Back Into the Slam

I'm a sucker for the RiddickLaunched on the back of a low-budget alien horror film, Pitch Black, antihero Richard B. Riddick has seen his adventures grown into a full media franchise of movies, video games, and more. series. Started on the back of one low-budget alien cheapie, Pitch Black, Vin Diesel's gruff antihero has gone on to have more chances at the Box Office than anyone might have expected him to deserve. Hell, here in 2023, yet another theatrical film for the character has been announced with the same creative team that helmed all the previous films at it again. Riddick is, thanks to star Vin Diesel, a character that seemingly will never die (not as long as Diesel is alive, at least).

The character's life has extended off of the big screen, though. There were was a TV special at one point, an anime film, and even a couple of motion comics. But the franchise extension that was best regarded by fans and critics alike was Riddick's first video game. Produced by Diesel's own Tigon Studios, the game acts as something of a prequel to the films, giving all the action, killing, and inherent surliness you'd expect from a game bearing the "Riddick" name. It's also pretty solid, at least when measured against the games of the 2004 era (when it was released).

The game starts with our antihero, Riddick (voiced, of course, by Vin Diesel), getting dropped off at the titular Butcher Bay (a prison, called a "slam" in this corner of the universe). He's brought there by Johns (Cole Hauser), a bounty hunter previously seen in Pitch Black, a movie to which this game is a prequel. There's some arguing with the slam's warden, Johns gets stiffed on his pay, and Riddick is dragged into gen pop to spend the remainder of his life. Or, at least, that's the plan of the warden and all his flunkies. Riddick has other ideas.

Quickly into his time in the slam, Riddick starts causing trouble: killing inmates, killing gangs, killing guards, and just generally killing anyone that gets in his way. He finds one escape route after another, essentially gaining free rein of the prison multiple times, all so he can finally find some way off this rock. If Johns or the warden (or both) end up caught in the crossfire then all the better in Riddick's book. He's just here to get out and everyone else is collateral damage.

At its core The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay (which, for the sake of our fingers we're just going to write as Butcher Bay for the remainder of this article) is a first person shooter. We get cinematics with Riddick outside of her direct perspective, yes, but 99% of the game is played from Riddick's eyes, with a gun or melee weapon in his hands. The game even helpfully gives you a tutorial on how to play, putting you into an early dream sequence of Riddick escaping, running and gunning all around the prison, but almost immediately having Riddick escape so he can run and gun around the prison.

The game is, in essence, broken into the four areas. There's the main gen pop upper floors, which is full of really mild prisoners and only a few guards. Once you make your first escape (and you will make many), you'll get dropped into the hard time area. This will lead to the mines, the third area, but there are ways to link back up to th hard time crew if you have to (since nothing keeps Riddick locked up). Then, in the final stages, you end up in deep freeze, where they put the truly "can't be saved" criminals. Of course, even then, you'll still find a way to escape.

What I appreciated about the way this game is broken up is that, despite you spending the entirety of the game in the prison, the various sections of Butcher Bay feel very different. The two prison sections are grimy and claustrophobic, the mines feel like deep caverns, and deep freeze has a futuristic sci-fi feel (which is good since this is technically a futuristic sci-fi setting). Just when you get tired of exploring one kind of area, the game drops you into another. It manages to keep it's four-hours-plus run-time nice and smooth without ever dragging anything out for too long.

With that said, there were times where I easily got lost. The designers very clearly made a large and complex prison for you to move around in, not just populated with rooms and halls but also miles of duct work to crawl around in. It's deep, and complex, but unfortunately it's also easy to get lost. I spent a lot of time, especially in the third act (of four) trying to find my way through the ducts and rooms, endlessly looping back on myself because I just couldn't orient my sent of direction. More guide markers in the prison sections would have helped a lot to keep me on task.

As a shooter, the game will live and die by its shooting mechanics. Thankfully, Butcher Bay is tight and responsive. The game plays smoothly without many drops, fits, or starts, and the controls are easy to use and quick to handle. You have your basic shooting and movement (with the attack button also doubling for melee if you have to go that route), as well as night-sight when you're hiding in the dark and in shadows. The game does try to mix stealth and shooting together, and it does a reasonably solid job of that, keeping everything clean so you can enjoy the combat as you come to it.

Only problem is that the games fights aren't always balanced as well as I would have liked. Especially on the harder difficulty settings, the game will just randomly spike some rooms with a ton of guys, all shooting at you without much room to find cover and shoot back. More than a few blind turns led me right into a guard who was already ready for me despite me just showing up, and they peeled off half my health before I could even react. These happened just often enough that I started to get a little annoyed at these moments. Once or twice is fair, but another shock trip back to a checkpoint every ten minutes or so (especially in the late game) felt ridiculous. There's challenge and then there's unfair balancing, and the later acts of this game do tend to lean on the latter.

Still, the checkpoints are frequent, and there are regular health restoration stations you can use that help to mitigate some of this. And, frankly, you could turn the difficulty down and make the game much easier to handle... but then, if you have to tone it down are you really playing like Riddick? I suffered through as best as I could, forcing my way all the way through Butcher Bay just so I could say I had the full experience at the higher difficulty. Other players might be better at shooters and may not suffer, or they may just be smart and go easy mode so they can see the story and find out where their favorite antihero was before Pitch Black.

In that regard, though, I feel like I have to mark Butcher Bay down the most. The plot of the game is, to be frank, in essential. We already knew Johns and Riddick knew each other, and that Riddick has spent plenty of time in (and escaping from) prisons. All of this was established in the first movie, so all we see here is the "how did this little aside about Riddick" happen. It's fine if you really wanted to see, "yes, Riddick spent time in prison," but it doesn't drastically alter our understanding of the character. He's a recidivist criminal that doesn't learn, killing everyone around him with a gruff voice and a little wink. Butcher Bay gives us that character but doesn't really layer anything onto it, and that goes twice for the side character Johns.

What it does give us is some weird mythology building that doesn't make a ton of sense. We were told in the previous films that Riddick silvered his eyes, paying someone to do it to him so he could see in the dark. And yet, here, Riddick hears some voice (presumably the spirit of his people, the Furyans), and magically his eyes get silvered when he needs it (to venture deeper into the game). It's a lot of weird, fantasy world building tat runs counter to what we know about the character. Instead of him purposefully doing it, with intend, his silvering happens to him all because... what? He has to go be a big damn hero? Maybe eventually, but not in this game. It's narrative convenience that actually ruins a key part of the character. It's more interesting if he does this to himself because he likes the dark and feels no need to be in the light. That's quintessential Riddick.

What this leaves us with, then, is a canon story that doesn't really add anything to our understand of the character and, in some ways, actually ruins in. If what you wanted was a game that game you more Riddick and let you see more of his exciting adventures, well... sure, you at least get more Riddick. Exciting isn't always on the table. The game plays fine, and it does look pretty nice for a 2004 shooter. But as far as really extending the Riddick franchise the way fans might hope, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay doesn't quite hit the mark. It's fine, but it really could have been better in a few key ways.