THE EVOLUTION OF SHADOW OF THE BEAST

THE STRIKING SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF SHADOW OF THE BEAST PUSHED THE AMIGA FURTHER THAN EVEN MOST DEVELOPERS HAD KNOWN WAS POSSIBLE IN 1989. FROM SEQUELS AND CONVERSIONS TO A PLAYSTATION REMAKE THREE DECADES ON, THOSE INVOLVED EXPLAIN ALL

- GRAHAM PEMBREY

The impact of the original Shadow Of The Beast is perhaps best described through the lens of someone who experienced the game as a player.

It was 1989 and 16-year-old Matt Birch was visiting a friend for a sleepover when a relative lent the pair a new Amiga 500. Staying up late in the warm glow of Commodore monitor light, they played through disk after disk of what Matt recalls being fun but ultimately forgettable games. “But then around midnight we tried Shadow Of The Beast. It was a revelation. The music, the graphics, the gradient sky, and the parallax scrolling. It was magical, like seeing Star Wars for the first time. Blurry-eyed in the morning, I got on the bus to go home and all I could think about was this strange world I had visited.”

Twenty-seven years later, working as the head of his own studio, Matt would see his remake of the game published by Sony for the PlayStation 4. It was the latest entry in a series that’s particularly memorable for how far it pushed the Amiga, but which also spawned sequels and conversions spanning several generations of computers and consoles. It’s a collection of games known for standout graphics, music and atmosphere more than anything else, but one that also has more accomplished level design and clever gameplay depths lurking in its shadowy universe than is sometimes acknowledged.