A look at the games cemetery

New video games appear every day, but what about the ones that will never see the light of day? In this photo series we look at the games that seemed promising but never made it over the finish line. For some of the candidates, development was already at an advanced stage. RIP

agent

Did you know that Rockstar Games had planned a spy game set in the Cold War around 1970? The game was announced during Sony’s E3 press conference in 2009 and was intended to be released exclusively for the PlayStation 3.

We can now assume that the game will no longer see the light of day. The reasons for this are not entirely clear. Most recently, Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser commented on it again and said that “it wouldn’t work” (source: Insider gaming).

Star Wars 1313

Star Wars 1313 could have been a really good Star Wars game. The adventure in the underworld of Coruscant was announced with a spectacular trailer in 2012, but it was never released. After Disney took over, developer LucasArts closed, which also meant the end of the game.

Fable Legends

With the ambitious Fable Legends, a popular game studio also had to die: Lionhead. The studio had different visions than publisher Microsoft.

While the developers wanted to create a role-playing game in the style of Skyrim or Mass Effect, Microsoft dreamed of a “free to play” game that would constantly be supplied with new content in order to bring in money.

In the end, the differences in execution were so great that even several realignments failed to bring agreement. The project was buried in April 2016 and had already cost $75 million by then. As a result, Lionhead Studios also had to close in May 2016.

Scalebound

Let’s look at another game that was doomed by Microsoft. Scalebound was intended to be a fast-paced action game in which you play Drew, who is connected to his dragon by a magical bond. The game was even announced at gamescom in 2015 and was supposed to be released exclusively for the Xbox One.

Several problems ultimately led to the cancellation of the game that fans were eagerly awaiting. The developers at Platinum Games were real experts when it came to action games, but the planned open world of Scalebound was new territory for the development team.

The ambitions were great and, in retrospect, the game was probably announced too early. The rising expectations of fans put pressure on the developers, which is said to have even led to high-ranking employees taking month-long breaks from the project.

Deadlines were piling up, and neither Microsoft nor Platinum Games were yet sure whether the game would achieve the success it needed. The plug was finally pulled in January 2017.

Halo: Titan

And Microsoft again: How about Halo as an MMORPG? In 2004, when the likes of World of Warcraft were celebrating their success, Microsoft also wanted a piece of the pie and began developing a role-playing game set in the Halo universe. The code name for the project was simply Titan.

The Studio Ensemble, known for the “Age of Empires” series, was responsible. The team was simultaneously working on 2009’s Halo: Wars. Although the project was already in an advanced state and even gameplay elements existed, Microsoft decided to cancel development after a change in leadership.

Apparently the success of the Nintendo Wii meant that the publisher wanted to reorient itself in order to appeal to a broader target group.

Thrill Kill

The fighting game Thrill Kill was supposed to be released for the first PlayStation and was above all one thing: bloody. For the polygon conditions of the time, the game offered an extremely “realistic” depiction of violence.

The responsible developer was Paradox Development, who were encouraged by publisher Virgin Interactive to make the game even more extreme in terms of content. This then-obscene depiction earned the game a fan base while it was still in development and the first-ever “Adults Only” declaration by the American ESRB.

With EA taking over the licensing rights, the content of the game would ultimately mean the end of the project. The publisher didn’t want to jeopardize its image with such a brutal game. However, the basic structure of the game was continued in Wu-Tang: Shaolin Style and the work was not completely lost.

Prey2

Prey 2, which became Prey again. The Prey 2 project, which started in 2009, was supposed to tell a completely new story about a bounty hunter in a space city after the successful predecessor Prey (2006). Prey 2 was developed by Human Head Studios. Publishing was handled by Bethesda Softworks.

This cooperation should be the end of the idea of ​​Prey 2. Although not much is known about the internal circumstances, disagreements between the developer and publisher are said to have led to Prey 2 never being realized. At least not as originally planned.

In 2017, a realignment of the Prey brand appeared that included some old elements from the “Prey 2” project, but also relied on completely different gameplay elements. Another studio, Arkane, is also responsible for this reboot. A truly sad example of studio takeovers burying game projects.

Project Titan

Project Titan was intended to be the spiritual successor to World of Warcraft. Blizzard was riding a great wave of success with WoW at the time and wanted to let this spill over into the next project. There were several concepts for Project Titan. Initially it was supposed to be an MMO role-playing game like WoW, but with a focus on shooter elements.

You could have chosen a class and fed a skill tree as you gained experience. After several discarded concepts and a plethora of abilities that resulted in powerful and unbalanced combinations, the towel was finally thrown in.

After the constant realignments and the move away from an MMORPG with a subscription model, large parts of the team were put on another project: Overwatch. This way the material that had already been created was not completely wasted.

Wonder Woman

Nobody has seen more than a teaser trailer for the Wonder Woman game. The game would have used the popular Nemesis system used in Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel. It has been kept under wraps by the studio since it was patented by Warner Bros.

After work on the Wonder Women game ended in 2025 due to a restructuring at Warner Bros., it will probably stay that way for the time being.

Star Fox 2 (with happy ending)

First of all: Star Fox 2 can shine with a happy ending. Nintendo had thrown the sequel into the bin due to the impending release of the Nintendo 64 and deprived fans of the predecessor of a continuation of the story. The bitter thing: The game was almost finished!

Unfortunately, the console market at the time with the strong PSX and the Sega Saturn made Star Fox 2’s graphics look very weak in comparison. Nintendo simply didn’t want to take the risk of a bad comparison at this point and therefore decided against releasing Star Fox 2.

And now for a good twist: Star Fox 2 appeared over 20 years later after its supposed end with the SNES Classic Mini. Hurray!

Silent Hills

Hardly any video game scandal is as popular as the bitter end of Silent Hills, and should therefore not be missing from this list. Silent Hills was supposed to add another part to the popular series and fans still mourn the rigor mortis of the franchise today.

Even though not much was known about Silent Hills itself, the playable teaser “PT” still made history.

The demo, which was only released for the PS4, kept the video game community busy for weeks and showed in the short game section what real horror is. The media presentation surrounding actor Norman Reedus, who was apparently supposed to play a large part in the main game, also caused enthusiasm at the time.

However, major differences between creative creator Hideo Kojima and publisher Konami led to the cancellation of the hotly anticipated project. Kojima left the company and founded his own studio, Kojima Productions. Norman Reedus took this with him straight away and, as is well known, made him the main character in the highly acclaimed Death Stranding.