Welcome to Games That Weren't!

We are a Cancelled & Unreleased Video games archive with prototypes, developer history and assets for many computers and consoles of all ages. A non-profit large archive dedicated to preserving lost games that were never released to the public. Sharing history and stories from the developers, assets and more before it is too late. GTW has been preserving lost video game history online since 1999, and long before that offline.

Please Browse our archive and discover the many entries that we host for many different platforms.

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The Grid

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1995 D3 / Phoenix Interactive

Platform: PC DOS

Our next entry within the Games That Weren’t archives is an early PC development for a space shooter known as The Grid, developed by D3 for Phoenix Interactive in 1995. Little is known about the game at this stage apart from what we have gleaned from an early demo and various concept screens.

GridLarge

Thankfully we have been able to recover a very early demo, where you can move around a small flat texture shaded area in a “Descent” like way, with pillars as obstacles and various hover sleds that you can shoot with laser cannons. The hover sleds just move around and don’t have any real AI at this stage. Continue reading →

Posted in: PC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Viking

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1990 New Deal Productions

Platforms: Commodore Amiga and Atari ST

Viking was to be an ambitious adventure game that was to cast you as a Viking warrior (e.g., Erik, Leif, or Thorwald) with the ultimate goal of living a worthy life and earning a place in Valhalla. Rather than following a strict storyline or mission structure, the game would encourage freedom, exploration, and role-playing, allowing you to create your own saga.

viking12

The idea was that you would begin by undertaking one of four initiation quests, such as hunting or trying to gain permission to leave your village. After building your long ship and selecting your crew (whose qualities impact gameplay), you set sail on an expansive journey through 13 seas, 72 rivers, and over 200 cities, villages, and abbeys across Europe, Africa, and even the New World. Continue reading →

Posted in: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Student game development project archives

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Thanks to contributor Starlord, this post links to collection of student projects that were created at The Game Assembly in Malmö, Sweden, showcasing some incredible new talent in games development. These were once briefly made publicly available online, but were eventually removed (possibly when the student year had finished).

Thankfully several games were preserved by Starlord, and these have been made available once more here for posterity. Due to the size, we’ve uploaded to Archive.org. Over time, we’ll add more as they come to light and add to the archive links below.

Archive links

Posted in: PC, Preservation | Tagged: , | Leave a comment

Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Racing NES prototype

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Yet another NES prototype for you today, with the release of an earlier build of Nigel Mansell’s World Championship Racing by Gremlin. The game was released in mid-late 1993, though this prototype is dated the 29th September 1992.

nigel large

This particular build was being used by another development team as a reference point for a new conversion. It seems very close to the final version, though there are a number of differences throughout – including a 1992 date on the title screen and credit differences, and minor colour changes on the game panel (especially the “tires” and “behind” segments).

In addition to this, we noticed that the game seems to have been sped up in the final version, and in this prototype – the road routine seems a lot slower paced. There are likely some other enhancements and fixes with the road routine too. Continue reading →

Posted in: Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Prototype | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

2000 DC Studios + 3DO Studios

Platforms: Gameboy Advance and Gameboy Color

There have been many Army Men games over the years, though one we weren’t aware of until recently was a Game Boy Advance version of Army Men: Sarge’s Heroes, developed by DC Studios. This handheld version was intended as a conversion of the N64, PlayStation, Dreamcast, and PC title. A Game Boy Color version was also reportedly in development at the time by a different, currently unknown studio.

sarge large

Production for the game was being carried out by Karla Healy and Mark Greenshields, with development by Ian James and with menu + FMV work by another person that we only know as Gerry.  Ian would eventually go on to develop Army Men: Advance a year later which would see release.

Graphics were being created by Kristi-Louise Herd, with mock up work created by Alan Macfarlane. At this very point, no-one was allocated to sound duties. Continue reading →

Posted in: Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, Reviews | Tagged: | 1 Comment

GTW64 May 2025 update

Posted: by Frank Gasking

Our fifth update of the year has a number of new entries added, including a game that was once submitted to Zzap and just disappeared, beginnings of a Pacman game that never was intended for Mastertronic, and Elite’s strange Commando-themed game that would eventually be renamed to Duet. We also have some updates to existing entries (details of each update in the history notes). More for you again next month!

8 new entries added

Commando 86, Drive, Miner 2049er, Miner on Mars, Politique Economique, The Honeymooners, The Pacman Strikes Back, Twilyte

9 updates added

666 – The Number of the Beast, Airwolf 2 V1, Charlie Chaplin, Moonshadow, Rim Raiders, The Last Stuntman, Twilight Zone, Undead, Whuppie Tale

Posted in: GTW64 news | Leave a comment

Chaos Drop

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1992 Enigma Variations

Platform: Super Nintendo

Before Magician’s Apprentice was a thing for the PC and even the Konix, the game originally was going to be something quite different, and on the Super Nintendo too with a title of Chaos Drop. Developed by Joe Booth and with graphics by Alan Macfarlane back in 1992.

chaosdrop large

The protagonist appears as a noble warrior, combining visual elements reminiscent of ancient Asian traditions and carrying a pitch fork. However, the demo builds that we have managed to recover from the archives of Enigma Variations doesn’t give too much away unfortunately. Continue reading →

Posted in: Reviews, Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) | Tagged: , | Leave a comment

Rare Italian bootleg of The Quill preserved!

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Whilst at Zzap Live in May 2025, we met up with the legendary Tim Gilberts, who set up Gilsoft at the age of just 17. Tim flagged up that he had a very rare Italian bootleg of The Quill which didn’t seem to be out there and preserved called “Adventure Writer (Creator 2)”. Unfortunately it wouldn’t load for him.

booklet 1

An hour or so later, Tim excitedly informed us that the adventure creator had suddenly loaded for him – but he had no mechanism of backing up. We attempted to back up using a 1541-Ultimate 2 from Andy Spencer (Retro Computer Museum) – but it wasn’t having it. So Tim very kindly agreed to loan the tape and manual to Games That Weren’t to preserve. Continue reading →

Posted in: Commodore 64 (C64), GTW64 news, Preservation | Tagged: | 7 Comments

Amok

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1982 EathenRoss Software

Platform: Commodore VIC-20

Before you say it, this is NOT the same Amok game as the Berzerk clone by UMI. This was a game created by Blake Senftner for EathenRoss Software around 1982 time. Blake described the game as a kind of Choplifter rescue game, but people would shoot at you, and you would shoot back at them.

The game was highlighted to us thanks to Joachim Froholt, who had a reply to a thread about mastering C64 games from Blake. It seems that the game was actually released in late 1982 along with another game called Grave Cave that was recovered recently. However, it seems to be missing in action at the moment.

We hope to learn more soon from Blake about the title and if it can be saved. If you know anything more, or even have a copy – please do get in touch!

With thanks to Joachim Froholt for highlighting the game.

Posted in: Commodore VIC-20, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment