• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Cancelled Games That Were Ahead of its Time / Possible Today

Videospel

Member
And.. of course...i have to add Star Wars 1313 (because i know it will be said) just to prove how insanely crazy it is this was never released solely due to the industry following "single-player, story-driven game arent appealing" metric that has little to no validation today as those game continue to be popular.

Impressive graphics for 2013. We really are in an age of diminishing returns when it comes to graphics.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
I remember seeing it when Xbox Live was first being advertised and thinking the art directions looked fantastic. I was actually excited to play MMOJRPG for once. Then that got cancelled.



There's an Happy Madison productions stoner movie called Grandma's Boy and the game Demonik is a HUGE centerpiece to the whole movie. It's not a great movie, but not the worst by any means and has some pretty good actors in it before they hit it big.



If I'm not mistaken Thrill Kill was released. Just not officially on store shelves. My uncle was a 3DO/PSX developer at the time and he had a copy.

edit: looking back. Well No, Thrill Kill wasn't released. Just less than scrupulous, shady individuals like my uncle got his hands on it because he was in those developer circles at the time.

Thrill Kill was leaked pretty quickly and was widely downloaded and played on chipped PS1s, because of its notoriety.

The Wu Tang game was basically a re-skin, so while we didn’t get Thrill Kill, we got Thrill Kill.
 

Shakka43

Member
hqdefault.jpg

:pie_invert:
You can feel that raytracing, way ahead of its time.
 

Spearheadz

Member
Came here to say Project Offset, but it already has decent representation. It truly looked amazing at the time.

Honorable mention is a MMORPG from 2005 or so called Hero's Journey. Looked pretty revolutionary for the time, and the creator (Simutronics of MUD-fame) ended up selling the homemade engine to a lot of heavy hitters for a lot of revenue. MMORPG.com still has an archive of articles/screenshots:

 

Ixion

Member
LOTR: The White Council (PS3/360)

It was the true open-world Middle-Earth game that we've all wanted, but still haven't gotten. Instead of just wandering around Mordor like in the recent games, we would have been able to explore about 50% of Middle-Earth, with these all being included locations:

hqdefault.jpg


lotr_whitecouncil_6a.jpg


dims


xlcoor2rmt2alkkkdemh.jpg


a673f116b4e912c9a87d39d381f73883.jpg


lotr_whitecouncil_00.jpg


ubum879djnaivzwrpsld.jpg


488c8503dacaef877a20d98a871ed392.jpg


lotr_whitecouncil_7a.jpg
 

Kupfer

Member
This was cool back then when UE3 was new and there weren't lots of Gears and Gears'esque Games.


Also I remember reading articles about Dead Island years before the first trailer released. The screenshots where much more realistic and detailed, way better than the game actually looked, also the gore system was explained way more detailed and with the knowledge today I'd say this looked more like Dying Light.
 

alexross

Neo Member
This is Vegas and Lily Bergamo. Probablly not way ahead of their time but still interesting to be remembered and cry for their cancelation
 

SkylineRKR

Member
This was cool back then when UE3 was new and there weren't lots of Gears and Gears'esque Games.


Also I remember reading articles about Dead Island years before the first trailer released. The screenshots where much more realistic and detailed, way better than the game actually looked, also the gore system was explained way more detailed and with the knowledge today I'd say this looked more like Dying Light.


Huxley exists.

I think it was limited to Korea or something. But its there.
 

niilokin

Member
does anyone remember this 3rd person action game supposed to come in early 2000s that would feature some kind of fluid combat system where you could have different weapon in each hand, like melee weapon & ranged. I can't remember the name and I'm 90% sure it just faded into obscurity.
 
What was so ahead for its time for PT? Comon, I know you are a Kojima fan but nothing about that game was brand new. RE7 was already out, Outlast was out for a while. All you got was a repeating corridor. It was the tiniest demo, it showed nothing what the full game could be like because nobody would pay $60 to keep going through the same hallway over and over until a door unlocks. It was an idea oh 2 movie buffs tackle SH...wheres the actual game? Dont overhype a demo.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Its really tempting to blame Intel for the disappearance of Project Offset, but truthfully that project sounded like a design nightmare. Feature after feature poured on because it sounded impressive and seemed like a good idea at the time. In short the sort of game destined for development hell because it lacked focus and a coherent production vision.

That the project had all these lofty ambitions but lacked something as basic as a name (!) kinda sums it up for me.
 
Its really tempting to blame Intel for the disappearance of Project Offset, but truthfully that project sounded like a design nightmare. Feature after feature poured on because it sounded impressive and seemed like a good idea at the time. In short the sort of game destined for development hell because it lacked focus and a coherent production vision.

That the project had all these lofty ambitions but lacked something as basic as a name (!) kinda sums it up for me.
This isn't as uncommon as you think. I think both Intel and the devs are to blame. They both share culpability. Though, I think the tech of that project has been used in other games, though I'm not 100% sure on that.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
This isn't as uncommon as you think. I think both Intel and the devs are to blame. They both share culpability. Though, I think the tech of that project has been used in other games, though I'm not 100% sure on that.

