Here’s the official announcement we were promised over the weekend. Dark Energy Digital have just sent round a press release announcing Hydrophobia Prophecy for Steam and PlayStation Network.
It’s not the second episode of the water-laden survival action game but rather a further redesign and improvement of the first episode that was released on XBLA last year (which was itself massively updated as Hydrophobia Pure).
The developers, having asked for community feedback via a “listening post”, tweaked, improved and built upon their core game in an attempt to deliver something that would really cater to fans. They received over 6600 items of feedback via the listening post and have funnelled those suggestions into what is now destined to be the definitive version of Hydrophobia’s first instalment.
The game is over 40% longer with almost zero backtracking, new professional voice work has been recorded, the ending has been reworked to be more engaging and dramatic and the hydro kinetic powers which were previously only seen in the unlockable challenge room have been opened up in play. This is all in service to the thousands of fans who took time to offer feedback to the developers.
Here’s Dark Energy Digital’s director, Pete Jones, to say it best:
We could’ve just ported Hydrophobia Pure over to Steam and PSN after the positive response it received, but we decided to go much further. The community really blew us away with the incredible response to Hydrophobia Pure and the outstanding level of feedback on the listening post, so we wanted to return the favour and ensure we created a bigger and better experience in every possible respect with Hydrophobia Prophecy for Steam and PSN
In addition to the changes already made, the Steam version comes with something called Darknet. This is a method of allowing players to offer their opinions at any point during gameplay and having that information, along with some data about where they are in the game and what conditions they’re playing under, relayed to the developers so that they can further improve on things in the future. It’s a leap forward for interaction between developers and gamers.
Hydrophobia Prophecy should be out on the 9th of May on Steam at a price of £7.64 (including the pre-release discount of 15%) and will hit the PSN soon after. For further details, you can visit the official website.
Click through to the second page for the huge list of improvements for the Steam (and future PSN) version.
bunimomike
The feedback was awesome. Their ability to address said feedback equally welcome. However, with such a massive list of improvements and some sporadically disjointed scoring across the industry, I can’t help but think there was some fundamental flaws in the first place.
Regardless of that, I’m very interested and look forward to the PSN version. Good luck to them.
colossalblue
To be fair, at least one outlet that awarded it 4/10 almost certainly didn’t play beyond the first hour or two. And then there was the drama stirred up in a few places that caused some smaller blogs and less professional reviewers to jump on the bandwagon. The release and review cycle got very messy but it was mostly a lot of drama over nothing – something certain corners of the internet excel at ;)
bunimomike
Good to know, fella. As always, I’m happy to judge a game for myself but one can’t help but be influenced by the things we read online – even if it’s a tiny bit.
gordon123
Now that’s fan service!
DarkEnergy
We were really and truly blown away by the response to Pure and the listening post – which is what inspired us to take this thing even further. Did you notice the Darknet feature too?
TheDeathAvenger
Is the Darknet feature just for Steam?
Foxhound_Solid
Its almost like the 360 is the testing ground then they release it on the PS3 properly.
This isnt this first game to have done such a thing ;-)
TURRICAN-808
The first Modern Warfare 2 DLC springs to mind, there were bugs on the 360, fixed in time for the PS3 release though..
jayjay119
Brilliant, I was gutted when this was announced as LIVE only.
BrainDiver
Nicely done, consider this on my ‘watched items’ list.
eirekun
Sounds very tempting, looking forward to it.
DarkEnergy
Thanks kindly guys, really appreciate it :)
scavenga
Wow, they take their stuff seriously – which massively improves the chance of me buying it day one ! :)
DarkEnergy
Thanks! Remember there is a 15% pre-purchase discount on Steam, so if you do decide to take the plunge be sure to take advantage of that :)
Foxhound_Solid
Sounds good this, I think ill be in :-)
DrNate86
I enjoyed the premise of the 360 version but the demo put me off. It’s great to see the developers have had such an active response to the criticisms. To release not one, but two massively improved updates shows a real passion for their work which is lovely to see.
DarkEnergy
Thanks :) Prophecy is a much bigger update than Pure was too, hope you enjoy it :)
Erroneus
Sweet, a day one buy for me on PSN.
DarkEnergy
Thanks kindly, hope you enjoy it and be sure to let us know what you think via Darknet :)