Documenting unreleased, cancelled and prototype games.
Covering unreleased and cancelled games and prototypes on both consoles and computers. We are a large archive dedicated to preserving games that were never released to the public. Sharing history and stories from the developers, assets and more before it is too late.
A non-profit digitisation project, aiming to digitally preserve software and history which would otherwise be lost for good. If for any reason there is anything that you do not wish to be on the website, please contact us for removal.
As part of the launch and release of The Games That Weren’t book, we are gradually adding assets and content that didn’t make it to print as bonus content to share with you.
The book contains a detailed 8 page full story about the unreleased 1979 arcade, Oops – talking to Larry Rosenthal and Dan Sunday about the development, and how it evolved over time. As there were no gameplay screenshots to show, the piece features artist impressions of how the game could have looked. Continue reading →
By the creators of UFO: Enemy Unknown and being led by Julian Gollop, and was a 3D evolution of the previous X-COM strategy games produced by Mythos Games. The press at the time were very excited about the game, and one even felt it could have been one of the greatest turn-based strategy games ever produced. Continue reading →
A short post to highlight two Amiga titles that never were (thanks to Karl Kuras) which were mentioned in the pages of Commodore User magazine.
The Legend of Billy Boulder
This title was actually due for release on PC and Atari ST, as well as Amiga. Although fully reviewed by two magazines, it never surfaced for any platform it seems. The reviews were fairly poor, but when would that give U.S. Gold an excuse not to release a game? Continue reading →
Pretty much the end of summer already and time of the month for another GTW64 update, with various updates and additions that were added over the past month.
A short entry for a title due for release by Renegade on the PC and Acorn Archimedes (thanks to Kevin Tilley for flagging this one up to cover). This was to be a conversion of the 3rd game in the Turrican trilogy, which had already been released on the Amiga and other platforms. Continue reading →
A short entry for a title due for release by Thalamus on the Amiga and PC late into the publisher’s life (thanks to Kevin Tilley for flagging this one up to cover). This was a cool looking strategy game set underwater, and had previews released for the Commodore Amiga that can be checked out. Continue reading →
As part of the launch and release of The Games That Weren’t book, we are gradually adding assets and content that didn’t make it to print as bonus content to share with you. Check out our growing Bonus Content page for more materials added over time.
Whilst covering Captain Seahawk, developer Mike Albaugh kindly shared a joke asset that was to be included in the cancelled Last Starfighter arcade that he was a part of, and which is one my favourite films of all time. Continue reading →
As part of the launch and release of The Games That Weren’t book, we are gradually adding assets and content that didn’t make it to print as bonus content to share with you. The book contains a detailed 6 page full story about the unreleased 1970’s Atari arcade, Captain Seahawk – talking to those involved in the development, with input from Mike Albaugh, Dave Stubben and Dan Moss. Check out our growing Bonus Content page for more materials added over time.
At the time, no-one sadly had anything relating to the game (based on part of the VCS title Air-Sea Battle), or at least wasn’t able to find anything at the time of writing. Instead, we included some artist impressions to show how the game could have looked. Just before publication however, Mike managed to find the mock up produced for the banner art that was to be produced for the cabinet (Click for full size): Continue reading →
Platforms: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, SEGA Mega Drive and Super Nintendo
As part of the launch and release of The Games That Weren’t book, we are gradually adding assets and content that didn’t make it to print as bonus content to share with you. The book contains a detailed 14-page full story about the game’s various developments, talking to many people involved in the different iterations undertaken. Check out our growing Bonus Content page for more materials added over time.
Below are a selection of character concept sketches, sprites and screenshots, most never seen until now, which have been kindly provided thanks to artists Mike Marshall, Ray Coffey, John Lomax and John Reitze to share with you. Continue reading →
With many thanks to Martin Inter, a number of early screens from actual released C64 games such as G-Loc, Dragon Ninja, Batman The Caped Crusader and Hammerfist have been added to this page. These show different sprites (in the case of Dragon Ninja), panels (Hammerfist). in game graphics (Batman) and vastly different and unused scenes (G-Loc). Continue reading →
With thanks to Ross Sillifant, it has been highlighted from a MEGA Power interview with Steve Turner that a PC Engine edition of Paradroid was once in production, as well as a unknown console edition of Total Recall.
