Cancelled Games: Was there any you wanted to try?

[Mr EliteL]

There may have been a game or two that was cancelled I knew about before, but I can't remember any. One I knew about was Silent Hills, although not a game I would play, did want to see what was going to be made after the P.T. demo.

Rayman 4 would've been a game I would get, being a fan of Rayman of course. Forgot about that, think I knew about it possibly around Raving Rabbids release. Do like the concept art that is in that link. Ah, if only. Instead we got Rabbids.

[Kyng]

East vs. West was to be a Paradox grand strategy game, in the vein of the Crusader Kings or Hearts of Iron series, which was to be set during the Cold War. This area of history interests me, and it's never been represented in a Paradox game before, so I was naturally intrigued. I was unsure of how well it would work - the 'territorial expansion' of prior Paradox titles would be out of place in a game set during the Cold War, when this direct conquest had been largely replaced by building spheres of influence - but, to me, this just added to the intrigue.

The project had been licensed to a small developer - who, sadly, fell behind schedule multiple times - and, when it became clear that this wasn't going to change, the game got cancelled altogether.

Perhaps it was for the best, though. After 1945, maybe the world just changed too much for Paradox-style gameplay to fit into it .

[Nemomon]

Surely I'm missing Talisman version for Playstation. From the few screens available it looks like a pretty solud game. But who knows, maybe cancelling it was for the better? After all later Nomad Games took Talisman, and are still releasing expansions to it...

Another game that probably would be a hit is Van Buren to Fallout. There was a tech demo of it floating somewhere in the Internet, and from what I remember it was quite good.

Speaking of TLoZ, my two most favourite titles from the franchise are Oracle of Seasons/Ages and Link's Awakening. Apparently a third Oracle game was planned, but in the end it never came out.

[Metallix]

I REALLY wanted to play The Getaway 3 for PS3. I liked the first one and it was cool having an accurate model of London. It looked mind blowing when they showed it off(realistically probably wouldn’t have been that good though).

[Moonface]

Remembered this thanks to another thread, but The Thing 2 is a game I'd have liked to see come to fruition. I enjoyed the original at the time and what was proposed for the second interested me enough that I read up on everything that was available for it on the internet.

[Daltonio]

Gotham by Gaslight - This one is a bit of a conflicted one for me since I love the Arkham series (Origins included) and the cancellation of this game directly led to that series being made. I wouldn't trade it, but this one really does interest me. Based on an alternate comic with Batman living in the end of the 19th Century and tracking down Jack the Ripper. You can see some prototype gameplay here, looks like they blew the budget on the cape physics alone.

Darth Maul - People have already mentioned other Star Wars games in this thread so I'll go ahead and throw this one in there. This one seems like it was still in prototype phase when it got the axe too, from what I've heard it doesn't look like it got too far but the gameplay I've seen looks pretty fun. Something more Force Unleashed esque. Here's a quick video with the gameplay and some info.

[Moonface]

Gotham by Gaslight - This one is a bit of a conflicted one for me since I love the Arkham series (Origins included) and the cancellation of this game directly led to that series being made. I wouldn't trade it, but this one really does interest me. Based on an alternate comic with Batman living in the end of the 19th Century and tracking down Jack the Ripper. You can see some prototype gameplay here, looks like they blew the budget on the cape physics alone.

There is no way that game would have made it to release without downgrades to that cape. I can't even recall shadows being heavily used in PS3 games nor in highly detailed ways, especially in anything open world (pretty sure GTA V doesn't even cast a character shadow when standing in front of car headlights on PS3), so to have a cape that complex and then slap a fully functioning shadow onto it is asking for a downgrade to quality or the frame rate. It might have been a good thing this game was cancelled just to avoid the problems it would have inevitably ran into further into development and the PR problems that would come with it.

[ShiraNoMai]

Since details are being released for it lately on one of the creator's Twitter pages, Conker's Other Bad Fur Day is one I would've been interested in trying out. Same dumb plot elements with probably similar gameplay. Just something I would've enjoyed seeing, not necessarily hyped about.

Same with a Diddy Kong Racing sequel. That was shown off at E3 2001 and titled Donkey Kong Racing, which expanded upon the multiple vehicle set-up from the first game and made it so you could ride animals and swap mid-race. Unfortunately that died in the water when the Rare acquisition by Microsoft happened, much like what happened to the possibility of a Conker sequel as previously mentioned. A true sequel, which was gonna be Diddy Kong Pilot, eventually turned into the Banjo game "Banjo-Pilot" after a large company political struggle.

[Moonface]

Since details are being released for it lately on one of the creator's Twitter pages, Conker's Other Bad Fur Day is one I would've been interested in trying out. Same dumb plot elements with probably similar gameplay. Just something I would've enjoyed seeing, not necessarily hyped about.

Just read through the tweets they made about that game, and it sounds like it would've been a really good sequel, at least in terms of story. Sucks that it could've been a thing and that there really wasn't a single good reason for it not to be if you ask me.

[Daltonio]

Whore of the Orient - Team Bondi's follow-up and 'spiritual successor' to my personal favorite LA Noire. It was going to take place in 1936 Shanghai, which would have been an amazing setting. I read some dev interviews where they basically said that in the 30's-40's, Shanghai was the only place in the world you could go without a passport, so 'everybody who was running from something went to Shanghai'. They were going to re-use the MotionScan technology that made LA Noire so successful and the team fought to keep the game alive but it eventually got canned.

Sleeping Dogs 2 - This one never actually even made it into full production phase, but UFG's ambitious pitch and plans have been revealed. It would continue from the first game with Wei Shen, but this time his corrupt partner would also be playable. The two might split up, Wei to hit the streets and get info, while his partner went to plant evidence on somebody. You wouldn't know the full story until you tried both paths. They also had full co-op planned, as well as a 'companion app' that influenced the main game (the example they give is sending a police patrol on the app and then seeing helicopters go by in game). They also wanted everyone's saves to influence the game world as a whole to determine the crime levels of individual neighborhoods based on how people were interacting with the game.

Telltale's Stranger Things and Game of Thrones S2 - 'Nuff said.

[WR91]

The only one that comes to mind for me is Silent Hills. At the time of the demo I didn't have a PlayStation 4. So when they dropped the demo from even being "purchased" and played, I was quite sad and upset. To what would and could have been...