ORION / 25th ANNIVERSARY
“The Orion Project”
25 YEAR ANNIVERSARY
First and foremost, this is a very special day. The quarter century celebration for Orion, originally announced on August 25, 2000.
That is absolutely wild to think about! With the first commercial release ("ORION: Prelude") starting development back in 2009 and releasing in 2012. It's been a crazy adventure so far and it's brought me a lot of experience, learnings, opportunity, perspective and I am very appreciative for that. The good, the bad, the ugly; I've certainly seen and learned a lot, all of which compounds and culminates into what I want to do next.
Secondly and very importantly; Hello. It's been some time. I apologize for the lack of communication and I know some folks may be wondering if I have plans for anything more with Orion.
The short answer is:
Yes.
The long answer is:
Read below.
“Guardians of Orion”
“GUARDIANS OF ORION”
// PHASE 1 (2017-2018)
I stepped away after Guardians of Orion (Phase 1). I finished most of my work on GOO in 2017 and 2018 in regards to visual and performance for Phase 2. At the time, my passion was forming around technology, graphics, workflows, performance, platforms and I was starting to really dive in. (More on this later)
// PHASE 2 DEVELOPMENT (~2021)
However, there were challenges on the system and networking side that were very robust and it took time not only to find the right people but the right time.
I came back for Phase 2 to help move development forward and fortunately we were able to do the hard work required to preserve the game, which was what was very important to me.
I know some players wanted PvP, or other content. At the time the choice was between that OR preservation (converting the multiplayer to player hosted).
// PRESERVATION
There is a chance that content may have been more lucrative to attract more players and would have been a lot easier all said and done. However, if it didn't the game likely would have been shut down and servers nuked like many other titles you see.
That was unacceptable to me. We made the difficult choice to invest in the hard work for preservation. I wanted both games (Prelude + Guardians) to be available to those who wanted to experience the game for years or even decades to come.
// PERSPECTIVE
I am happy with the choices we made as you can still play the game to this day. I believe it also reflects our values and what we deem important.
Along with the long term support of each game, with many free updates beyond initial purchase (amongst other things) I truly hope you know how much we care not only about Orion, but you the community.
To date, Phase 2 was the hardest development I've had to do and I'm happy it ended with a public release for everyone. I also got to learn a heck of a lot from it.
Since then it's been busy, to say the least...
“Power of ZEUS”
RECAP
SEPARATION ANXIETY
I needed distance. For myself, for Orion. I had a lot to figure out. I wanted to look at everything in a fresh way. If and when we do come back for the 3rd Orion game, it's going to be different than what we've done in the past and those differences needed to be determined.
I'm proud of the games we’ve built but the processes, the technology, the workflows (and more) needed to be improved for us to sign up for another multi-year endeavor.
TECHNOLOGY
The first part was technology, which was sort of a product development in itself. Leaving Unreal (which we used for both ORION: Prelude and Guardians of Orion) was a whole adventure in itself to not only figure out the engine, but prove it out.
I started this back in 2017 / 2018 and it’s been a labor of love. I've thoroughly enjoyed arranging what we would use for any future projects. This phase is now complete.
"ZEUS"
Its nickname is Zeus. I've been sharing bits of Zeus on various outlets. I hope to officially break it down even more because the power and tools of what we can do now is extremely impressive.
• Powered by Unity.
• Inspired by Unreal.
PREMIUM
Moving forward, our products will be high fidelity, often case premium products. To ask you for more, we need to deliver more and the technology and experience is what will constitute this change.
PARTNERS
We would be forming a partnership for any new project. It's all about finding the RIGHT partner. We're not in any rush to sign with anyone. It needs to be the right circumstances, the right people. I believe what we have will be worthy of discovering that, but that kind of thing can take some time.
We've seen the mistakes of going too fast or with the wrong variables in place. We're no longer 20, we're closer to 40 now and we have a vast amount of perspective and experience compared to when we made the original games. Which will certainly show not only in the game, but the technology, the fidelity and the choices we make.
PERSPECTIVE
We stepped away after Guardians of Orion Phase 2 to go explore the industry across Mobile, AAA, Indie, Web3, R&D, Experimental, you name it.
Our talent has worked on some of the biggest franchises since the legacy Orion games including Halo + Call of Duty + Cyberpunk + Valorant, among others.
I'm sure there will be a mix of some familiar faces, as well as folks we've met along the way for whatever we do next. There has been a lot of learnings since we last made Dankie games and I am excited as to what that means for a potential future Orion game.
“The Future”
THE FUTURE
SO WHAT'S NEXT?
Nothing to announce right now and there is still a lot to figure out. I am not putting any sort of time constraint on it. For a 3rd Orion game it would have to be the right partner, the right time, the right product and market opportunity.
I’d love to start showing off some of the technology that would be powering any future title, as it's very impressive, fun to use, and has reinvigorated my love for game development. It's truly something special and I’ve spent many years getting a lot of aspects integrated. Let me know if this is something you’d be interested in seeing more of!
GOING FORWARD
If you want to talk more or share ideas of what you'd like to see for the future of Orion, we are always listening. I will try to participate here a bit more going forward now that some heavyweight projects have been completed.
If we have something to announce, we will do so when we can. I am sure there are many things we wouldn't be able to confirm or respond to, so please understand that.
COMMUNITY
Thank you all for sticking around, playing and being a part of our community. It means the world to us to see you all here and hungry for more Orion.
Feel free to check out our new website, there may be some cool stuff there.
http://dankie.dev/
HOW TO HELP
2025 QUESTIONNAIRE
We’ve put together a 2025 Questionnaire that will help us analyze additional perspectives.
If you could take a few minutes and answer the questions there it’d be a tremendous help.
https://forms.gle/fxJWThvaT6Cv6NDM8
DISCORD COMMUNITY
Feel free to join and share the Orion Discord. Interact, react, suggest and discuss:
https://discord.com/invite/cY5XHC3
STEAM SALE (25 YEARS)
We have also put together a Steam Sale across all legacy Orion games to celebrate.
This is a week long discount from August 25 - September 1, 2025.
[ ORION: Prelude @ Steam ]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/104900
[ Guardians of Orion @ Steam ]
https://store.steampowered.com/app/407840
Thank you to all!
Happy 25th birthday, Orion.