14 DAY TRIAL // Developer The Chinese Room has announced that Dear Esther will be completely remade in Unity, after the company has encountered some licensing hurdles with the Source Engine.
Originally developed as a Half Life 2 mod, Dear Esther was rebuilt as a standalone product using the Source Engine. It was met with critical acclaim and managed solid sales, but the team's plans to deliver the game to other platforms than the PC didn't go so well.
Due to unfamiliarity with the Mac and Linux platforms, The Chinese Room opted to outsource Dear Esther development for them, and unfortunately both contracted teams dissolved before completing the project.
In addition, the team has also had to pay licensing fees for some middleware that was included with the Source Engine but not covered by the original license deal. Additional licensing fees pertaining to the PlayStation 3 port of the game, and the announcement of the PlayStation 4 were more blows the studios had to endure, and it ultimately led to the decision to use the Unity engine, which is more universally supported.
"I realised that with my knowledge of Unity, there was an opportunity to not only safeguard the future of Dear Esther, but to also clean up the Linux and Mac ports and reach a wider range of other platforms.
"Best of all, we'd be able to keep everything in-house, at low cost, with no more licensing or communication barriers, no more support woes and no more scouring for experienced Source Engine developers to help us," The Chinese Room's Robert Briscoe blogged to the game's fans.
“The plan is to work towards a solid, high quality, Linux and Mac build, and then eventually PC," Briscoe stated, along with revealing plans to release betas for existing customers to evaluate and test, once the team reaches a development point they will be satisfied with, prior to scrapping the existing build.