Have you ever been excited about an announced game just for your hopes and dreams to be dashed away in an instant? There, there, let’s be sad in tandem as we remember the most compelling and prospecting looking games to have been cancelled over the years.
And, with yet another cancellation coming to light only this last week – that being Ubisoft’s WiLD – we thought it was quite an opportune time to bring this topic to light.
So, with that in mind, these are the games that got the axe. We’d happily take a bullet for them to see the light of day. Nowhere vital though, jeez… they’re still games.
Silent Hills
For some readers, this would be a strong catalyst for a list such as this.
Though we were at least blessed with a playable teaser (compared to the other titles to be mentioned), it does little to fill the now ever-present void established by P.T‘s monolithic presence in horror. P.T was a delicious taste, an appetizer if you will, for an entrée we will never experience.
Elevated to now-mythic status when it got pulled from the PlayStation Store, PS4’s with this demo downloaded are worth their weight in gold. Oh, what could have been…
Thankfully, Hideo Kojima and Norman Reedus were insistent on making a game together. And whilst it wasn’t Silent Hills, it was also just as…interesting. Yes, from the ashes of Silent Hills came the form of Death Stranding.
Still.
Prey 2
A follow-up to ID’s Prey in 2006, Prey 2 was shaping up to be an extremely ambitious sci-fi bounty-hunting FPS. Now that’s a lot of glorious buzzwords. The excitement for this one was enormous, and thus, the disappointment too.
There is one silver lining at least, the Prey franchise would live on in a completely unrelated use of the title by Bethesda Softworks. The “new” Prey came in the form of Arkane’s incredible sci-fi first-person horror/simulator. In the meantime, let’s feel sad about how cool Prey 2 would have been.
Star Wars: 1313
To the crippling disappointment of its fans, EA would cancel one of the greatest looking Star Wars projects of all time.
I wish I were exaggerating, but this thing was looking tonight.
Players were to take control of renowned bounty hunter Boba Fett through the dark undersides of Corusant’s level 1313. The intention was to aim for a Mature rating for a potentially spicier Star Wars adventure.
Sadly, the powers that be put a kibosh to that. And millions of gamers everywhere let out a cry. Or some other Star Wars line that would also fit in well here. That one Alec Guinness said.
BONUS EA DUNKING ROUND
Oh, while we’re dunking on EA, I might as well bring up Amy Hennig’s cancelled “Project Ragtag“. Of course, it wasn’t just Ragtag that got canned; the entire studio producing it, Visceral Games, was as well.
Producer Zach Mumbach stated;
“I think we would have made the best Star Wars game ever made. The story and the setup and the characters… [were] set up for success but what we had to execute was going to take a while. I think the company saw that – ‘hey, you guys are eventually going to make a crazy good game'”.
Winteriscoming.net
StarCraft: Ghost
It’s been about a year since we saw gameplay for Blizzard’s cancelled StarCraft: Ghosts. And the younger me still pains.
I remember the excitement of getting to one day see StarCraft in glorious 3D. At the time, the trailers looked next-gen as hell. Alas, I’d have to wait until StarCraft II for my wish, as Ghost would never see the light of day until its stories spiritual successor expansion.
We may never see a StarCraft shooter. Damn shame.
Dune: Generations
As you may have read in our call for a Dune resurrection, we think another stab at a Dune video game would be ripe pickings in 2021. However, seeing as we have nothing but a movie on the horizon, the best we have to work with are reminiscent of Dune fables long lost to… Generations.
See what we did there?
Right-ho, the best we can do is be sad about the RTS follow-up that we’ll never see.
Scalebound
This one generated some eyes at Microsoft’s E3 event back in 2014. And, just as swiftly, Microsoft shut it all down in 2017. According to Looper,
“Xbox’s Phil Spencer explained Scalebound was cancelled due to the idea that it may not deliver on fans’ expectations. Furthermore, Spencer added that the release of ‘Scalebound’ may have been announced too hastily.
Swords, sick tunes, and dragons… I was already sold. Guess we still have Skyrim.
Titan
Now, this one may not be as well-known to some. Or, you may be a part of the game’s cult following.
Project Titan was primed to be a sci-fi class-based MMO. During development things reportedly got a bit… chaotic with gameplay. The reported chaos caused development team leader Jeff Kaplan to call it, “very cluttered and confused”. Not all was lost in this case, however, as a large portion of its resources would directly transition into becoming what we now know as Overwatch.
Granted, this was after a reduced team was given a hasty six weeks to come up with something or transfer departments. I think we can safely assume they pulled it off.
Well, that’s all we’ve got today for our picks of the greatest games never made, if we missed any please be sure to let us know in the comments.
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Gamer, dad and supporter of @SpecialEffect Charity. Dark Souls fan and gooner!