The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay is a 2004 action-adventure stealth game developed by Starbreeze Studios and Tigon Studios and published by Vivendi Universal Games. Released for the Xbox and Microsoft Windows in 2004, the game's story is a prequel to the futuristic science fiction film Pitch Black. Actor Vin Diesel—who was involved in the game's development—reprises his role as that film's protagonist, Richard B. Riddick.
The game follows Riddick, the anti-hero of the two films Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick, as he attempts to escape from a maximum-security prison called Butcher Bay. Escape from Butcher Bays designers focused on exploring Riddick's character in a prison break setting to differentiate the game from the film. The game's influences include the film Escape from Alcatraz, and video games such as Half-Life, Thief: The Dark Project, and Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell.
Escape from Butcher Bay received acclaim by critics, who lauded its graphics and its implementation of stealth, action and adventure elements. Some critics consider the game superior to the film, a rarity among film tie-in games. However, they commonly lamented its brevity and lack of multiplayer components. The game is cited as one of the greatest video games ever made. It went on to win several accolades, including the Golden Joystick Award for Unsung Hero Game of the Year and the Spike Video Game Award for Best Game Based on a Movie. In 2009, the game was included in The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, with enhanced visuals.
Gameplay
In Escape from Butcher Bay, the player takes control of protagonist Richard B. Riddick as he attempts to break out of Butcher Bay prison. The game incorporates various elements from video game genres such as first-person shooter, adventure and stealth, and is played primarily from a first-person perspective, though the camera switches to a third-person perspective during certain scenes. Unlike many first-person shooters, the game contains no head-up display; on-screen cues are limited to flashes when a new weapon is selected, and small, white boxes that display the player character's health when damage is taken. Health can be replenished in designated areas throughout the game. By finding cigarette packs hidden in levels, the player can unlock concept art and video files.The player may interact with and receive quests from the prison's residents, and earns information, tools and other rewards by completing quests. Violent conflict often occurs between the player, inmates and prison guards. The player attacks with Riddick's bare hands, or with improvised weapons such as shivs and clubs. Combos are created by stringing together punches. A DNA-scanning security system initially prevents Riddick from using firearms, but a limited arsenal later becomes available.
A "stealth mode" is activated when the player character crouches, allowing the player to move silently and tinting the edges of the screen blue when the player is hidden. While in stealth mode, the player can drag bodies out of sight and hide from enemies. The mode grants attacks that quickly kill enemies; the player may drop on enemies from above, or execute them from behind. During the game, Riddick acquires eyeshine, allowing him to see in the dark but temporarily blinding him if used in brightly lit areas.
Plot
Setting and characters
Escape from Butcher Bay is set in the futuristic science fiction universe of the Chronicles of Riddick franchise, and is a prequel to the film Pitch Black. The game takes place inside Butcher Bay, a maximum-security prison from which no prisoner has escaped. The facility—constructed on a barren planet—contains three increasingly secure holding areas, and a subterranean mining operation.The game's protagonist is Richard B. Riddick, a murderer recently confined in Butcher Bay. Riddick is resourceful, and seeks to break out of the prison by any means necessary. His capturer is the bounty hunter William J. Johns ; the two have had previous encounters. Butcher Bay's warden is a man named Hoxie, while Abbott is a prison guard disliked by the inmates. The inmate Pope Joe is an insane old man, who lives in the sewer tunnels beneath the prison.
Story
The opening cinematic shows Riddick in hiding, having grown out his hair and beard, before the opening scene of the Chronicles of Riddick movie. He hunts an animal and after killing it, a disembodied voice starts talking to him asking him where he got his eyes. He states that he received them from a "slam preacher" and this causes him to remember his time at Butcher Bay. The game takes place in a flashback.Another opening cinematic takes place in which Riddick is being transported for collection on the bounty. He and Johns have a brief conversation in which Riddick tells Johns that there is no way he is going to get the price he wants. Riddick wakes up as they land and stands out front of Butcher Bay waiting for the warden. He sneaks up behind Johns and breaks his neck and proceeds to escape. After getting his hands on a gun, he goes through the ventilation ducts and seemingly escapes into the desert. Everything fades to white as Riddick hears Johns saying, "Rise and shine, Riddick." It turns out this escape was simply a dream.
Riddick wakes up and Johns escorts him off the ship. Johns meets with Hoxie to negotiate his pay, while Abbott escorts Riddick to his cell in the "single-max" security area. After making enemies with and killing a gang leader named Rust, Riddick familiarizes himself with the facility, and soon instigates a riot; during the confusion, he escapes into the prison's sewer system. Armed with a shotgun and a dying flashlight, Riddick discovers he is not alone in the sewers. Fighting through the sewers against mutant "dwellers", Riddick eventually meets Pope Joe, for whom he retrieves a lost radio, which Joe calls a blessed voicebox. A woman named Shirah tells Riddick that he "has been blind too long", and he gains his trademark "eyeshine" night vision. Afterwards, he accuses Pope Joe of tampering with his eyes; Joe says that he merely treated Riddick's injured arm. Riddick then continues his escape, while using the eyeshine to his advantage.
After emerging from a manhole in the showers of the guard living quarters, Riddick uses a guard uniform to blend in as he makes his way to the space port and his chance at escape. Realizing he requires a guard to get through the retinal scanner that locks the doors to the space port, Riddick decides to go after Abbott and take his eyes. He gains access to Abbott's apartment by telling him there is a delivery for him. A fire fight ensues and after that, as Abbott bleeds out on the floor, Riddick moves in for the kill but is stopped by Johns.
