Hidden Palace has released a prototype of Dark Empires, a real-time strategy game about dragons created by Sega Technical Institute with the participation of Sega Retro researcher Alexander Rojas.
Development of "Dark Empires" began in 1990, shortly after the studio was founded by Mark Cerny. It was one of the first projects of Sega Technical Institute.
The idea was proposed by Sega designer Bill Dunn, who was fond of board games. Craig Stitt, a future Insomniac Games artist, and programmers Scott Chandler and Ken Rose also worked on the project. The inspiration was Technosoft's Herzog Zwei strategy. The game was supposed to show the battles of two dragon clans in different eras. But in late 1991, after the first playable version, the project was shut down.
The reason for the cancellation was not specified. According to Stitt, "the game was probably too niche for what Mark [Cerny] wanted to do in the studio."
Interestingly, some of the ideas from Dark Empires later migrated to other projects by Stitt. The concept of a time-traveling dragon resembles his early sketch for the future game Spyro the Dragon. It was originally called Lifespan and offered to control a dragon passing through historical eras, including the Civil War, to collect treasures.
In an interview with Rojas, Stitt admitted: "It wasn't a conscious decision, but the connection is definitely there."
Read more about Dark Empires in the Hidden Palace material. The prototype is available for download at link.
