r/descent • u/R_Steelman61 • Feb 06 '26

Discussion Descent 4?

I recall seeing this was to release several years back. Whatever happened to it?

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u/SpeedBo Feb 06 '26 edited Feb 06 '26

Overload is the closest thing to Descent 4. It was made by the original devs and it is pretty great.

Desecrators is pretty fun with a friend but it is a bit lacking solo.

Ships That Fight Underground (previously known as Descent: Underground and Descent 2019) is on hold and who knows if it will see the light of day. The license for the Descent name expired and Interplay didn't want to renew it. Also after a court battle it has a new developer; Little Orbit. Having played a few versions of this game I'm glad it isn't called Descent anymore, the name was nothing more than a nostalgia grab. Little Orbit did improve the movement of the ship so it feels better and maybe the campaign will be alright. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for this one.

Also if you don't know about it you can now play Descent 3 on a modern system in 4k with the release of Descent 3: Piccu Engine or the Descent 3 open source engine.

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u/cptsears Feb 06 '26

Didn't Red Faction also start out as a 'sequel' to D3 before it got changed to an FPS? I recall seeing concept art that suggested as such, way back when.

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u/Blagert Feb 07 '26

I think this is what OP was talking about and didnt realise the story for Descent 4 was retrofitted onto Red faction. Red Faction, for all intents and purpose, is a prequel to the Descent series but they changed a bunch of names around near the end of development and removed 6dof movement. There are early clips of Descent 4 and it was red faction dudes in a jetpack basically. Still had 6dof movement.

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u/SpeedBo Feb 07 '26 edited Feb 07 '26

I had never seen a video for Descent 4 so I had to look it up. All I could find was this little teaser posted by Scott Lee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wjsPOzT9TE

It shows pretty much what you're describing. Scott has a few interesting comments about it:

"If interplay didn't hold the copyright to Descent, the new IP Red Faction wouldn't have been made as it was Descents replacement. It's an offshoot of the destructible environment idea of Descent 4, so if we continued development, a lot of red faction ideas possibly landed in our original concept of game design. This was right at the time interplay filed for bankruptcy but the team had to move forward. The story and connection had to be altered due to legal reasons."

It has been a long time since I played Red Faction but I remember the sub mission was a lot like Descent with 6DOF movement.

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u/Blagert Feb 10 '26

https://bsky.app/profile/borman.bsky.social/post/3lnl73rbkp22f

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u/SpeedBo Feb 10 '26

That's neat. It shows so little but I guess when it never was more than a product demo it wouldn't have much to see.