Goichi Suda(51)'s Kurayami. As far as i know this game might have been the one that broke him and made him stop from directing anything since then. Shinji Mikami worked on it in this stage as well (as with killer7) and made it sound like Suda was absolutely destroyed when this got cancelled.
It was basically Suda doing a Franz Kafka story (The Castle) as a video game. It was a horror game where you used a torch to stave off enemies, solve puzzles and navigate through the dark and was set in a macabre and weird world full of paranoid, untrustworthy characters. Since Kafka is one of Suda's biggest influences I think this game would have been incredible. Unfortunately it got canned in favour of Shadows of the Damned which was a decent TPS game but nowhere near his original concept and was directed/designed by somebody else.
Talking about this concept, Goichi Suda said:
“When I considered the visuals, I immediately thought of darkness, and I imagined a hero within this night, with a light that would in a way symbolise his life. That became the core concept of Kurayami: literally, ‘darkness’ (in Japanese). […] It’s not about some hideous monsters or evil creatures coming out of the darkness, but playing on our natural fears of the dark, and the uneasiness that comes from the absence of noise and life. […] “Kurayami’s ideas are not about violence or eroticism, but fundamental problems in the human mind, which may find some conflict with the rating system. […] Though I expect the rating level to be quite high for Kurayami, I also expect the PS3 to be mainly purchased and used by an adult audience. I’m making a game for an adult audience, one that shows what life is and what being human is.”
Players would have had to pay attention to the townsfolk too, as the game would have been ambiguous about their intentions and personality:
“It shows how people change when faced with their fears – in a way, you could see a little bit of what Japan, or the world, is like in this town.”
https://www.unseen64.net/2015/10/27/kurayami-suda51-cancelled-ps3/
Also, always been fascinated in the Saturn version of Shenmue, Cry On (shelved Cavia game developed with Sakaguchi with using Fujisaka's art) and RE1.5. The original concept for Drakengard 3 sounded off the wall as well that Yoko Taro wanted - set in modern day with dragons getting summoned by mobile phones and looked like it had a harder, darker aesthetic to it. Story was probably completely different as well. That Square Japan vampire game looked pretty cool too, shame that got canned and converted into a forgettable mobile game.
I do wonder what it was that Matsuno was working on the Wii before it got canned.
Prey 2 looked amazing, best looking open world cyberpunk game since the original Deus Ex. Still pissed about its cancellation. Versus XIII looked cool back in the day, even as somebody who's never been big on most of the FF games (more of an SMT guy). I was in my teens back then though, so that might have been it.
