Gamers are crying out for a remaster of Black & White, the acclaimed god game from Lionhead Studios and one of the scariest games I've ever played on PC.
To the uninitiated, Black & White is initially set on an island with a small population of people who worship the player and their creature as supreme beings. This worship generates power to perform divine acts, from feeding the hungry, providing rain for crops, summoning rabid wolves, conjuring fireballs and more. Every action that the player takes is reflected in the surroundings, so "good" actions are reflected in brightly coloured temples whereas "evil" actions cause the temples to turn dark and spiky.
Check out the trailer for Black & White here!
Why was it scary, though? Whenever a villager died, you would hear a person's voice whisper in your ear, "death." Imagine being six years old and a disembodied something or other signals the end times. You'd freeze for a good five minutes too. A palate cleanser: this is the sailor song that will be in your head for the next hour.
Taking to Reddit, user stuckinstasis asked where the rights for this game have ended up, seeing that Lionhead Studios is no more, and that the game deserves a remaster. "Probably one of the best games ever made. Not just your pet's AI, but the whole village system. It was one of the few games that actually lived up to a vision and the hopes you had for it. You felt like a god," added TomoIsNotherDay.
Fortunately, Noclip covered this in a documentary all about Black & White. It transpires that the intellectual property and game code rights are in Microsoft's possession but the distribution rights lie with Electronic Arts. This sounds straightforward however there would be a lot of legal trouble over a game that neither company is that interested in bringing back. Life's not fair.
Topics: PC, Retro Gaming