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The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay

Developer: Starbreeze Studios Publisher: Vivendi Games
01 June 2004
The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay - cover art
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183 Ratings /
#900 All-time
#53 for 2004
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Title
The Chronicles of Riddick kicks off the careers of the studio that would become Machine Games, and what a kick off it was!
One of my favorite developers of all time is Machine Games, the developers of the new Wolfenstein games. As a 3D student, with big dreams of being a developer in the games industry, when I play any of their titles, I am instantly inspired to create and develop because of the talent, artistry, and confidence, those games radiate. The developers at Machine Games though, have been around in the industry making quality, immersive, story-driven, pulpy but serious, and ambitious single-player FPS games since the early 2000s, and these developers all spawned from a little studio called Starbreeze. Starbreeze Studios, the underrated and overlooked Swedish developers behind some of the most acclaimed FPS games ever, before getting raided by the Swedish feds for running out of Payday 2 money, got their big break on this movie-licensed title. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, released in 2004 on the original Xbox and PC later on is what I believe is the beginning of the story of Machine Games, and shines with talent, ambition, and drive from a studio of hungry developers wanting to make the best darn game they can. The Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay is one heck of a video game and a fantastic start to the Starbreeze FPS canon.

Just a note before I dive into the plot, I played the Assault on Dark Athena remaster of Butcher Bay on PC, which is currently the only legal way to get the game. You can grab it on Amazon Digital Games, but you will also have to do some fiddling around to get the game running. Firstly, you need to run the game in Windows XP compatibility mode, not a big deal. But more egregiously, you need to install TAGES, 3 install DRM to actually run the darn thing. You need a CD drive and can only install the game on 3 computers before having to wait 30 days to install it again, which sucks. The situation got even worse when a year after buying the game, for some reason I was told to re-register my copy of the Dark Athena, and each time, the TAGES servers never approved of the key I had, effectively blocking me from playing the game at all. So for my second playthrough, I played the original version off an abandonware site, which is a legal grey area but at that point, I was desperate to play this game again. I understand why DRM is wanted by publishers and developers for their games, but old games like this really shouldn't have DRM way after the first year of sales, lest make curious gamers less inclined to play said old game, or worse, letting classics get lost to time due to rights management hoopla.

Okay on to the story. You play as Richard B Riddick, played by Vin Diesel himself, an infamous criminal who is taken by bounty hunter William J Johns to be incarcerated in the prison planet, Butcher Bay, where no one has ever escaped... ever. Run by a pompous warden named Hoxie, and with one Captain Abbott as his second in command, Butcher Bay's prisoners are always being watched on and exploited for mining minerals, fighting for the entertainment of staff, or other nefarious deeds. Riddick, being the clever man he is, goes on to try to escape from Butcher Bay by sneaking, shooting, bribing, and punching his way to freedom! The story is very simple, easy to follow, and very well told. As someone who has never seen Pitch Black or any of the Riddick films, I found the story to be easy to follow, but if you have experience in the original source material, maybe you will find some appreciation for potential lore references and such. Riddick is one crafty sonavagun, who just wants to be left alone, and will go to extreme lengths to be in isolation. His one-liners and memorable quips throughout the game make him a fun character to be the eyes of even if he does some nasty things sometimes. Hoxie from his German-ish impression voice, many medals, and slicked-back blonde hair makes him a foil that you love to hate. Xzibit's performance as Captain Abbott makes him sound just as overly confident as Hoxie but his thuggish demeanor makes him hateable in a Javert kind of way. The NPCs around you also have little stories of their own and interacting with them fleshes out the world they inhabit. Escape from Butcher Bay is one game where exploring the world, reading the graffiti scratched on the walls, and talking to everyone makes you appreciate the love and care put into this game.

