The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay - On this day

You all know that Vin Diesel is one of the most famous bald men in the world, a successful actor and businessman, but it is less known that the guy has his studio that collaborates with other manufacturers of games in which Diesel appears. His Tigon Studios started very successfully with his first project - The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, which appeared on the European market on this day 17 years ago.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay appeared when the film The Chronicles of Riddick, but it was a completely original story with the character of Riddick in his adventure of escaping from a strictly guarded prison. It was a first-person game, but not exclusively a shooter because Riddick had to hide in the dark, lurk guards and use improvised weapons (screwdrivers) or his fists. Inspirations for the game included Splinter Cell and Half-Life.

The game was very well received, but it is less well known that Vin Diesel also had direct credit for its final design. During the development of the game, Diesel suggested that the player should not be burdened with complex RPG systems and asked that Riddick's commenting not be frequent so that the players would not get on his nerves. Ultimately, Escape from Buther Bay was a fairly fluid game that used a minimalist interface during gameplay, which was a novelty at the time. 

The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was in development for Xbox and PlayStation 2, with the PS2 console version canceled. Four months after the release of the Xbox version, the game appeared on the PC. Although it took place indoors, the game at the time looked graphically attractive and advanced.

Just three years later, news arrived that Escape from Butcher Bay would receive its expanded remake in parallel with a sequel called Assault on Dark Athena. The sequel was a little weaker in quality than the first part, but it still went well. Unfortunately, the game was removed from sale in 2017 and has not been returned since, and can no longer be purchased today. Although we got another film about Riddick in the meantime, there were no more new adventures in virtual form.