You can't sell a property without a name, its basic. Ultimately the value of anything is dictated by its potential to generate income at market, so when they were looking for business partners it should have been front and center for awhile as the value of the name itself -when backed by the tech- would have had its own significant currency.

Being honest as well, the tech really wasn't all that impressive even its day. ID demo'd self shadowing with Doom 3 in 2002/2003 and by the time the game actually arrived in 2004 everyone knew how the tech worked. The only reason it took so long to become a common feature is that as an effect its very heavy on fill-rate, making it a problematic thing on consoles of that time.

By only ever showing on PC they didn't have to contend with all the limitations and restrictions that fixed-spec platforms had, although no doubt with the sort of multiplayer features they were going for it would have ended up really stretching the hardware of its day.

I really wish more people would realize that the knowhow to achieve a given effect often predates its common implementation by years, and notice that when a new thing arrives suddenly everybody starts using it! Because games are a commercial medium, and in commerce you need to be practical when planning out your ambitions and goals - doubly so if part of your business plan includes implementation on less capable fixed-spec devices.
 

Perrott

Gold Member
RAGTAG (Visceral Games and Amy Hennig's Star Wars project)
in-game screenshots said:

In addition to some other titles like Agent (Rockstar North), Deep Down (Capcom), Eight Days (SCE London), Final Fantasy Versus 13 (Square Enix), Getaway (SCE London) LMNO (EA ¿Los Angeles? x Arkane x Spielberg title), Metal Gear Rising (Kojima Productions), Prey 2 (Human Head Studios), Silent Hills (Kojima Productions), Star Wars 1313 (LucasArts) and The Crossing (Arkane Studios)
 
Last edited:

Perrott

Gold Member
What was so ahead for its time for PT? Comon, I know you are a Kojima fan but nothing about that game was brand new. RE7 was already out, Outlast was out for a while. All you got was a repeating corridor. It was the tiniest demo, it showed nothing what the full game could be like because nobody would pay $60 to keep going through the same hallway over and over until a door unlocks. It was an idea oh 2 movie buffs tackle SH...wheres the actual game? Dont overhype a demo.
What was ahead of the time with P.T was its insane creativity, how Kojima managed to have so many mindfuck moments going on in just a small (and beautifully-looking) hallway. Take that brilliance in game design and apply it to a Silent Hill game, plus all the themes and iconic characters found in any Hideo Kojima story.

Also, the demo came out in 2014, while Resident Evil 7 released in 2017; and even if Outlast had already been out for a couple of years, that game is absolutely not like P.T. at all.
 

JonSnowball

Member
Not sure if it quite fits but Duke Nukem Forever's 2001 iteration. The developers were pursuing the latest technology and found themselves having to re-do large chunks of the game to accommodate a new Doom 3 style renderer as everything had been built around static lighting up until 2003. Apparently by the end of 2002 it was largely playable before they were stuck in a cycle of recreating textures and redesigning chunks of the game, and eventually being left to play catch up for the next several years. Unfortunately despite a dozen leaks of gameplay clips and screenshots Randy Pitchford, who owns Duke Nukem and has a license from Take-Two to re-release Duke Forever and anything related to it, insists there is no game and it's a pile of random content that doesn't function, whereas former 3D Realms developer Charlie Wiederhold (Worked on Duke Forever 1998 - 2006) has said by the end of 2001 every part of the game was represented and all the levels were linked together and there's loads of content. Frederik Schreiber, VP of 3D Realms similarly claims at the end of 2002 roughly 90% of the content was represented with only the last 'zone' (Area 51) not being complete at that stage.

Basically, there's a build of Duke Nukem Forever from the end of 2002 that is for all intensive purposes a largely playable version of what was in the 2001 trailer but legendary camgirl enthusiast Randy Pitchford won't allow it to be released and, despite leaked footage and screenshots as well as accounts from developers and other people who have this content to the contrary, claims nothing exists.

 
Last edited:
Wasnt a demo or even ok'd by GG

I see what you're doing tho lol

Personally I wish kz had stuck with its original MP tho for kz2, with tanks etc, basically BF rivial
Well.. I beg to differ. To this day I consider KZ 2's MP the most fun I've ever had with any MP ever. But that's just me.
 

mango drank

Member
Maru Island, the massive Nintendo CD-Rom project that would eventually be split into two other games : Secret of Mana and Chrono Trigger.


What black magic is this? I never knew Mana and Chrono Trigger started off as one game. I wish the video talked more about how Trigger came out of Maru Island, though. It mostly focuses on Mana.
 

TwistedSyn

Member
I am surprised this one wasn't posted. I was really excited for this one back in the day but it never came out. It's Bonnie and Clyde the videogame.

 
Top Bottom