Gameplay-wise, Escape from Butcher Bay tries to do a lot and succeeds at most of these things but with an asterisk on most of them as well. The core of the game will be sneaking, shooting when things get heated, and conversing in hub worlds to find out what you need to do, in an RPG or puzzle-like matter. Riddick can hide in shadows and shoot lights out to cover the area in more shadow to take enemies down one at a time. He can stealth kill quietly but slower or with more noise faster. The stealth is functional, but at points, it can be frustrating. Aside from the music, there isn’t much means for you to determine how spotted you are. Kind of like the games this team would make 10 years later, you rely on the dialogue from the npcs to see if you are spotted or not. There is a nice feature where when you are in shadow, a blue filter goes over the screen telling you are so much harder to see, but semi-circles for enemy spotting would be greatly appreciated. The shooting is wonky, and not really well made to be a straight-up FPS, but for a stealthy action game, it makes sense. There are a multitude of melee weapons, and some ranged weapons including an assault rifle, a tranquilizer gun, and a shotgun with an interesting reload animation. Though the weapon selection isn’t very high, they all have use cases, and there isn’t a limit as to how many weapons you can use at a time. Very old school indeed. Most enemies go down with a bullet to the head, or many bullets anywhere else, and said bullets are usually in the form of projectiles, so they may not land exactly where you intend, which at first can be frustrating, but eventually you will get used to it. Just remember to hide in cover and shoot in bursts. There is also a melee combat system which again can be wonky, but by thinking about when you strike and block, you can manage, even if you come out of the brawl with a few flesh wounds, that can be healed at the nearest healing station. You use the WASD keys to determine where you will strike and use the left and right mouse buttons to attack and block respectively. Finally, you have the social hub sections. In these sections you are talking with NPCs, doing tasks for them, and finding out what you should do next. This is such a cool and immersive way for you to interact with the world. You may encounter people who need devious favors done for them in order to get items needed to progress. There are also many ways in which you can navigate through the prison hierarchy by interacting with the NPCs and finding out how to get what you want if that makes sense. The NPCs you encounter can have interesting stories to tell and also serve as good world-building. Overall, Riddick is a very ambitious game made by a small studio, and though it doesn’t exactly stick the landing in each of the mechanics the game lays out, they do them with such passion and care that I can’t help but admire it. Starbreeze with Vin Diesel just wanted to make the best darn game they could, and they got pretty close in a lot of aspects.

Presentation-wise, Butcher Bay holds up extremely well. For reference, Halo 2, Half Life 2, and Doom 3 all came out the same year, all graphical showcases for new engine tech, and console hardware. Running on Starbreeze's in-house Ogier engine, Butcher Bay looks a lot like Doom 3 or FEAR, but it has its own unique graphical tricks up its sleeve that really set it apart from other games released in that time period. The environment is layered with shiny normal maps that are ironically covered in blood, and grime and is clothed in sharp, stencil shadows, a graphical effect I am a complete sucker for. The lighting is very dynamic with Riddick allowing himself to shoot lights out to hide from guards. Stencil Shadows just have this look to them I really love compared to more soft and aliased shadow maps you find in games nowadays. The normal mapped environments give the illusion of depth to surfaces making the game look more complex than it really is. Sounds a lot like Doom 3 or FEAR right? The thing that really sets Riddick apart from other FPS games though is the feeling of immersion. This is one of the first games I can think of that truly used a full-body awareness character model for the player. Looking down you can see your legs, your chest and your shadow. Move too close to a wall, and Riddick will move his weapon out of the way. Peek over cover and he will move his weapon to the side that is open. Full body awareness FPS players are something that wouldn't take off until much later and the amount of animation talent, effort, and attention to detail Starbreeze used for the player is always inspiring. It is one aspect of the game that was way ahead of its time, and almost like a calling card for all Starbreeze and Machine Games titles. The animation quality in general was really good for the time. The motion capture is very clean looking, and your first-person animations all have weight and beef to them. The only thing about the animations I was not too keen on was the lip-syncing and facial animations. The lip-syncing is always really off, not matching the voiceovers, and the actual facial expressions are pretty bad too. The characters never blink or move their eyes much, making them seem more robotic looking. Having released in the same year Half Life 2 did which has some of the best facial animations in a game ever, I would just assume that the tech Starbreeze used for development, didn't have all the tools for great facial animation. The sound design is really good, with great ambient sound effects, beefy weapon sounds, and excellent voice acting, Butcher Bay sounds very high budget. More about that voice acting, we have some quality talent here in the voice cast. Vin Diesel himself plays his own character Riddick, and he sounds just as gruff and stoic as any sci-fi anti-hero should, and is easily the best voice performance in the game. Other voice talent like Ron Perlman, Michael Rooker, Cole Hauser, Mung Dahl himself Dwight Schultz, and even freaking Xzibit all have voice roles and they all do a great job playing their characters. The NPC voice acting is also pretty good, even though there are odd performances here and there. The soundtrack made by Gustaf Grefberg is a mix of cinematic orchestral and light electronic music that fits the tone of the game. The main theme of the game and other leitmotifs appear throughout the score and really make it feel more cohesive compared to other FPS game osts. Now there are some enhancements in the Dark Athena remaster compared to the original release. There are added bloom effects, shadow maps for some parts of the game, screen space ambient occlusion, and further color correction making the game look different and more updated for modern eyes. If these effects are not too appealing to you, on PC you can disable them with the development console. The Dark Athena remaster also fixes a strange issue where the game will cause your character to jitter and teleport when looking around with your mouse. If you use a mouse with a polling rate above 125hz, the controls will feel really bad. I ended up having to use my childhood Apple Mighty Mouse to fix the issue on my second playthrough, given that that mouse has a 90hz polling rate. However, modern mice like the Logitech G Pro Wireless and Superlight all have settings that allow you to change the polling rate in their driver settings. For an authentic experience, I would recommend playing with vintage Intellimouse, but it's good to know that modern mice have allowed us to fix these issues. As for the benefits of the original release, the original game has a quicksave feature, while the Dark Athena remaster relies on checkpoints to save your progress. Also, while the Dark Athena remaster’s color correction and effects may look more modern to some people, I am actually more fond of the unfiltered look of the original game, it also supports 4:3 aspect ratios for playing on a CRT monitor, a very niche case, but one I took advantage of. Overall, Starbreeze made a game that looks and sounds very premium and high budget for the time. Even today, the game looks very modern for 2004.

