It’s frankly ridiculous how close some games are to finished when they are cancelled — or, conversely, how vaporous they can be when they’re first shown. At trade shows, you see maybe 50 games in the space of 4 or 5 days, and a small proportion of them fade into the background and are never heard from again. Sometimes you see something at Gamescom or E3, forget about it for years, and then suddenly think “Hey, whatever happened to that?”
Over the decade I’ve been doing this job, I’ve seen plenty of total vapourware: games that never got anything more than an announcement and some bullshots and maybe a concept trailer, projects that never make it past the idea stage. But then, I’ve also seen quite a few actual, working games that just never happened, for one reason or another. The stories of their demise are often rather sad. Former Eurogamer editor Kristan Reed and I were discussing this over breakfast, as partners do, so he’s made himself useful and tossed in some recollections as well.
Stargate Worlds
This was a weird one. At Gamescom in 2008, the developers of Stargate Worlds decided it would be a great idea to hire a huge purple hummer limo thing and show people the game on a tiny screen in the back, rather than, you know, on the convention floor. I now suspect they didn’t have the money to hire a booth. I was driven around Leipzig for twenty minutes whilst two large men from purpose-build developer Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment sat awkwardly opposite me, telling me about all the amazing things they were going to do with the Stargate licence. I wanted to believe, even though it looked terrible! I bloody love Stargate and this game had supposedly been in development for three YEARS by this point. It never even made it into beta and apparently there were all sorts of lawsuits around the place when the developer and publisher went into receivership a couple of years later. There was justified speculation at the time that the head of CME was running a scam – though the developers in the back of that car, tragically, seemed to be really invested in what they thought they were making. -Keza MacDonald
This is Vegas
I can’t recall ever being less impressed with a video game, but a delusional Midway Games believed otherwise. In a classic example of mid-’00s excess, dozens of people were flown out to Vegas to see it, driven around in stretch limos and taken to a horrible nightclub at the top of a glitzy skyscraper. Such transparent tactics could never work, because the game was total shit. It was pitched as “glitzy, indulgent and outrageous…a believable simulated Vegas” with the “tone and style of a Will Ferrell movie” that was “all about materialism” where you “gamble, race, party and fight” in a place where squirting tits with a soda gun and punching guys ten feet up into the air with your Buzz Bomb special move is standard-issue. Sadly, it was less GTA: Swingers Edition, and more The Sims: Idiot Frat Party. Everybody laughed at it, rather than with it, and to the surprise of absolutely no-one, it never came out and took Midway Games with it. –Kristan Reed
Prey 2
I saw Prey 2 at E3 2011. I’ve just spent ten minutes searching for the preview I wrote of it at the time, but like the game itself, it appears to have fallen off the face of the earth. I have, however, still got the hand-written notes I took at the show. Some extracts: “these are not nice-looking aliens”, “Blade Runner alien noir”, “super seedy”, “jump over trains, climb whole city”, “lift assist harness to fly” (?). It looked like a grittier Mass Effect, an open-world, extremely violent game involving a lot of killing and fluid, parkour-like traversal. I was impressed. The subsequent saga of Prey 2 is a strange one, but at one point Human Head did have an interesting-looking, working game on their hands here. -Keza MacDonald
The Last Guardian
Right at the start of 2008, Sony showed me a work-in-progress video at their offices for what was known at Project Trico. It won’t come as a shock to say that it blew me away, even though there wasn’t much to see. I was sworn to secrecy for more than a year. Almost 18 months later, Sony finally took the wraps off the game, and… showed almost the exact same video I’d seen originally (you know, the one with the boy and the griffin). It was troubling to think that almost four years after Shadow Of The Colossus had been completed, this was all that Team Ico had to show for it. And here we are, another six years on from that, still wondering if we’ll ever see the studio’s next game. There’s still hope for this one, but despite what Sony might say, I think it’s dead and gone. Move on, we’re never going to see it. -Kristan Reed
Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 4: Summer Memories (Disaster Report)
Irem’s Zettai Zetzumei Toshi games were released in Europe and America under various names: Disaster Report, Raw Danger, SOS: The Final Escape. They were RPG-survival hybrids that cast you as a normal bystander in a huge city-wide disaster like a flood, earthquake, or tsunami. They were shonky, but interesting, like so many of Irem’s endearingly characterful PS2 and PS3 games. Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 4: Summer Memories was shown at Tokyo Game Show in 2010. It was set in a facsimile of Tokyo; you could enter collapsed buildings to help survivors. The fear of natural disaster is a spectre that looms large in Japan, but unfortunately, on March 11th 2011, Japan was faced with a real-life natural catastrophe in the form of the Touhoku earthquake that devastated parts of northern Japan. The game was cancelled three days later, despite being mere weeks away from its mooted release date, and developer Irem ceased game development entirely that April. -Keza MacDonald
Starcraft: Ghost
