Descent: Underground

Descent: Underground
Steam store header of Descent: Underground
Developer(s)	Descendent Studios
Publisher(s)	Descendent Studios
Director(s)	Eric "Wingman" Peterson
Designer(s)	Rob Irving
Programmer(s)	Jason Spangler
Artist(s)	Tobias Loeffler
Writer(s)	Keith McCormic
Composer(s)	Dan Wentz
Series	Descent
Engine	Unreal Engine 4
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux
Release	October 23, 2015
Genre(s)	First-person shooter, shoot 'em up
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Descent: Underground is an upcoming first-person shooter video game being developed by Descendent Studios. A prequel to the 1994 video game Descent, it was successfully funded via crowdfunding website Kickstarter on April 10, 2015, and released on Steam as an Early Access title on October 23, 2015.

In November 2014, several former developers for the game Star Citizen, led by Eric "Wingman" Peterson announced that they were forming Descendent Studios to work on a multiplayer game similar to Descent in play style, and with the working title "Ships That Fight Underground". The company was approached by an Interplay shareholder in December who set up a meeting with the CEO of Interplay and Descendent Studios. A deal was then struck to license the Descent name to Descendent Studios.

In March 2015, Descendent Studios announced a Kickstarter campaign for Descent: Underground, a new prequel using Interplay's existing trademark rights to the Descent franchise (with Parallax Software owning the remaining properties, such as the original "Pyro GX" ship, some sound and music clips and copyrights to the descent universe.). It is powered by Unreal Engine 4 and was initially scheduled to release in March 2016.

In August 2015, Descendent Studios allowed live play of an early Pre-Alpha build of the Descent Underground game and engine at the “Rooster Teeth Expo”, or RTX, in San Antonio Texas. The game demoed was an RTX crowd favorite, with attendees waiting in line up to an hour for an opportunity to play. The game was also demonstrated to function with the Oculus Rift virtual reality headset. The demo game highlighted the work of music composer Dan Wentz, who worked on the original Descent series sound design and MIDI music. Dan Wentz has been hired to score a new soundtrack for Descent Underground, as well as produce sound effects for the new game.

In October 2015, Descendent Studios released their first playable, Online Multiplayer build to select members with Proving Grounds access (this includes "Underground" subscribers). The current build contains 8 maps, single player vs bots, Co-op vs bots, survival vs bots, multiplayer deathmatch, mutiplayer CTF with Miners, and conquest game-modes. A Single player campaign is in development now, and is expected to be released when they leave early access.