In this last decade, the video games market has seen a revival. We’ve moved from pixels to trixels and polygons in a matter of years, and the producers have been able to craft more and more complex worlds and gameplay mechanics.
That’s not to say that all is fine and dandy in this virtual wonderland, because, as we all know, not all video games are created equal or by the same studio. Some of these creations slip through the cracks and are never to be seen again, or worse, they see the light of day, they are announced, just so they can be unceremoniously canceled by some side deal or studio buyout.
That is the sad side of doing business in the gaming world. Some of these games make it to store shelves, some of them don’t. That being said, here are, in no particular order, five recently canceled video games:
SILENT HILLS P.T.
The Silent Hill series is one of the most acclaimed and most interesting narratives that debuted on the original PlayStation. Fans of the series have had the joy to play iterations of Silent Hill on other consoles, like the Playstation 2, but the Playstation 3 one became the saddest of them all.
Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro teamed up with Norman Reedus to create a new pathway for the series and showed off a playable demo after the E3 announcement. Sadly, the deal fell through, and, after the restructuring of Konami, the game was canned, never to be seen again.
Even the playable demo was scrubbed from PSN at the behest of Konami, who thought that the pachinko parlors were the future, not a video game lead by two industry giants. In retrospect, it may have been the boost that Del Toro and Kojima San needed to create Death Stranding, which many people have a love-hate relationship with. In hindsight, Silent Hills could have been the game that revived the series and brought the gaming public a new way of experiencing the horror genre, but, since the announcement and cancelation, Konami stayed silent on the series or the matter.
STAR WARS 1313
Have you ever heard of Star Wars 1313, The Canceled? Well, the story is engraved in gaming history as one of the lamest decisions that Disney ever made after the acquisition of Lucas Films. The merger left a bloody mess in its aftermath, Disney canceling or closing most of the projects in development, one of its victims being Star Wars 1313.
In this game, you could take control of the notorious bounty hunter, named Boba Fett, and it took place on level 1313 of the underground metropolis of Coruscant, uncovering criminal conspiracies and having gameplay similar to Gears of War combined with mechanics from the GTA series. If that sounds amazing, let’s all thank Kathleen Kennedy for the decision to cancel the game in early 2014. A tragedy indeed.
SCALEBOUND
Scalebound was supposed to be the Platinum Games magnum opus for the Xbox One. An RPG game that sees the main protagonist team up with a freaking dragon to take on the fantasy world. Microsoft never told the public what happened behind closed doors, as they announced the end of its partnership with Platinum Games the same day as the game was canceled. From the gameplay trailers, the game looked like Devil May Cry meets Monster Hunter with a splash of Dragons Dogma. Too bad we will never see the IP ever, as the property is in Microsoft’s drawers right now, and most likely will never see the light of day… Well, maybe just in that one 8 minute gameplay video that everybody was blown away by.
STAR WARS: BATTLE OF THE SITH LORDS
Star Wars Battle of the Sith Lords is another corpse left in the wake of the Disney – Lucas merger, and this one was derived from a little game called Star Wars Force Unleashed on the Wii, a game that received tons of praise from gamers and critics for the true to form presentation on the Nintendo Console.
The legend says that Red Fly Studios was responsible for the Wii port, and Lucas took notice of the work they did, allowing the studio to pitch ideas. One of those ideas was a game centered on Darth Maul, where the red and black alien was thrust in a new Batman Arkham Asylum-like gameplay, right after the events of Episode 1.
The legend also states that the game was a convoluted mess of changes and random characters added in the mix. But just imagine… a Batman Arkham-like Star Wars game, where you can use the Force to take down enemies and rise in the ranks of the Sith. He was even supposed to have a “friend” according to Lucas himself, named Darth Tallon. Too bad the game was canceled after the Disney merger, never to be seen or heard of again. Now picture how cool it would’ve been to control Maul with a slew of mechanical legs, and even his iconic spider legs from the Clone Wars animated series.
BONUS ENTRY: Special mention goes to inSANE, one of the first ventures into video games by Guillermo del Toro, way back in 2010. The game was supposed to be a survival horror, helmed by Volition, responsible for the Saints Row series, and published by THQ. The publisher even heralded it as a trilogy, but it was canned in 2012 with no notice, no gameplay, no fanfare. All we got was a 40 seconds teaser trailer.
THE LAST OF US PART 2
This spot goes to The Last of Us 2, a game that was only recently canceled, or at least indefinitely postponed by Sony in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. Rumors and other leaks hit the web after the announcement, a fact that might hurt the studio in the long run, but the final decision ultimately sits with Sony, to delay The Last of Us 2 until the real pandemic passes over.
There is some footage of the game online right now, which we don’t encourage anyone to go find, seeing as the game will come out sooner or later. Plus, spoiling yourself with something that’s subject to change will not help you, the studio, or anyone else for that matter. The bottom line is, respect Naughty Dog’s work and support your favorite creator by not giving in to your curiosity. Patience is a virtue in this case.
Update 04.29.20
In a PlayStation Blog post, Hermen Hulst confirmed that the Last of Us Part II will be released on June 19th.
Just our luck, not one day after we post the article, we get some good news from Playstation. Who says good news never comes during a pandemic?
Follow TechTheLead on Google News to get the news first.
