The video game preservation website Hidden Palace has just released a prototype of Sega Technical Institute's dragon-based real-time strategy game Dark Empires, in collaboration with the Sega Retro researcher Alexander Rojas.
Dark Empires began life at Sega Technical Institute in 1990, shortly after the North American studio was established by Mark Cerny, making it one of the company's earliest projects.
According to Hidden Palace, it was initially conceived by Sega designer Bill Dunn, who was a fan of tabletop games, and would also be worked on by the future Insomniac Games artist Craig Stitt, alongside the programmers Scott Chandler and Ken Rose. As stated, it was inspired by games like Technosoft's mech-based console RTS Herzog Zwei and would have focused on battles between two opposing factions of dragons across different time periods. However, the project ultimately ended up being cancelled in late 1991, following the delivery of its first playable.
No specific reason was given for its cancellation, with Stitt simply assuming that the project was "too much of a niche game for what Mark [Cerny] wanted to do" with the studio.
What's particularly fascinating to us about the project, apart from the similarities to Herzog Zwei, is that Stitt later recycled a few elements of the game into several other projects he worked on, with the premise of a dragon travelling across different eras sounding very similar to the initial pitch he created at Insomniac for the game that became Spyro the Dragon. In case you're unfamiliar, Spyro's original, which was entitled Lifespan, focused on players taking control of a dragon, guiding them through several historical eras, including the Civil War, with the goal being to amass a horde of treasure along the way.
As noted by Hidden Palace, Stitt has commented on this potential link in an interview with Rojas back in August, telling the researcher, "That wasn't a conscious thing," but he believes "there very much is a connection there somewhere."
To get the full story on Dark Empires, you should check out Hidden Palace's write-up on the game. The prototype, meanwhile, is available to download here.
While you're at it, you might also want to check out the Video Game History Foundation's recently published 'Craig Stitt Art & Design Papers' collection, which also features other materials from Dark Empires, as well as more unrealized Sega Technical Institute projects like Segapede and SpellCaster.