Overall, The Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay is one heck of a video game and a fantastic start to the Starbreeze FPS canon. If you are curious about the history of Machine Games, or the history of those Payday developers, I strongly encourage you to give Riddick a try. Yeah, each one of its mechanics aren’t exactly perfectly executed, but you have to respect the ambition put on display here. The Starbreeze team really set themselves apart from the other developers making immersive first-person adventure games at the time, and it may sound clichéd, but developers just don’t make these types of single-player, story driven, tightly packed, ambitious games anymore. Hopefully, the indie FPS scene will learn some lessons from Riddick and will go on to create more games in this style, but with more modern design sensibilities.
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My Top 5 PC Games:
Yakuza 5
Cyberpunk 2077
GTA 4
Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay
System Shock remake
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Catalog

noyade The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 2024-03-25T21:59:24Z
2024-03-25T21:59:24Z
3.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Kluwenblauw The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 2024-03-21T12:39:54Z
2024-03-21T12:39:54Z
2.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
eliottstaten The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 2024-03-15T05:22:45Z
2024-03-15T05:22:45Z
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youngzoomer777 The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 2024-03-05T17:41:02Z
2024-03-05T17:41:02Z
3.5
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Kremling98 The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 2024-03-04T20:15:08Z
2024-03-04T20:15:08Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
Vektor_Zvuka The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 2024-02-27T19:13:35Z
2024-02-27T19:13:35Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
thm_yrk12 The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 2024-02-16T00:03:11Z
2024-02-16T00:03:11Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
epicj The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 2024-02-05T18:13:57Z
2024-02-05T18:13:57Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
edmonius The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 2024-01-31T23:18:51Z
2024-01-31T23:18:51Z
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
jiux The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 2024-01-25T11:23:42Z
2024-01-25T11:23:42Z
1
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Mirror_D_80z The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 2024-01-23T08:42:43Z
2024-01-23T08:42:43Z
5.0
In collection Want to buy Used to own  
dolu The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay 2024-01-18T21:59:15Z
2024-01-18T21:59:15Z
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Content rating
ESRB: M
Player modes
Single-player
Media
1x DVD

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  • Previous comments (11) Loading...
  • blackearth 2023-08-09 13:48:45.88684+00
    Man i remember when kitty0706 used to hype this game up on his YT channel, fun times.. I think its long due I give this game a chance.
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  • NekoTempo 2023-09-02 16:36:38.769947+00
    A short but really cool experience. So weird how it has some pretty dated elements to it and yet feels so ahead of its time, must've been pretty wild to play this in 2004.

    (Story could be better but sure is a lot better than any of the Riddick movies after Pitch Black lol)
    reply
    • marten91 2023-09-02 23:03:39.668189+00
      who gives a shit about story anyway
    • NekoTempo 2023-09-03 03:54:08.103467+00
      ''Who gives a shit about story'' and then has a ton of story-driven games in your 5s and 4.5s. Ok then lol
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  • to_noid_or_not_to_noid 2023-09-21 03:09:32.865291+00
    Provided you have a working console you can still get this bundled w/ 'Assault on Dark Athena' off the XBOX 360 online store for like fifteen bucks. Just know it'll be gone next spring - along w/ a bunch of other games that've been left in limbo - when Microsoft kiboshes the store's servers.
    reply
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  • dentist_oven 2023-09-28 19:14:34.129206+00
    today Johns you get fucked [2]
    reply
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  • UncleKippy 2024-02-24 22:26:13.0978+00
    today Johns you get fucked [3]

    man rip starbreeze you used to be cool
    reply
    • to_noid_or_not_to_noid 2024-03-26 18:05:39.609123+00
      All the cool Starbreeze devs - the people who made the ‘Riddick’ games + the first ‘Darkness’ - bailed to start MachineGames.
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