''Undying'' is set in 1923 , when World War One veteran Patrick Galloway receives an urgent letter from his friend Jeremiah Covenant. Covenant, well aware of Galloway's reputation for dealing with occult matters, is in failing health and raves about a curse that has destroyed his entire family. Galloway travels to the Covenant estate on the Ireland coast to visit his friend, who relates an outlandish tale of Supernatural terrors.
Jeremiah Covenant is one of five children: Ambrose, twins Aaron, Bethany and Lizbeth. As children, the Covenant siblings found a strange book in their father's library and performed a ritual found within. This childish game brought the wrath of evil forces upon the family. After reaching adulthood, the Covenants one by one fell into madness and then death, until Jeremiah was the only survivor. The power of the curse, however, has reanimated his fallen brothers and sisters; they have been haunting Jeremiah and he fears that he will soon follow where they have gone.
Jeremiah begs Patrick for protection, but unfortunately dies soon afterward. Patrick decides to honor his friend's wishes by trying to stop whatever was set in motion long ago at the Standing Stones where the ritual was performed. Through the Covenants' journals and Galloway's own memories, the player learns more about the nature of the curse and the creature behind it: The Undying King, a demonic presence threatening to destroy the reality we inhabit.
While attempting to prevent the Undying King from entering our world, Patrick must face the four Undead Convenant siblings as well as Otto Keisinger, an evil rival who simply wants to gain power from the evil forces.
Galloway can simultaneously wield weapons in his left hand and cast magical spells with his right; the power of both the weapons and the spells increase accordingly as the game progresses.
The weapons in ''Undying'' range from standard FPS fare to the unique, of which are the following:
- : This bluish gemstone serves multiple purposes. Although it does not have any true offensive abilities (forcing a reliance on the character's spells), its other attributes more than makes up for it. First and foremost, it can be used to push enemies away; this does not cause any damage, but helps keep distance from some of the game's beasties. Secondly, it increases the current spell by one more level. And finally, it alerts the player to spots in the game where a revelation or vision can be seen.
- : A standard FPS-type weapon, the revolver has excellent accuracy even for long distances and packs a fairly large punch. Unfortunately, the gun only holds six rounds and requires slow reloading; thus, each round should be used carefully. Later in the game, silver bullets become available for the revolver, inflicting even more damage to certain enemies.
- '''ous shells later become available, adding a "fire-damage" punch to the shotgun blasts.
- : Quite a unique weapon, the Tibetan War Cannon looks like a small, handheld cannon, carved in the likeness of a dragon. Ironically, the speed of the projectile ice is not fast nor does it inflict much damage. To compensate, the weapon replenished its ammo after every shot and each connected shot slowed down the target.
- : These flammable bottles work in a similar way to grenades. They can be thrown a moderately short distance and, upon hitting an enemy, it would set them on fire. Molotov Cocktails must be treated with carefulness, as missing a target can result in hurting yourself. Because only three of these can be used at any one time, they are not very convenient.
- : This unique weapon is basically a good-looking scythe with two functions. By swinging it like a normal scythe, the player can inflict some strong damage to attacking enemies. Its second function allows the player to steal health from enemies at the cost of mana.
- Speargun: Essentially a primitive version of the Sniper Rifle , the speargun can kill in one shot and was perfectly accurate over long distances. Like sniper rifles, the reloading is also somewhat slow.
- Phoenix Eggs: These allowed the player to release a fly-by-wire "rocket" in the form of a fiery bird that exploded when it hits an object. It is quite powerful, but because it is hard to aim and the game's enemies moved so quickly, it is not used much beyond the game's boss battles.
To complement the game's weapons came a set of spells. They were:
- : A purely "player-interest" feature, the scrye spell allows the player to see things that are invisible to the naked eye, such as visions of past events or revealing the dark nature of things in the game world. It also allows the player better vision in dark areas and highlighted enemies for easier shooting, but because of its passive nature, it is not used often in battle.