Riddick is captured and transferred to the "double-max" security area. Gaining the trust of the inmates by participating in fighting matches, Riddick eventually kills the champion of the fighting matches, a guard named Bam. This leads him to be taken to a room where no surveillance is seen and several guards await to kill Riddick. Abbott walks into the room, fully healed, holding a baseball bat. Shirah returns to him and tells him that the fury of all of his kind is within him, and he can release it if he chooses. Riddick lets out a loud scream as a blast of energy called the 'Rage of Furya' kills all the guards around him except Abbott, who hides and then panics and attacks Riddick. Riddick kills Abbott, steals his keycard, and proceeds to find another way to escape. Using a secret entrance to an elevator, he infiltrates a mining facility. He meets an inmate of great influence in the area named Jagger Valance, who wishes to escape with him. He makes a bomb and plants it in a mining site with a massive gas leak. However, Riddick is discovered and caught by the guards. During his transfer to another section, the prison is disrupted by an outbreak of creatures called "Xeno", due to the bomb Riddick planted, in order to create the confusion necessary for his escape, and Riddick attempts to escape with Valance. His plans are foiled again by Johns. After a fist fight, Riddick and Johns are both shot by Valance and Valance is killed by the guards. After meeting again with the warden, and telling him that he is just getting started, Riddick is placed in the "triple-max" area, where inmates are kept in cryonic sleep. They are awakened daily for two minutes of exercise; during this time, Riddick discovers a flaw in the system and escapes. He then hijacks a large robot and fights his way through Butcher Bay to reach Hoxie.
Tired of dealing with the prison officials, Johns helps Riddick to elude the guards. Riddick knocks Johns out and flies the ship into the warden's office. The warden calls in two robot guards with cloaking abilities and Riddick defeats them. After Hoxie surrenders, Riddick receives the codes to Hoxie's ship and Riddick and Johns escape disguised as a guard and prisoner. Two guards enter Hoxie's room, where Hoxie is bound and covered in Riddick's former attire with a gun tied to him and aimed at the door. The guards mistake Hoxie for Riddick and kill him. Riddick and Johns take off in Hoxie's ship, ending the game.
Development
Escape from Butcher Bay was co-developed by Swedish company Starbreeze Studios and the Vin Diesel-founded Tigon Studios, and published by Vivendi Games and Tigon Studios. Universal Studios Consumer Products Group granted The Chronicles of Riddick license to Universal Interactive; both companies were owned by Vivendi Universal. The game was announced in March 2004 as an Xbox title. Tigon Studios' Cos Lazouras said, " features an original storyline that provides insight into how Riddick evolved into such a complex character".In contrast to other film tie-in games, which often closely follow the events of their source material, the development team of Escape from Butcher Bay focused on differentiating the game from The Chronicles of Riddick. They sought to explore Riddick's character in a prison break setting, and took inspiration from films such as Escape from Alcatraz. Starbreeze was also inspired by video games such as GoldenEye 007 and the Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell series. The opening sequence, in which Riddick is escorted into Butcher Bay, is a tribute to Half-Life, the game's hand-to-hand combat was inspired by Punch-Out!!, and the stealth mechanics, such as hiding in the shadows and leaning, were inspired by that of Thief: The Dark Project and Deus Ex. Starbreeze focused solely on developing the game's single-player mode, and did not include multiplayer; the company believed that such a mode would require a design team twice as large and another year of development.
Vin Diesel, the lead actor of The Chronicles of Riddick, provided his voice and likeness for Riddick. He and director David Twohy also contributed to the game's plot and character design; the game's story was developed in conjunction with the film's. Per the filmmakers' instructions, the designers made the origin of Riddick's "eyeshine" vague. Diesel offered guidance to the game's lead writer during voice recording sessions; this included dialogue rewrites to reduce Riddick's lines, as Diesel believed the character spoke too often.
Starbreeze intended for Escape from Butcher Bay to feature more complex role-playing game systems, but feedback from Diesel and game testers dissuaded them. Starbreeze senior producer Peter Wanat said, "We tried to limit the number of really hard or really intricate RPG elements, and that was a choice because we wanted the game to be playable." Other removed features include an electric bullwhip for the guard Abbott, and a 25-minute final boss fight. A PlayStation 2 version that was in development was cancelled so the company could focus on the Xbox version.
The game uses normal mapping, which allows detailed textures to be drawn on models with lower polygon counts; this increases visual fidelity, without sacrificing higher frame rates. It also featured dynamic lighting with per-pixel stencil shadowing and self-shadowing.
Escape from Butcher Bay was completed in 18 months. Vin Diesel promoted the game and the accompanying movie at the May 2004 Electronic Entertainment Expo video game convention. The game was released in North America on June 1, 2004, shortly before The Chronicles of Riddick. North American pre-orders of the game included a DVD of promotional content, such as a partial interactive walkthrough and footage from the film. The game's soundtrack, composed by Gustaf Grefberg, was released by Vivendi as a free download on June 24, 2004.
Following rumors, Vivendi confirmed in July 2004 that a Windows port of Escape from Butcher Bay was in development, entitled "The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay Director's Cut". The game features a higher display resolution, additional cigarette packs, and new scenes where Riddick steals mechanized riot armor. It includes developer commentary which details the game's creation and design decisions. The game was released on December 8 in North America.