Games Lost in Development

[kmacdw]

For every great game we get to experience, there is always one that gets lost in development hell and never sees the light of day. What are the titles that upset you the most when they were cancelled?

For me three titles spring to mind....

Star Wars Battlefront III - I was never a big shooter fan pre-Seventh generation; the three series that were an exception to this were Star Wars Battlefront, Timesplitters and Halo. So you can imagine my excitement when I heard the developer of one of my favorite series was handling development on the latest entry in another one of my favorites. Free Radical's plans for Battlefront III were so ambitious; I mean being able to jump between battling above the planet and on its surface in the same match, with 100 players in the game. Not to mention an expansive single player campaign. Arguably this was the game to end all games for me. Yes they scaled back their ambitions on the single player front and in reducing the players to 50, however it was still going to do things that no other game had done before. I'm not sure I've ever been so devastated to hear a game had been cancelled; I cursed Lucas Arts at the time.

Star Wars 1313 - I love Star Wars games, no secret there. There's been some awful Star Wars game but there have been some amazing ones that rank among my favorites. One of the 'hidden gems' per se of the Star Wars franchise for me was Bounty Hunter; might be stretching it to give it that label, however it didn't belong to any of the big Star Wars franchises like Jedi Knight, Knights of the Old Republic or Battlefront, nor was it a move tie in; so to me it's as close to a 'hidden gem' as you're going to get with a Star Wars title. So when I heard a rumor that there was a new game coming out, where you played as Boba Fett; and then seen that jaw dropping trailer that revealed 1313, my mind was blown. I was so disappointed when the title became a casualty of the take over. Rumors that Visceral's Star Wars title was an adaptation of 1313 gave false hope as it doesn't seem to be the case

Prey 2 - I'll level with you, this one didn't upset me as much as the former two, however I feel it' worth a mention as its not necessarily a title that would have registered on everyone's radar. I really enjoyed the first game; yes I could see the effects of it's long stay in limbo, it wasn't the prettiest game of the previous generation, however it was an interesting entry in what at the time was often an over-saturated genre. So to hear Human Head were working on a sequel and hear their plans for that, really excited me. it sounded like things were going to be brought to a whole new level. Its a shame as this studio had an idea for an interesting series; the first title is dated at launch due to a stalled development and the sequel gets canned; I can't help but think about what could have been.

So what are some of the cancellations that disappointed you the most?

[ignition365]

Timesplitters 4 and Fear Effect 3: Inferno.

Also, Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe.

[soera]

Black Tiger (NES)

Ys Book II (SMS)

[kmacdw]

Timesplitters 4 and Fear Effect 3: Inferno.

Also, Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe.

I thought about Timesplitters 4 but to my knowledge it never actually entered development, it was more so on the 'to-do list' after Haze and Battlefront III. I think Free Radical made two mistakes that led to their downfall; 1. being too ambitious with Battlefront III, and 2. trying to develop both Haze and Battlefront III at once. Battlefront III's scope meant that it took too long and too much money to make; not to mention Haze took away from their resources but because so much was put into Star Wars, Haze was a crap game anyways. I feel had they maybe envisioned Battlefront III with like 85% of the scope (which still would have been awesome) and not done Haze at the same time; we'd have gotten a great Battlefront title and we'd have eventually got Timesplitters 4

[redblaze57]

Dead Phoenix

[indenton]

This isn't my personal pick, but I think we can all agree that 'Silent Hills' deserves to be mentioned here. 

[ignition365]

Timesplitters 4 and Fear Effect 3: Inferno.

Also, Mega Man Legends 3 and Mega Man Universe.

I thought about Timesplitters 4 but to my knowledge it never actually entered development, it was more so on the 'to-do list' after Haze and Battlefront III. I think Free Radical made two mistakes that led to their downfall; 1. being too ambitious with Battlefront III, and 2. trying to develop both Haze and Battlefront III at once. Battlefront III's scope meant that it took too long and too much money to make; not to mention Haze took away from their resources but because so much was put into Star Wars, Haze was a crap game anyways. I feel had they maybe envisioned Battlefront III with like 85% of the scope (which still would have been awesome) and not done Haze at the same time; we'd have gotten a great Battlefront title and we'd have eventually got Timesplitters 4

i am a giant fan of free radical, so I followed all of this closely as it was happening.  Timesplitters 4 was in fact in development, it was shelved when they went into administration and were sold off to Crytek.

their downfall was mostly contributed to 1 major thing.  LucasArts.  Lucasarts had hired a hollywood producer to make all final decisions on the project which forced a lot of shit decisions.  Free Radical was a company that given free reign, will give you one of the best games you will ever play.  I dont recall what the issue was with Haze, but Haze had a really solid and fun multiplayer from what I recall.  Story mode made me wanna kill myself.

After the critical failure of Haze, free radical was having trouble finding a publisher for timesplitters and they didnt have the timesplitters money because it went into haze.  So all their money was in that battlefront deal.  Eventually LucasArts scrapped all star wars projects.  It was a real hard blow, but I personally dont think they did anything wrong, anybody else wouldve likely had been just as screwed in that situation.  Ill look for the articles that explain what happened.

[aliensstudios]

Charlie Brown's All Stars which was going to be a baseball game for the PS2. Still really wished it existed.

[tpugmire]

Earthbound 64 and Starcraft Ghost are two that come to mind.

[tripredacus]

Prey
Sims 2
:p

[DreamsDied13101]

Star Fox 2 for SNES

[indenton]

Star Fox 2 for SNES

Compared to pretty much all other titles being brought up here, at least Star Fox 2 is available in some form, seemingly complete or at least near completion. 

[kmacdw]

Earthbound 64 and Starcraft Ghost are two that come to mind.

Didn't Earthbound 64 become Mother 3?

[maximo310]

Earthbound 64 and Starcraft Ghost are two that come to mind.

Didn't Earthbound 64 become Mother 3?

Yes, after quite a bit of reworking within the main game engine.

[DreamsDied13101]

Star Fox 2 for SNES

Compared to pretty much all other titles being brought up here, at least Star Fox 2 is available in some form, seemingly complete or at least near completion.

That is true. I don't use emulators so I haven't played it. Maybe I can find a Youtube video where someone played through it.

Sonic X-treme is another one of those recently discovered games that would top my list also. Following the progress on Assembler has been fun. I haven't looked in to it again recently.