Retro's fourth project was a fantasy RPG simply known as "RPG". On March 27, 2001, Retro Studios trademarked the name of "Rune Blade" for the game, but later renamed it to Raven Blade before E3 2002. The project was reportedly the baby of Steve Barcia; however, David "Zed" Cook was the project's senior designer. David Cook has been in the game industry since 1979, and he is best known for his work on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Handbook and the pen-and-paper game Planescape from TSR, Inc. In 2003, Mr. Cook was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame, also known as the Origins Awards. Several games credited to his name are Lords of the Realm III, Fallout 2, and the upcoming super villain title, City of Villains from NCsoft and Cryptic Studios (the sequel to the PC MMORPG City of Heroes).

Development on Raven Blade began in late 1999, shortly after the completion of Retro Studios' code base, which we talked about earlier. At the time, Retro was still in full swing recruiting top-notch talent from other studios, including EA, Acclaim, and id Software. The staff quickly grew from a small group to a dedicated staff of 35 artists, designers, and programmers. To put this into perspective, at its peak, Metroid Prime featured just over 40 team members. By late 2000, the team began running into a host of problems that would haunt the project to its grave. An anonymous source told IGNcube in July 2001, "[The Raven Blade team] has been trying to figure out how to get a decent battle system working. It's only a small part of the overall game and they've been working on it forever."

Numerous inside sources have claimed that these problems stemmed directly from the fact that Nintendo began to give Metroid Prime top priority over all other projects, resulting in the majority of Retro's best software engineers being assigned to Metroid instead. "Raven Blade was a beautiful looking 'game.' Programming wasn't far enough along for it to be called a real game though. The design was nice, but a bit ambitious for the timeline that we had. I doubt you'll ever see it made," one source closely connected to the project told us. Morale quickly dropped and Nintendo became progressively more impatient. Allegedly, Nintendo set a July 24, 2001, deadline for significant improvements to be demonstrated, or it would face indefinite cancellation.

Nintendo kept to its word, and on July 19, 2001, five days before the rumored deadline, Nintendo and Retro Studios officially announced the termination of Raven Blade, leaving Metroid Prime as the sole remaining project in development at Retro. Along with the game's cancellation, 26 employees connected to the project were laid off. Of the remaining core 35 team members, some moved to Metroid Prime development (several key programmers and select artists), while others decided to leave the company all together.

One employee that opted to cut out early was the project's lead concept artist, Arnie Jorgensen. One source told us that, "[Mr. Jorgenson] and pretty much all the senior artists on the team, left for Star Wars Galaxies [Sony Online Entertainment (SOE)]...which may have been the final nail in the coffin on that game." Among these senior artists were Bill Daly (SOE), Dan Borth (SOE), and Kris Taylor (Digital Anvil).

Raven Blade was designed to be a fantasy RPG fan's dream game. Players were to take the role of a heroic knight, who was never named, in an ancient post- apocalyptic world filled with magic, dragons, and hundreds of other mythical creatures. Though story details are very scarce, we do know that the game's hero was to wield a legendary Excalibur-like sword known as the "Raven Blade" to cast down evil and save the world from the evil sorcerer "Beastlord." In addition to the "Raven Blade," players could also make use of magical spells and a variety of medieval weaponry.

We also know that players would have discovered, or at the very least located, the "Raven Blade" very early in the game. When Retro NFL Football was canceled in February 2001, Vanessa Gonwick was moved from character modeler on that project to environment modeler on Raven Blade. One environment Ms. Gonwick was placed in charge of was the "Sword Room," which was not only the first level in the game, but also the setting of several cinematic sequences. The following image is the "Sword Room" as posted on Vanessa's personal website. Based on current information, it appears she worked on this level for approximately two months before finally leaving her position at Retro in April 2001.

Reportedly, the game was set to feature turn-based combat. However, due to several factors, it was decided to make the change to real-time combat. This design decision alone excited many GameCube owners interested in the title.

One of Raven Blade's most prominent features was its breath-taking artistic style. A few of the many artists on the doomed title were character modeler Gene Kohler, later moved to Metroid Prime and credited for the Samus model, environment artist Rick Kohler, also moved to Metroid Prime, and effects artist Alex Toader. According to an anonymous source that was once closely connected with the art direction of the title, "The book Elric of Melnibone [was used] for the inspiration on Raven Blade."

For those not familiar with the Michael Moorcock saga, Elric of Melnibone is the first installment of the continually growing fantasy epic written in 1972. The novel tells the story of the ailing albino Emperor Elric of the island kingdom of Melnibone. Melnibone was once the most powerful kingdom in the world, but had begun to lose influence over the years due in part to Elric's deteriorating physical heath. In a desperate struggle to survive, Elric resorts to using magic and potions on himself. Elric's sinister cousin, Yyrkoon, plots to take the Ruby Throne from Elric, but faces conflict with his sister Cymoril, who also happens to be Elric's lover. During a climatic battle with Yyrkoon, Elric takes position of the soul-snatching rune blade, the Stormbringer.

N-Sider was very fortunate to locate a member of the former RPG team at Retro who was kind enough to provide us with three exclusive concept images done by Arnie Jorgensen. None of these images were actually used in the title, but they provide a pretty accurate idea of the game's artistic direction.


Meet the game's hero posing with the fabled "Raven Blade."


This is one concept that was rejected for a palace guard.


Yet another rejected conceptual image of a sorcerer. It is unknown if he was to be a boss or not.

As mentioned earlier, after the cancellation of Raven Blade, the only remaining project at Retro was Metroid Prime. By this time, the make-up of Retro Studios had changed substantially. The studio was now an official subdivision of Nintendo. Under the eye of Big N, Retro's staff size was dramatically reduced and completely new leadership put in place. If anything else, it was clear that Nintendo was no longer going to stand idly by and watch its investment fall to pieces.