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Originally named Ozzy's Black Skies, the game was initially developed in parallel on the PS2, Xbox and PC platforms. The PC version was likely cancelled after Ozzy was excluded from the project. The Xbox version continued development as Savage Skies with updated graphics and was supposed to come out from BigBen Interactive, but this version went unreleased.1
Savage Skies was developed on the multi-platform RFEngine, based on open-source OpenSpace 3D, named after the cancelled game "Red Fury" from the developer Interactive Magic in 1999.
Title Changes#
On 25 July 2000 the game was announced as iROCK's first product under working title "Ozzy's Savage Skies".2 The game was renamed Ozzy's Black Skies on 3rd January 2001 and this title went all way development until BAM! Entertainment came for publishing.
Plot Changes#
In original backstory cutscene, the Ozzy King of Fraewyn turns out to be swallowed by Warloth, a playable giant bat, which is reference to real Ozzy's bat incident during live performance, instead of being killed by wraith.
Cutscene Comparisons#
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Original "Splash" |
Final "Splash" |
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Original "Story" |
Final "Story" |
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Promotional Appearance#
Developers presents the game at Game Developer's Conference E3 trade event. At Ozzfest in summer 2001 before performance of headliners Black Sabbath, audience were treated to a preview of Ozzy's Black Skies. 3
In the 17 July 2001 iROCK developers got backstage pass at Ozzfest in Charlotte, Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre.4 People had a chance to play in demo game and buy Tour Program book at Ozzfest's Ozzy tent "Village of the Damned" with Ozzy's Black Skies promo poster on back cover.
Scrapped Functions of RFEngine#
This engine has a lot of sophisticated graphic technologies which have been cut down in Savage Skies, but existed in Ozzy's Black Skies.5 Here's partial feature list that obviously not used in final game:
- Dynamic water system
- Detail texturing
- Advanced cloud rendering
- Dynamic music engine
- Client/server architecture with back-end support
A lot of environment was differently designed. For example, skyboxes was more detailed than in Savage Skies. Perhaps this just the cost of different platforms:
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Wraithslicer in Black Skies PC |
Wraithslicer in Savage Skies PS2 |
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Dymanic Music#
There's list of songs by Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath that was a part of dynamic soundtrack:6
- Black Skies
- Crazy Train (was recorded new version)
- War Pigs (re-recorded)
- Paranoid (re-recorded)
- No More Tears
- See you on the Other Side
Early voice lines#
It is known that Ozzy voiced power-up pickups and describes creatures when mission starts:
- "I am Ironman!" - armor pick-up;
- "Out of sight!" - invisibility pick-up;
- "Oooh, now that feels better!7" - health pick-up;
- "What the f**k is a Wraithslicer?!"- outtaked audio when player rides Wraithslicer.
Trivia: "High Voltage" power-up used to called "Electric Funeral".
Scrapped Gameplay Mechanics#
Wraithslicer used to have elementary weapon - lightning bolt, that Mantou already have as primary attack. Both of them were natural analogue of Electric Funeral.
A player as Ozzy had ability to using dragon lances like medieval knight on horse.8
Environment & NPC#
Savage Skies lacks a tornados, updrafts and waterspouts composed of molten lava.
Also there in were cut out NPCs, such like - fire-breathing basilisks, undead footsoldiers, a ballista, catapults that fires corpses and giant plants that hurl with boulders, cannonballs and cows.
(Source: NextGen)
Chrysalis in Savage Skies, however, have retained similar attack - Hive throws poisonous plants in player who flies up close to its top.
Multiplayer#
On PC platform were broadband supporting multiplayer up to 16 players. Multiplayer had Capture the Flag mode.
It was cut out from PS2 on one of develop stages and was replaced with two-player splitscreen.
Early Missions#
Several of the 30 missions (ten for each campaign) based on Ozzy's & Black Sabbath's songs.
"Steal Away the Night" is early version of "Soul Assassin", which pits you against a Virtwyn horde in an attempt to steal the Soul Crystal. "Planet Caravan" was mission where you have to protect a Pariah caravan from Chrysalis attackers (probably mirror-mission of "Canyons of Peril"). There's also mirror-mission of "Winds of War" as Virtwyn, where we need to destruct sky trees. And mirror-mission of "Final Assault", in which on Yomar we need to defend the Capitol from Chrysalis' War Pig. "Ozzy's Black Skies PS2" video, STORY.m2v cutscene and "Death from Above" icon mission from Savage Skies shows its scrapped map variation:
In IGN preview also was revealed mission titles "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" and "The Ultimate Sin".
