Dark Reign remake invades Xbox Live Indie Games

Xbox Live Indie Games is an unlikely place to find a vintage PC RTS, but that's just where Dark Reign Redux launched last week. Even more curiously, it's a fan remake released with approval from the original's publisher, Activision.

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Xbox Live Indie Games is an unlikely place to find a vintage PC RTS, but that's just where Dark Reign Redux launched last week. Even more curiously, it's a fan remake released with approval from the original Dark Reign: The Future of War's publisher, Activision.

"We have worked out a deal with Activision to remake the game," developer Magnetar Games explained in a post on Microsoft's private Creator Club forums, snapped by Armless Octopus. "The art assets are fully authorized. The legal issues has been reviewed by Activision's lawyer. Dark Reign Redux is a remake game QA'ed by Activision."

Dark Reign: Redux is available from the Xbox Live Marketplace now for 400 Microsoft Points ($5). You can also play a demo on PC through your browser with the Silverlight plugin, and a mobile version is planned too.

It's not the first time Activision has let fans play with its unused properties. The monolithic publisher also authorised, after a few hiccups, the fan-made King's Quest sequel The Silver Lining, though that was never sold for money.

From The Chatty
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    January 30, 2012 2:36 PM

    Alice O'Connor posted a new article, Dark Reign remake invades XBLIG.

    Xbox Live Indie Games is an unlikely place to find a vintage PC RTS, but that's just where Dark Reign Redux launched last week. Even more curiously, it's a fan remake released with approval from the original's publisher, Activision.

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      January 30, 2012 4:35 PM

      Cool. Will check this out. Always wanted to play the second one but never quite managed to.

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        January 30, 2012 5:29 PM

        No, you really didn't. Just remember the first one fondly and look forward to more, without tainting the memory.
        Dark Reign, I-76, Battlezone, and strangely, Heavy Gear 2 = GOOOOOOD!
        the sequels (or in HG's case, first title) = BAAAAAAAAAAD!
        Actually, HG1 wasn't awful, it just had some clipping problems and several game breakingly unbalanced weapons. Don't blame the testers, we told them and told them that a guided armor piercing bazooka and a Guided Anti Mech Missile was all everyone was ever gonna use in MP.
        Also, the MORTAR.

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          January 31, 2012 12:17 AM

          I-76 and HG2, nice! HG2 had horribly broken multiplayer, yeah, but I found both of those games to be pretty fun. Battlezone I got into late and it just seemed too buggy to play. Maybe that was 2. Were there two? I dunno.

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            January 31, 2012 12:27 AM

            1 was sweet and great at LAN parties. BZ2 was buggy as hell even though I recall the demo was very polished.

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      January 30, 2012 10:14 PM

      I love the original, it's like my second favorite RTS game behind Red Alert. Never managed to complete the game, I sucked too much :(

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      January 31, 2012 8:37 AM

      I just want to know if this still includes the "feature" that makes the "Easy" difficulty level actually be the "Hard" difficulty level. I didn't find out about that bug until 2 years after I'd put the game down because I couldn't get past the third map on easy, and I thought "If I can't beat it on easy, no way can I do it on normal/hard!"

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