cryogenic sleep. Richard B. Riddick, a dangerous space criminal who can see in the dark, is on a ship with Johns, the man who originally took him to Butcher Bay prison for a bounty. Johns helped Riddick escape to avoid becoming a prisoner himself. Their ship is dragged unwillingly into the Dark Athena, a gigantic mercenary vessel run by Gale Revas and her second in command, Spinner.
Revas and her men take Johns away. Riddick avoids capture. What follows is a stealth game in the most literal sense: Riddick sneaks and hides throughout the ship, killing guards and mercenaries he encounters along the way. Many of those guards are automated drones — human bodies with implanted machine parts, controlled remotely from within the ship. That detail matters. It means the enemies are not people you should feel bad about, and it means the ship itself is a character, a predatory vessel that bides its time waiting for prey.
Lynn, Ellen Silverman, and Max Dacher
The campaign finds its human weight in the prison cells. Riddick meets a little girl named Lynn, who is hiding from the guards in the air vent systems. He finds several people captured, including the former captain of the Dark Athena before Revas took control. There he meets Lynn’s mother, Ellen Silverman, who offers to make Riddick the tools he needs to escape through the air vents if he can get the right parts. She also asks him to find Lynn because she is concerned for her safety.
Another prisoner, Max Dacher, offers his technical skills. He will help Riddick escape on a ship and unlock doors if Riddick can find him a com link. Riddick agrees, finds the com link for Dacher and the parts for Silverman, and Silverman keeps her word. She makes him the tool he needs. Riddick moves on, in contact with Dacher via video communication at computer terminals.
This is the structure of the game: fetch, return, unlock, descend. It sounds mechanical because it is mechanical. What saves it is the cast. Vin Diesel provides the voice and likeness of Riddick and was involved in the production. Michelle Forbes plays Gale Revas. Wade Williams plays Spinner. Lance Henriksen plays Max Dacher. Bridget Shergalis plays Lynn. Heidi Schooler plays Ellen Silverman. That is a serious group of actors for a 2009 video game, and they carry the material.
Vin Diesel, the voice and likeness of the title character, was involved in the production of Assault on Dark Athena.
Stealth, Speed, and Strategy on a Merc-Ship
The game is a first-person action stealth shooter. The summary describes it as set in the rich, futuristic, sci-fi world of the Riddick film saga, with a rich storyline, intriguing, developed characters, and the voice acting of Vin Diesel. That is the marketing copy, but it is not wrong.
The mechanics are the same stealth tactics Riddick used in Butcher Bay. You rely on stealth, speed and strategy to overcome the Dark Athena crew. The single player mode has been expanded to include Riddick escaping onto the mercenary ship. The multiplayer mode is new to the series. Dark Athena has improved graphics and artificial intelligence from Butcher Bay.
The AI improvement is the most important line in the whole fact sheet. In a stealth game, the enemies are the level design. If they cannot see you, hear you, or lose you, the whole thing falls apart. Starbreeze understood that in 2004. The studio understood it again in 2009.
A Demo in March, a Mac Release in April 2010
The rollout was staggered. A demo was released on Xbox Live on March 4, 2009, with a PlayStation Network release following on March 12, 2009. The full game arrived on April 7, 2009. Virtual Programming released the Mac OS X version on April 16, 2010, as a download through Deliver2Mac.com and other digital distribution web sites.
That Mac release is a footnote now, but it says something about the game’s reach. A first-person stealth shooter with a film license, ported to Mac a year after launch, sold as a download. That is not a blockbuster trajectory. That is a cult item finding its audience slowly.
What the Aggregate Score Says
The published critical score is 8.1 out of 10, drawn from an IGDB critic aggregate covering 7 outlets. That is a strong score for a licensed game. Licensed games in 2009 were mostly bad. They were rushed, they were cheap, they were made by studios that did not care. Assault on Dark Athena was made by Tigon Studios, Starbreeze Studios, and Virtual Programming, published by Atari, and it was not rushed in the way that matters. It was a sequel that also had to be a remake, and it handled both jobs.
The Numbers
- Release date: April 7, 2009
- Platforms: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC (Microsoft Windows), Mac
- Mac release: April 16, 2010, via Deliver2Mac.com and other digital distribution sites
- Demo dates: Xbox Live, March 4, 2009; PlayStation Network, March 12, 2009
- Developers: Tigon Studios, Starbreeze Studios, Virtual Programming
- Publisher: Atari, Inc., Virtual Programming
- Genre: First-person action stealth shooter
- Modes: Single player, multiplayer
- Critical score: 8.1/10, IGDB critic aggregate, 7 outlets
The Part That Still Holds Up
Here is the thing about Assault on Dark Athena that matters more than the score. It is a game about a man who can see in the dark, and it is designed so that you spend most of your time in the dark. That is not a gimmick. That is a thesis. The stealth is not a mechanic bolted onto a shooter. The stealth is the point, and the shooting is what happens when the stealth fails.
The Dark Athena is a predatory merc-ship. The crew is merciless. The guards are drones made from human bodies. The captain is nefarious. Every element of the setting is built to make you feel like prey, and the game gives you exactly one advantage: Riddick’s eyes. The rest is patience, speed, and strategy.
That is a harder sell than a run-and-gun shooter. It is also why the game has lasted. The remake of Escape from Butcher Bay was included because Microsoft could not make the Xbox 360 backward compatible, which is a mundane reason for a creative decision. But the result is a package where you can see the lineage in one sitting. You play the 2004 campaign, then you play the 2009 campaign, and you watch the AI get smarter and the graphics get sharper and the level design get more confident.
The multiplayer mode is the weakest addition. It is there because 2009 demanded it, not because the game needed it. The single player is where the work went.
The verdict is straightforward. The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena is a licensed game that respects its source, a sequel that understands its predecessor, and a stealth shooter that trusts the player to slow down. It does not reinvent the genre. It does not need to. It takes the Butcher Bay formula, moves it onto a bigger ship, and executes. The 8.1 out of 10 is fair. If anything, the Mac port a year later proves the game was worth carrying forward.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.
