No Unreal II demo... yet
Legendary confusion
With Unreal II completed and out early next month, forums have been rife with talk of a demo. And even more so since the game's US Brand Manager told fans that "there is no demo for this game because there wasn't time to deliver one."
Huh? "Legend are owned by Infogrames who are in turn driven by shareholders," he said, curiously without giggling, "Because Legend are an internal studio, they do not have the luxury to produce a game on the 'when it's done' schedule."
"Once [Unreal II] was completed, the team was reassigned," he continued, confirming that they could still be called into action for patches. "This unfortunately means no demo."
Understandably this threw the kids into anarchy. Riots broke out, in as much as they can on Internet forums, and the illiterate, indignant yearning masses bubbled to the top and waffled their minds. There was much abuse. Meanwhile some of us merely shrugged and moved on. "Same as it was with the first Unreal, innit?"
Fortunately, Legend's Glen Dahlgren leapt into the fray and softened the mood, first apologising for letting it all get so out of hand.
"What [Unreal II's Brand Manager] said wasn't entirely true, although it's easy to understand how he came to this conclusion. While Legend was working on Unreal II, there was absolutely no time to produce a demo, and whenever asked, we would say, 'There are no current plans to produce one, but you never know.'
"Now that Unreal II has gone gold, we've been exploring the possibility with Infogrames and Epic, which is something that [he] wasn't aware of. For what it's worth, everyone involved--including Legend--is very conscious of the benefits of a demo, and we'd all love to do it. I hope to have more news soon."
So, at the end of the day, we still don't know if there's going to be an Unreal II demo. But with the game already building up critical momentum in the US, perhaps there's more incentive for Legend to do it than ever.