Quantic Dream Is Reportedly Turning Its Dark Sorcerer Tech Demo Into A Full Game

Alongside the recently revealed Star Wars: Eclipse, French developer Quantic Dream is also reportedly working on a project related to its 2013 PlayStation 4 tech demo The Dark Sorcerer.

The report comes via Twitter user AccountNGT, who previously revealed details about Star Wars: Eclipse prior to its announcement at The Game Awards 2021. Those details were then corroborated by insider Tom Henderson, who has previously reported on Quantic Dream's development woes in relation to Star Wars: Eclipse.

The Dark Sorcerer is a 12-minute long, joke-filled demo written and directed by Quantic Dream founder David Cage that served as a means of showcasing what was possible on the PS4 in real-time. At the time, the demo was stated to only be a concept and "not taken from a software title currently in development."

It shows a sorcerer and his goblin henchmen attempting to cast a dark spell, only for the sorcerer to flub his lines. It's then revealed that the pair are on a game development motion capture stage. The whole thing becomes a bit meta as the off-camera director later calls for programmers to fix a bug that causes thousands of copies of the goblin sidekick to appear. Shortly after, the actor playing the sorcerer calls his agent, remarking that he thinks the "video game people" seem bizarre and wonders if he can back out of his contract.

According to AccountNGT, the game will be a cross-gen title--one that will also come to PC--and is further along in development than Star Wars: Eclipse. It will be focused around narrative interactivity and feature a non-linear storyline written by Cage. Quantic Dream is allegedly having issues hiring for the project, as well as for Star Wars: Eclipse, which Henderson previously reported on.

That is likely due in part because of various reports in recent years regarding an allegedly toxic work environment at the Paris-based studio, something that the developer has denied. Quantic Dream sued several French publications (and lost) following reports in the press that the company circulated degrading photoshopped images of employees that were offensive in nature, some of which had even been altered to include Nazi-imagery. Other complaints included sexual misconduct at work-related events and racist remarks. While the studio itself lost its defamation cases against multiple French publications, Quantic Dream bosses Cage and Guillaume de Fondaumière did win one personal libel case against the publication Le Monde.

While previous Quantic Dream games like Heavy Rain and Detroit: Become Human have often been PlayStation exclusives, it was announced in 2019 that the studio wanted to become a multi-platform developer. Quantic Dream recently opened a second office in Montreal.