Debuting as part of the Valiant Universe, Shadow Man became one of the most distinguished figures within the publisher's universe -- attracting talents that ranged from Steve Englehart to Garth Ennis. Modern incarnations of Shadow Man have been created by Andy Diggle and Cullen Bunn, bringing new stories to how a New Orleans native ended up cursed with mystical abilities and the defender of the world from the evil forces of Deadside. The character famously came to video games in a 1999 adaptation for Nintendo 64, PlayStation, Dreamcast, and PC titled Shadow Man, which quickly became a critical and commercial success.
In 2021, the game was remastered by Nightdive Studios for a new audience and to coincide with a new incarnation of the Shadow Man comic series. During an exclusive interview with CBR, Nightdive Studios CEO Stephen Kick, Nightdive Studios Director of Business Development Larry Kuperman, and Valiant Entertainment Publisher Fred Pierce delved into Shadowman's return to gaming and reflected on the modern take of the character.
CBR: One of the innate challenges of bringing back Shadowman in game form, especially in terms of being a remaster of the original, must be appeasing those audiences who came back for the nostalgia while making it accessible for newer audiences who don't have that kind of connection to the original. What was it like balancing those elements?
Larry Kuperman: We've been doing this for a while. So in terms of the technical side, we know how it's supposed to look, and we know when it has to adapt to the modern hardware, how to have widescreen support, how to have support for much higher resolutions than they had in those days. The challenge is always to stay faithful, and to make it... It's been a mantra at Nightdive, that our goal is to make the games look not the way that they were back then, but the way you remember them as looking and to recapture that experience.
One of the more exciting elements of Shadowman, especially just on the comics side, is that Shadowman has attracted so much talent and revealed so much fresh storytelling potential. Now, with the remastered game coming out too, what is it like to see the character so embraced by the current generation of fans?
Fred Pierce: I will tell you, as one of the veterans in Valiant in the 90s, and Valiant now since the current launch... There is such a mystique around Valiant.
Bob Hall and I just spoke the other day... He was on the original Shadowman. So we discussed it. Shadowman was one of these characters that I reference in my life all the time because whenever you're working, you're trying to be a shield against evil. The love that they're putting into it, that Nightdive puts into our game, can't be matched. This is something that they love doing. This is not something that they're [phoning in]. You can see it when you watch the game and when you watch the trailers. It's a wonderful, wonderful thing.
The reception to the remastered release of the game has been so uniformly positive, especially on Steam. What was that like -- as both fans of the property and people who worked on this incarnation of it -- to see the audience receive this remaster with such enthusiasm?
Steven Kick: What makes it worth it for me is to see people enjoying the games again. Like Larry said, our main goal was to bring back games and present them in a way that you remember them being, not necessarily the exact same way that they were.
When we see the kind of reception that we've gotten with Shadowman, we know that we've done our job. It's really special for us, because we receive a lot of fan mail, both in the form of just comments on social media, but also just... I actually received a physical piece of fan mail for the first time, for Shadowman. That was a real trip for me because it was from a gentleman who, sharing a story about how this is the game that he played with his father, and it meant something very special to them. Now, for the first time in 20 years, they're able to enjoy it again with each other with just something as easy as downloading it from Steam or GOG. It's that kind of thing that really continually, drives what I do.
I played a lot of these games with my dad, and those are really wonderful memories that I had. To know that we're able to not only fondly remember our own memories but create new ones with our kids, by enjoying the games that they had when they were our age.
Larry Kuperman: There's a word that's probably overused in gaming a lot, the word immersive... If you had told me when I was a kid -- when I lived and died for comic books -- if you told me back then that a technology would come out that would put me into the comic books I read, that I could be the character that I was reading about, I would have said, "Sign me up."
Why was this the perfect time to bring Shadow Man back for audiences, especially in game form?
Steven Kick: Well, I've got a boring answer and I got a better answer. The boring one is we just happened to find the source code when we were looking for it. It was at a time where we had the bandwidth to approach it as a team. It was something that we always wanted to do, just because of our love of the game and our prior publishing agreement with Valiant for the Steam version.
But the other more interesting answer is that it's a game that has a very rabid fan base, but it's still relatively small in terms of... If you compare it to something like Dark Souls or Doom, or something like that. That elevates it to that next level where someone who may not have heard it before is going to be interested just based on just hearing it. That community aspect... people saying, "Hey, if you really like Metroidvania-style games, third-person action, horror, good narrative games, there's this game that you might not have heard of that just came out again." And that's been a really strong indicator that people were just waiting for something like this to come along. Something that was more approachable, something that wasn't as complicated or demanding as a lot of the newer AAA titles. Something that, as well, has a really approachable price point that has a lot of gameplay. There's a value element there.
Perhaps the most important thing is probably just the cast of characters. We've got Redd Pepper reprising the role of Mike LeRoi, who's an African-American character. Which you generally did not see a lot of in the 90s. And it's more important than ever that everybody is represented to some degree in the medium that they enjoy. I feel like, by bringing this back, or showing that if there was representation before 2020, or 2010, and it was powerful and it was really good. I think it's a really good example of how to handle it.
Larry Kuperman: I'll also raise the just more general theme of, the restoration of classic games is having a renaissance.
Steve and I have been working together since 2014. Steve actually started the company. It was 2012 when System Shock 2 first appeared on GOG... We always had work from Valiant but we approached other IP owners. [People asked], "Why do you want to bring those games back? I mean, those are old games. Why do you want to bring them back?" And it's funny, people don't ask those same questions about other art. Why do you want to go to see the paintings in the Louvre? Those are old paintings. There's new stuff that's out.
But we're in a renaissance period. It's pretty well known that over the past couple of years we've done Doom 64 and Quake for Bethesda. The Turok games continue to resonate for us. Those are out now across all platforms. These things really resonate with an audience. And again, the idea that Marvel and DC both use the term universe, but the idea that you can experience different characters through different media is really a powerful one.
Fred Pierce: It helps broadcast both ways back and forth. I read comics, I watch movies, I read novels. And you can see the same thing, the same characters in all these different aspects, and you get a different feel. And the difference between a character in a TV series and a character in a movie, and a character in a novel, even that's different. But when you're playing the game, you're interacting with it. When you're watching a movie, it's more passive. But if I'm playing the Shadowman game, I'm Shadowman. I can lose. In the movie, I'm not going to lose, generally speaking, because they want to have a sequel. But in the game, you could lose. Granted, you hit the restart button. But it's a wonderful interaction with it.
Look, there are certain Valiant characters that I love the most. I didn't love all my children the same. I won't tell you which, but I loved Shadowman, I loved Eternal Warrior... I wrote Magnus 20 in the day, just so you know. Bob Layton asked me to do it. But look, I just pulled this out for this conversation: I have with me Valiant Universe, 1994. And if you look at it, this is the launch of the original Shadowman. Who knew that these two pages would become all this. And that's the beauty of IP. IP is not just about the IP. IP is about the worlds that it creates.
Shadow Man Remastered is currently available through Steam and GOG, with console releases arriving in the near future