Another World. If you like videogames and you haven’t played it, shame on you. Another World, known as Out of This World here in North America, was a brilliant, side-scrolling action-adventure game, designed and developed entirely by one man, Eric Chahi, back in 1991. To this day, it remains one of my favourite videogames of all time.
Knowing this, you could probably imagine my delight when I learned that Chahi, now working as a Creative Director for Ubisoft’s Montpellier studio, was working on a new game, tentatively titled Project Dust. Very little is known about the game at this time, but Chahi shared these words in a press release issued by Ubisoft at E3 2010.
“Project Dust is the spiritual heir to Populous. The game is set in an extreme version of Planet Earth where nature unleashes her power in a much more violent way than what we are used to. Tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, wildfires, volcanic eruptions are what the days are made of for the people of Dust. In this kind of God game, users will play with powers to manipulate the world around them. Ground, water, lava, fire, plants and trees – model the world like a child playing sand castles on the beach. With such powers, players will help their people resist, expand and migrate so they can accomplish their quest to find a safe place.”
In describing the technology used to make the game possible, Chahi said that players will be able to “manipulate ground, water, vegetation – breaching a lake open, digging craters, and flooding valleys.” The game will employ such effects through actual simulation, not just graphical visualization, utilizing realistic physics to drive a fully dynamic, ever-changing game world.
Project Dust may be quite a departure from Another World, and subsequent Chahi titles, such as Flashback and Heart of Darkness, but I’m excited nonetheless. Chahi has proven in each of his releases that he is capable of crafting imaginative and creative worlds, and creating gameplay that is both fun and addictive while maintaining a touch of simplicity. With the money and man-power of Ubisoft Montpellier behind him, Project Dust has the potential to be one of his best.
Check out the early build E3 trailer below.
Richard Mitchell is a video game addict living in Toronto. He has been gaming for more than two decades, and despite multiple interventions, continues to game today. He has an Xbox 360, a PS3, a Wii, a Nintendo DS, a gaming PC, and a life, and does his best to juggle them all. 
Holy Crap Wicked!
What a badass concept, realtime terrain deformation without all the crappy science-mumbo jumbo of the last game that tried this.
This seems like a proper, original approach, I’m excited to see where this leads.