Editor's warning: This preview may contain some storyline spoilers for The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. You've been warned!

The Story So Far: The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay was probably one of the great movie-to-game related releases in a long time. Butcher Bay gracefully depicted Riddick in his full badass glory and with Vin Diesel at the helm with his voice; things only get better from there. With Assault on Dark Athena, the Riddick team returns to bring on a new story and characters to the cinematic Riddick experience. Vin Diesel is back to voice his all too well known character and with new gameplay elements, Dark Athena really grabs you from the beginning with its strong influence on melee combat. At the New York Comic Con earlier this month, I was shown and played a demo showing off a small section of Dark Athena and I am here to report.

What I Was Shown: Starbreeze Studios promises to deliver Escape from Butcher Bay in its full single-player campaign glory included in Dark Athena. So, for those that never played the first game of the now tagged series, you will get your chance this Spring.

Butcher Bay was probably one of the most intense and one of the highlight Xbox titles of the last generation. It gave us a movie-tie in that not only helped us love Riddick but put us in his shoes and made a fun experience out of it. Now, with the next-gen hardware at work, Starbreeze will hopefully bring us that greatness again. Instead of throwing up the game on the Marketplace for an “Xbox Original”, they decided to go back in and take advantage of the next-gen hardware by remaking Butcher Bay and giving it several enhancements. You’ll be seeing AI improvements, graphical improvements and an overall higher “finish” on Butcher Bay.

At the beginning of the game you’ll be able to choose if you want to play through Butcher Bay or Dark Athena with the standard difficulty settings to follow. Butcher Bay functioning as the prequel to Pitch Black and the following Riddick movies, takes Riddick as he is held in a high end security prison for obvious reasons. After being captured by a bounty hunter named Johns, he escapes through a sequence of events instigated by him. Thus starts off your adventure in Butcher Bay, but enough about that you’re here to read about Dark Athena.

Dark Athena follows much of the same path that Butcher Bay did. It starts off immediately after the ending of Butcher Bay, so you’re thrown into the story working with Riddick to escape the hell of Dark Athena while the story unfolds around you. The stealth mechanic in Dark Athena has been improved greatly since Butcher Bay and a lot of the game’s tools have been tightened to give a more seamless beat down of your opponents. If you noticed in the latest gameplay trailer called “Hunting”, you’ll be using all kinds of weapons and tools to get rid of your enemies. Now, you can’t go in guns a-blazin’ as the concentration is on stealth and smooth maneuverability.

Riddick and Captain Johns are traveling through space when out of no where, Dark Athena captures their ship. It isn’t clear from the beginning what Dark Athena wants with Johns but Riddick escapes from his prison and starts to make his way through the ship to unravel what is going on around him. This is where the stealth portion kicks in and it isn’t just you crouching around in dark corridors. There will be times where enemies will be on either side of you and you’ll have to plan your attacks before jumping into the fray. There is also a blue tint on your screen as you crouch down and enter stealth mode. This is where you’ll be able to sneak up behind enemies or make a full frontal assault on them, if the timing is right. There are moments of switching views between first person and third person so you’ll be seeing a lot of different camera angles throughout the game.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, so far, feels as much fun as Butcher Bay did and Riddick fans hopefully won’t be disappointed with the latest sequel. With the inclusion of a next-gen improved Butcher Bay, this sequel already has a lot going for it. Dark Athena looks to have tightened gameplay controls, improved AI, graphics and an overall darkened feel of the Riddick story.

Look for The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena releasing for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC on April 7th in North America and April 24th in Europe.