Paradroid 90 was being produced right up until Hewson sadly collapsed, and then Total Recall would get the same issues when Mirrorsoft/ImageWorks went under in a bad sequence of events for Graftgold. Eventually, it was their conversion of Bitmap Bros’ Gods to the Sega Mega Drive which would result in their breakthrough onto console platforms in the early 1990s. Continue reading →
Platform: Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari Lynx and Sega Mega Drive
Just a short entry for a cancelled film title that was due for release on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Atari Lynx and Sega Mega Drive. It was to apparently feature an ambitious Wolfenstein style engine.
However, it was to be achieved using a special SuperCartridge on the NES that would have an extra processor and allow for better graphics and sound capabilities as well. The Lynx and Mega Drive were no doubt already powerful enough to do the game that Color Dreams had anticipated. Ross Sillifant kindly dug out an advert for the game, as well as a brief article that talks about the Super Cartridge technology. Continue reading →
Due originally for release in Q4 of 2005, this was to be a sequel to Republic: The Revolution. “Blue Vault” the working title of the game. The development would consist of an 18-strong development team, and had been under way for around 6 months at the time of PC Zone magazine showing off the game in May 2004. Continue reading →
Graphic artist Craig Stitt has recently been putting up a lot of brilliant unseen materials from his SEGA days, and has today just added a video showing screens from another Sonic related title called “Treasure Tails”, featuring Tails as the main protagonist:
Unfortunately Craig doesn’t recall much about it. Just how far it got, we’re not sure – but it would be wonderful if something playable could be found of this isometric puzzle title. However, the screens shown are confirmed by Craig to be mock ups, so they probably never progressed any further. Continue reading →
A short entry for now on what sadly was to be an abandoned conversion of Star Control III for both the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation platforms. The game was eventually released on the PC and Mac. There is a pretty decent article about the game at http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/star-control-3/
There was some brief press at the time talking about the conversions, and here are some scans for now from Sega Pro magazine (August 1996) that talk about the conversion to the Saturn (thanks to Ross Sillifant). Continue reading →
We had a request from contributor Robin Gravel, who has spent some years looking for this Mastertronic/Virgin game that was advertised for PC back in 1988 called Ray Trace VS the Megadeath Aliens.
It was described as an arcade action game in a town with a different attitude. Proclaimed to be the first ever game to display 16 colours with CGA.
Was it ever released? Nothing has yet surfaced of the game, so we have no idea at this stage. Please get in touch if you know anything more or even have a copy!
A short entry to share some screens showing a much earlier version of Alien Resurrection, featuring a 3rd person perspective for the game that was eventually dropped for a 1st person viewpoint in the end.
A short post to share various screens from the pretty much complete but unreleased Universal Monsters that was due for release on the Amiga and Atari ST platforms. Sadly hitting development and design issues which would ultimately see it cancelled.
A quick post after receiving an email today from a Robin Gravel who has highlighted the classic title “The Heist” – a title I remember well on the Commodore 64.
In the advert which you can see here, the game is additionally advertised for the Atari and IBM PC + jr platforms. However, neither of those versions seem to be out there at all.
So the question is, were these two ever released at all? Or did they just sneak out in limited numbers? Let us know if you know anything more and thanks to Robin for flagging this one up.
Commando War was to be a very ambitious title from Titus Software back in 1990, a sort of cross between Populous and Cannon Fodder. But what was particularly ambitious was that the game was introduction of a concept called Action Concept. More on that in a bit.
Just a quick post to share some odd Ocean related C64 assets I found as I was tidying through some archived disks from Dawn Hollywood (Nee Drake) and Paul Hughes when backing up some old CDs:
These “Time Out” and “Game Over” screens I don’t recognise from anywhere and they were on an unlabelled disk, recovered as deleted files. Not fully sure what format they are, so its possible they may have colour data not showing.
UPDATE: Contributor Hank (see comments) has confirmed that the screens are from Pang! Added how it should look to the above gallery. Mystery solved, though they are slightly different overall, so earlier screens or possibly even from another build.
Then on one of Dawn’s disks is an unfinished/unused loading screen for Vindicators, which attempts to do some hires colouring. In the end it was kept to just a monochrome screen for the final release.
A set of curiosities which we hope you find interesting. Hopefully we’ll find out soon what the Timeout and Game Over graphics were intended for.
Platforms: Atari Falcon and Jaguar, Sega Mega CD, Amiga CD 32 and PC
As we moved into the 1990s, games were becoming far bigger and bolder – especially with emerging new data storage options for consoles and computers. Space Junk was to be an ambitious title by Imagitec, who were asked by Atari to produce a space adventure game for their new Falcon platform. We pull together information from various press sources from the time about the game and try to piece together a little of what it was about, and what happened in the end.