Scrapped map variations#
- Day in Virtwyn ice fortress:
- Sunset in Virtwyn Capitol, as it shows "Cold Blooded" mission icon:
- Dusty day in Fraewyn ruins:
- Evening in Fraewyn ruins (also showed in "Ozzy's Black Skies PS2" video on 01:08 and 01:27):
- Poisonous sky in Chrysalis' Hive location. Also, an icon of "Incoming" reveals it:
- Sunset in Virtwyn canyons:
Early Mounts Skins#
Early Mounts#
Originally Black Skies had 30 playable creatures, but during development bestiary was reduced to 24th.
Pariah#
Warloth
Early model of Warloth was replaced because developers was unsatisfied how Ozzy sits on it, apparently cause in air it was in an almost vertical position.
Chrysalis#
Gillbourne
A giant angler with reef fish coloring.
HUD Evolution#
11 November 2000 - 3 January 2001#
First-ever archived9 screens shows only raw interface of Pariah with simple-drawn working textures. On the left of the screen there was purple indicator of Energy meter and green unknown mechanic of movement with two arrows. Probably, it was developers' test indicator to control mount's animations more accurate:
On the right Ozzy's Inventory has biggest frame here, on the top of others. On all of these era screenshots' dragon lance is selected as weapon. It is unclear what means second indicator. Third and fourth indicators is Health and Armor points that calculated in numbers.
9 March - 18 May#
The second generation of interface already was pretty close to Savage Skies' HUD. Right indicators reduced in size on the screen. Now Health and Armor got animated indicators, and in Inventory player could select between Crystal Power and dragon lance, or have nothing. Waypoint arrow was on top center of the screen. Left indicators of all factions do not have markers for armor shields. Energy and unknown indicator swaps with colors:
Chrysalis, however, had different HUD coloring, more a "stoned" - instead of orange gradient there were blue color. Also Crosshair had different aim outline:
8 June - October#
Unknown indicator gets a blue color, just like Energy in future. Armor indicator got different pattern. Also map on Radar seems got closer to the ground.10 Ozzy's dragon lance weapon most likely was scrapped from the game at this stage.
5 November - 6 December#
Unidentified indicator was removed, Health and Energy indicators moved to their final positions in player's HUD. Armor now is counted up to five shields. Waypoint arrow was mounted with Inventory texture, but was updated two times since then. Crosshair became bigger. Interface become almost the same as released one. This HUD generation can be seen in teaser "Ozzy's Black Skies PS2" and on later screenshots before Ozzy's exclusion.
Comparison between Black Skies & Savage Skies#
Although on later stages of development is difficult to distinguish Ozzy's Black Skies' HUD from Savage Skies, however, main differences can be spotted: originally the map on Radar was much further away from the ground, and NPCs & enemies were much smaller circles. These details also applies to released PS2 version, but its HUD textures (except first trailer of Savage Skies) were much bigger than on promotional screens (including Xbox platform):
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Black Skies |
Savage Skies Xbox |
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Black Skies |
Savage Skies Xbox |
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Black Skies |
Savage Skies Xbox |
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Xbox Version#
The graphics were improved and included different textures, better lighting and shadows, new menus and normal mapping. Gameplay Option "Super Hero", instead of auto-shooting Crystal Seekers and fast-recharging Crystal Power & Energy in PS 2, was supposed to send the player in the flight.
Remastered green skin of Barg supposed to return, such as scrapped steed Rarg.
Video Footage#
Watch on YouTubeWatch on YouTube
Gallery#
Scrapped Content Mentioned in Manual#
The Manual claims the Crystal Seekers aren't infinite, and the amount depends on Crystal Shards collected.11 However, it turned out to be infinite in usage in the actual game.
The Manual shows an old version of the title screen.
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Manual |
In-Game |
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On some pages on top and below it shows silhouettes of wingless Thao and two scrapped creatures of Pariah: 