Blizzard is now well-known for holding games back for years, but back in the Spring of 2003, no-one suspected that Starcraft: Ghost would end up being tossed on the vapourware pile. Blizzard was super-confident about it, and organised a screening at the Mayfair Curzon cinema, complete with velour seats and popcorn at 10AM. Unlike most games that languished in development purgatory, Ghost was actually pretty good, and then-Vice President Bill Roper talked a good fight (though, tellingly, left Blizzard shortly after this presentation). Shown off on Xbox for about an hour, I saw three distinct levels of this stealth-based action adventure, with a character called ‘Nova’ blessed with advanced skills in the art of espionage and tactical combat (and troublingly well-modelled bum cheeks). It was supposedly just six months away from completion, and looked like a solid contender and certainly a lot better than many of the games released that year. Presumably finishing up World Of Warcraft became the bigger priority… -Kristan Reed
Indiana Jones 2007
It’s pretty rare that a game studio show you anything before it really nails the vision of what you’re going to see, but at E3 2006, LucasArts was unusually candid. Shown off behind closed doors, Indiana Jones really was just a tech demo, but a bloody impressive one. It had ‘next gen blockbuster’ written all over it, with NaturalMotion’s Euphoria engine able to handle the kind of unscripted physics techniques that brought the various fisticuff sequences to life. I saw Indy slugging it out in a Chinatown back alley, disarming a gun-toting thug and then yanking him onto the floor by pulling his leg out from underneath him. I also saw a chaotic battle on the roof of a moving tram, and was told to expect thrilling chase sequences that remain true to the spirit of motorcade in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the mine-cart scene in The Temple of Doom, and the free-for-all aboard the tank in The Last Crusade. It was to be set in 1939 (one year after the events of the Last Crusade) and was a “mystery of biblical proportions” spanning the globe. George Lucas was even said to be involved in overseeing the writing. So what on earth happened? I guess we’ll never know, now. –Kristan Reed
This post originally appeared on Kotaku UK, bringing you original reporting, game culture and humour with a U from the British isles.
Comments
22 responses to “7 Games We Saw In Action That Never Came Out”
Oh man, Prey 2, looked so so awesome, the first game was an under appreciated gem.
Oh man – I loved the first Prey. That intro scene in the bar (with playable arcade machines!) was one of the best things I’d experienced in videogames at that time. Had some legit scary moments too. Might be rose tinted nostalgia glasses but there was a lot of concepts and gameplay that later games would develop and improve.
They aren’t tinted, Ive recently started playing it for the first time and its amazing and I was sad the sequel was cancelled.
Listening to the radio show were the parts I always find terrifying.
I didn’t even care that Prey 2 was completely different. It was a sequel, looked amazing, and its trailer used one of Johnny Cash’s best songs.
Nova’s back in HoTs. 😀
She was also in Starcraft 2.
I’m reallyannoyed about Ghosts, mainly because the mltiplayer mode sounded AMAZING.
4 Classes on Terrans, a couple of drivable vehicles and a command center. You had to get into the command center and capture it, then hold possession while it it slowly flew up, off towards your base while the other team infiltrate it to try and take control to get the command center flying back to their base.
King of Capture the Hill Flag. I want it.
I’m still bummed we never got to play Faith & a 45.
I’m sure it would have been as generic as heck, but I still wanted to play it.
Indiana Jones actually did come out as Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, in 2009 for PS 2
PS3 and 360 versions were cancelled.
I had no idea it came out on PS2. Thought it was just a Wii title.
I still wish starcraft ghost was a reality.
Dat Last Guardian… E3 2015 fingers crossed!
Was so waiting for that! For a few years after I saw it in a magazine I waited and waited. Nothing. Damn.
I remember about – god, this was probably like six years ago now – going to a dev expo where all the different developers were showcasing the games. I saw Borderlands in beta and Bayonetta and all that business, but there was this one game that I was super into the idea of – it was like a spy RPG wherein you got new gear by doing identify theft and could come up with all kinds of dumb costume combinations with different stats, but I think if they were too conflicting (like a chef’s toque with a fireman’s jacket), you’d arise suspicion. I cannot remember its name but I was so bummed that nothing ever happened with it.
I’m still waiting on starcraft ghost. It will come out…. eventually. Someone will pick it up. Activision did acquire blizzard, next step would be a bunch of junk and then what they are yet to do… Starcraft ghost.
I was so keen on Stargate Worlds! It had so much potential! Milky Way for the base games, adding Atlantis later. The mythology of the show could of continued through the game!
But who am I kidding… It would of lasted about a year, then gone free to play and be one of those MMOs that people once played…
I beta tested the game, and there is a reason the game never came out. it hardly ran, and when it did run it was no fun. I too was really excited about what they could do with the game, but it appears the people making the game never cared about releasing a full product. Then they took what little they had and tried to scrape together a third person shooter game…
You missed Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans. The game was basically done… but 17 years on, still waiting.
THIS!! although I think the whole thing is uploaded on youtube
Does anyone else remember the fantasy FPS, Project Offset? That game looked amazing, then I think Intel bought the studio and dissolved it not too soon after. So sad 🙁
Star Wars 1313 anyone?
Guess I’ll out myself as the one guy who was actually interested in This is Vegas.
Looked like my brand of dumb trash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Ninja_%28series%29#Last_Ninja_4
*sniff*
Star Wars 1313 and Darth Maul both sounded and looked refreshing, for Star Wars.