Oh, I love me a good Severance article.
I half-jokingly call this the beginning of the Severance-like genre, of which Demons Souls and Dark Souls are a sub-set of. You can really see a lot of similarities between them. Not just in the gameplay, but in the way that the games are presented, with next to no dialogue, all the story being told through the wold design itself. From Software did do a better job at it, but only because they did it on purpose, where as Rebel Act did it because they didn't have the time to actually do anything else.

I still have no clue who owns Blade of Darkness at this time. I know Codemasters had it and used to sell it on GOG, but it went poof when they lost the rights. It's probably owned by some bank, or holding company now, or something, with no clue that it even has the property. Such a shame, as it is still a great game, as long as we're not talking about the platforming... so, kinda the same with Dark Souls. No One Lives Forever is in the same pickle of no one knowing where the rights for it are.

If there ever were a game that needed a sequel, or a remaster, Blade of Darkness would be it. The controls could get unclunk-ified, the graphics could be a bit improved (you can actually do that with ReSahde and get some really neat effect, though most will screw with the interface as well).