Interviews// Too Human's Denis Dyack

Denis Dyack is the outspoken founder and director of Silicon Knights.

Dyack founded Silicon Knights in 1992 after publishing Cyber Empires in 1991. Silicon Knights has made a number of ground-breaking PC and console titles over the last sixteen years, having worked closely with Nintendo as a second-party, to create the seminal Eternal Darkness for GameCube.

Dyack’s team has worked very closely with Microsoft over the last four years to craft Too Human for the Xbox 360.

Such has been the controversy of the game's development (Denis' own statements regarding critics and also Epic's engine being blamed for delays), 360 gamers are now glad/relieved/distraught/confused to know that Too Human is out now. Finally! As you await our full verdict and detailed review of one of the 360’s most talked about games of the year, you can check out this recent interview we conducted with Dyack in London.

Despite it being the tail-end of what was clearly a long day of press interviews, Dyack was, if anything, way too sensitive over what he perceived to be any criticism of his baby. He was also, in general, overly defensive about stuff that, in all honesty, I wasn't really that bothered about spending too long talking about; hitting his usual riffs about the problems with ‘the preview process’ in the games industry and the evils of so-called open forum fan debates in NeoGAF. Despite all this, I am still buzzed about Too Human, mainly because Silicon Knights has clearly tried to push the boundaries of gameplay with this title.

Whether it (critically and/or commercially) flies or bombs, the fact that Dyack and his team have done something different should always be applauded.


SPOnG: Can you just run through the potted history of Too Human for us.

Denis Dyack: It was conceived back in 1993! Unveiled at E3 in 1999 for the first time on the PlayStation, but that development stopped as soon as we became a Nintendo second-party.

Really, what you see now, the real production of Too Human started after we finished Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes on GameCube. So, the whole idea that this game has been in development for over ten years is just a complete myth. We have tried to say that for the last four years, but nobody seems to want to listen. You would be providing a service to everyone by saying that. Once we hooked up with Microsoft and started collaborating is when the REAL development of Too Human started.


SPOnG: And it’s the first in a planned trilogy of games?

Denis Dyack: That’s correct. The theme of the first game is discovery, the theme of the second game is revenge, and the theme of the third game is enlightenment. It’s safe to say, though we’re not making any specific announcements yet, that the second and third games in the trilogy will come out a lot faster than the first.