- : This short-range, rapid-fire spell launches small orbs of ectoplasm to damage enemies. Much like rapid-fire weapons in many FPS titles, the spell becomes less and less accurate as the spell continues without any pause.
- : Although this can be useful by undoing the effects of enemy spells that affect vision, the time it takes to select and use the spell crossed with the short duration of enemy spells and the speed with which they could re-affect the player, meaning this spell is partly wasted. It really only sees use one or two times in the game to remove a magical barrier that impeded the player's progress. Also, this spell will banish some enemies in the game, mostly those with magical abilities.
- : This powerful spell allows the gamer to summon up to three floating skulls which, when released, fly quickly at enemies and resulted in a large, powerful explosion. The ease of casting and the effectiveness thereof makes Skull Storm one of the most popular spells from the game.
- : More of a defensive helper, the shield spell created a magical barrier that protects the player from frontal attacks. Although the sides and back are still vulnerable with the spell, it could be used as a strong help in battling enemies.
- : A very basic spell, the lightning spell shoots out a bolt of electricity from the player. Unlike Skull Storm, however, it does not move quickly and does not inflict a lot of damage. In a unique twist, if the player shoots an enemy with the speargun and subsequently used the lightning spell, the combined effect would produce an even more powerful bolt of electricity.
- : A spell that allows the player to reanimate recently killed enemies—the stronger the rank, the stronger the monster that can be reanimated. Invoke also immediately destroys Undead Saints, and when used on human enemies, they commit suicide (a rather spectacular spell: Trsanti Warriors put their revolvers into their mouths and squeeze the trigger, while Trsanti Chieftains take out their knives and cut deep into their throats, and Dynamite Trsanti ignite the dynamite they carry, and explode.)
The game also had some spells that were later removed from the game. They were:
- : Although there aren't any explanations given for any of these spells being removed, it would be easy enough to believe that Mind Shatter was simply too powerful. It stunned and Disorient ed enemies, turning an intense battle into an easy shooting gallery, which really took away from the game's suspenseful and panic-ridden gameplay. The bird-like "inhabitants" of Onieros use this spell.
- : Testing this using cheat options, it becomes unclear what exactly firefly was supposed to do. It looks cool, but doesn't seem to have any effect on enemies, leaving the original idea a mystery.
- : This spell shoots a ball of goo which latches onto most surfaces. The goo sometimes has a pustule in the center that explodes with a stranger substance when enemies (even Patrick) come in contact with it. If the Ward does not have a pustule on it, it sucks the enemy in, causing major damage to it.
- : Patrick creates a Glyph in mid-air with two fingers, causing major mana drain, but damaging all nearby enemies. Friendly NPC's also get hurt by this spell, so use it with caution!
- ''Undying'' was critically well-received, but sold poorly. Sales were so low, in fact, that announced plans for a Multiplayer patch were abandoned. Console versions of the game were also canceled, and EA reportedly shelved the idea of a sequel.
- One unique touch was the "Scrye" spell. When cast, this spell allowed the player to see things not ordinarily visible and hear things not normally audible. In some areas Scrye revealed gory images superimposed over normal artwork, and in others showed events that had happened in the past. (For more detail, see the #Spell section)
- Clive Barker provided the voice of Ambrose, one of the undead Covenant siblings.
- Originally, the protagonist of the game was to be "Count Magnus Wolfram", a tattooed man with superhuman strength and supernatural abilities. Barker himself rejected this idea, noting that the more normal, down-to-earth Patrick Galloway would be easier to relate to for the average gamer. Wolfram's character model plays a small part in the finished product, however. He is the Trsanti shaman who attacks a younger Galloway with the Gel'ziabar Stone in the opening cutscene flashback.
- Much of Undying's music is actually recycled directly from Dreamworks Interactive's previous game, ''''. For example, the music that plays when you fight Ambrose is the same as the music that plays when you first encounter a T-Rex in ''Trespasser'', and the final boss battle music is taken from a scene in ''Trespasser'' where 2 T-Rexes fight each other.
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