Ellipsoids of Dread: Ecstatica 1 & 2 Creep Back Onto Steam and GOG for Halloween
Before Resident Evil taught a generation to fear fixed camera angles, a stranger beast was already lurking in a demon-cursed village. Ecstatica, a 1994 cult horror game from Andrew Spencer Studios, crafted a world out of ellipsoids instead of polygons: every character, creature, and environmental element rendered as rounded, bulging bubble-like volumes calculated on the CPU. The result looked like nothing else then (Well, maybe kinda like Vectorman or Ballz), and it just so happens that it still looks very little like anything else now (except the aforementioned Vectorman and Ballz, of course).
Now both Ecstatica and its 1997 follow-up Ecstatica II are back on GOG and Steam PC, courtesy of retro game publisher SNEG, just in time for Halloween. Each game costs $14.99 or $19.99 for the pair, and both have free demos available if you want to dip your toes in before jumping straight into the ball pit… of doom!
The first game drops you into a cursed village as a traveler searching for a kidnapped sorceress, with a werewolf on the prowl and puzzles standing between you and survival. The sequel goes bigger and bolder: a larger world, more combat, spells, potions, and over 1,100 cinematic camera angles, trading some of the original’s creeping dread for more of an action-oriented dark fantasy romp.
The new features are the real treats here. Added to these re-releases include: modern controller support, cloud saves, Steam Deck play, and there are now three graphics modes to swap between on the fly: the original MS-DOS look, the 1997 Windows 95 version, and a new high-resolution render. Old-school purists can even toggle the original’s infamous “shaking legs” visual bug, because some horrors deserve to be preserved exactly as they were.
Ecstatica is a genuine road not taken in game history, a peek at what 3D games might have looked like if the industry had bet on bulging volumes instead of triangles (visions of an ellipsoid version of Lara Croft may keep me awake tonight). The Ecstatica games may be clunky oddities when compared to modern horror games, but if you are a retro gaming aficionado, it may be worth checking out over Halloween weekend. Just watch out for the werewolf. His teeth may be rounded, but his ellipsoid bulges are truly the stuff that nightmares are made of.
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