Due originally for release back in June 1993, the game was to feature over 200 locations with digitised backdrops, between 60-100 fully animated characters and each complete with speech samples. What made this game quite uncommon at the time was the use of puppets/masks to create the characters and animations – giving an almost life-like feel to the game. Certainly the digitisation would require some decent storage capacity, meaning it had to be CD for storage – otherwise the Falcon version would require a mega-ton of floppy disks or at least a cut down edition produced.
Although it seemed to be lined up initially as an exclusive for the Falcon, Imagitec decided to hedge their bets on more than one platform (which would turn out to be wise). They would add the new Sega Mega CD to the line up early on when discussing the game with Sega Force magazine in 1993.
Dawn Whitehead-Binns working on the sculptures, as Nick looks on wearing the mask of main protagonist Randolf.
The next entry to go into the archive is a title which has been in my blurred memories for many years. I always recall sitting down and watching an episode of Gamesmaster on Channel 4 in the UK and seeing a 3D special, where contestants played a cool looking Star Fox style game. The contestants (and viewers at home) would need to wear a pair of classic 3D glasses to view the game properly.
Thanks to the power of the internet and all the magazine archives out there, I was discover that it was a title called Starfighter Ace. Planned for release by Mirage back in 1993 on PC only. What was surprising was that the title was being developed by Maelstrom, the Liverpool based team which had Mike Singleton at the helm.
Following on from the early screens from the original Silly Putty post (released as Putty), here are more, but this time from the sequel that would eventually become Putty Squad.
A quick post showing two early Atari Lynx developments which would eventually turn into something completely different. Thanks to Ross Sillifant for highlighting both.
The first is a title called Monster Demolition, which has some video footage online of the game running. Here is a screenshot from an Italian gaming magazine which shows another scene from the game, and from a town/city scenario:
Thanks to Ross Sillifant, here are a few more screenshots for the unreleased Psygnosis Amiga game Superhero – which wasn’t cancelled as such, but oddly caught up in a police raid. More on that in a moment.
Restrictor was being developed by Arc Developments during the early 1990s for the Commodore Amiga (and also reportedly the C64). It was to be an original title from Arc, developed for Thalamus where you could drive and also fly, with around 4 planets to explore and various alien waves to fight.
The PlayStation Dino Crisis is a well known title by Capcom, and was designed by the very same team who had created Resident Evil. However, there was also to be a GameBoy Color conversion of the game as well. But overall there were not one, but two separate attempts at trying to bring the game to Nintendo’s handheld.
The first was being developed by Fluid Studios, which after cancellation, would move over to M4 Ltd as a completely new development and design direction. More details about both developments are already well covered and documented at Unseen64.
An anonymous contributor got in touch recently to provide some real pixel assets from the brief development, which you can see here and below. These include what we believe to be a previously unseen screen and dinosaur sprites.
The contributor crucially (and sadly) revealed that the Fluid Studios development of Dino Crisis never got beyond the design document that was created. The idea was that their development was to follow a similar engine/style as their Resident Evil development that was already underway – properly commencing once that development shipped in March 2000 as planned.
However, Fluid Studio’s Resident Evil was cancelled by Capcom in early 2000, due to them not wanting a conversion trying to closely replicate the more powerful PlayStation edition – fearing players wouldn’t actually enjoy it at all. This would ultimately condemn Dino Crisis, as it was about to follow pretty much the same path.
The images that you can see here were merely just mock up images produced by Fluid Studio’s artists in Color GameBoy palette and resolution (with the exception of one Dinosaur image which seems to be in the process of being converted to CGB format). They show roughly how the game and some of its key assets could have looked. Nothing playable had yet been produced at this stage, though it is remotely possible that assets could have been chucked into Resident Evil’s engine briefly for testing – but its unlikely.
At best, it is hoped that more mock up assets will surface in their raw form – especially some of the grainy images included in the design document that are missing from here. If anything more comes our way, we will add it to the page and let you know.
Gallery
Being prepared, but not yet converted to CGB format
Originally starting off and named as Barbarian 3, this was originally to be a straightforward sequel to Barbarian 2, following a very similar structure. This was an early period of development when both Steve Brown and Richard Leinfellner were involved in the development.
Basically whilst the sequel was in development, Steve had already decided that the game would benefit being turned into a trilogy. So the once planned ending to number 2 was changed so that Drax escaped through a mirror at the end of the game to leave it open for a 3rd title.
The main major change was that the 3rd game would now scroll instead of being flick screen based. When an action sequence occurred, then the game would switch to a larger and zoomed in fight view for the 16-bit editions. The C64 would keep the characters the same size throughout.
