Welcome to Games That Weren't!

We are an 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 since 1999.

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

Latest News and Posts

Engalus

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

2000 Crytek Studios

Platforms: PC, Sony PlayStation 2, Sega Dreamcast, Microsoft XBox, Nintendo GameCube

Our next entry into the Games That Weren’t archives was a significant project from the start of an engine that would lead to the eventual Far Cry series. Engalus was a first person shooter/RPG title that was in development at Crytek Studios between 1999 and 2000 – one of their first developments along with X-Isle.

On Crytek’s old archived webpage about the game, they revealed that the main concept consisted of:

“High-tech assassin travels to the edge of the galaxy in order to stop the plans of a madman, who wishes to remake the universe in his own image using an ancient artefact known as the Engalus. As the main character Jordain you will find yourself in a dark sci-fi adventure story where nothing is as it seems and the worst enemies can come from within.”

Continue reading →
Posted in: Dreamcast, GameCube, PC, PlayStation 2, Reviews, Xbox | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Sagan Om Ringen

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1985 Peter Tjernström

Platform: ZX Spectrum

Our next ZX Spectrum title in the archives is a missing Swedish adventure based on Lord of the Rings (and even named so in Swedish!), which came first in a competition.

The creator was Peter Tjernström and the game remains unreleased sadly. The article with the winners can be found in the scans section, and was in Swedish magazine Allt om hemdatorer (All about home computers) issue 2/3 1985, page 35.

According to the article, the contest was announced in late 1984 with the following details:

The results of our Swedish Adventure Game Championships contest

First prize

Peter Tjernström in Boden [a city in the north of Sweden] has, on his Spectrum, created an amazing text adventure based on Tolkien’s ”Lord of the rings”. There is a lot to recognize from the book, among other things he has really managed to capture some of the atmosphere, e.g. at the start you see a rider approaching from the distance. If you’ve hidden he’ll ride past you, if not it’s over.

The game is the winner due to being exciting as well as entertaining. Another advantage is that the programmer has really succeeded with the feat of getting all the major events of the book in there.

It seems there was no intention to release the game, but it would be great to try and see it preserved.

With thanks to Anonymous Contributor for the submission and Fabrizio Bartoloni for the original submission.

Gallery

Posted in: Reviews, ZX Spectrum | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Gigaball

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1987 Starvision

Platform: Commodore Amiga

A very short entry now for a title called Gigaball that was due for release by short-lived Danish software house – Starvision.

The game was mentioned by founder Sören Grönbech in a feature in SOFT magazine issue 6 in 1987. No details are given though – just the name of the game and no other information has been found on the title.

Was the title perhaps picked up and released under a different name, or was it canned early on? Many questions were still left to answer.

Thanks to Fabrizio Bartoloni though after only a few hours of posting this page – it was confirmed that the game was eventually released as Giganoid by Swiss Computer Arts. Case closed!

With thanks to Anonymous Contributor, Fabrizio Bartoloni for solving the mystery and sodan.dk for the scan.

Gallery

Posted in: Amiga | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Battle Mission

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1990 Renovation Products

Platform: SEGA Mega Drive

Battle Mission was an exciting looking Operation Wolf style game that was due for release on the SEGA Mega Drive back in 1990 by Renovation Products.

battle1

The game was based in the middle of World War 2, where you are on your tour of duty of the South Pacific. You are forced to land on an enemy island, as a sole survivor of your sunken battleship – Liberty.

You have to get back to your forces, and must blast your way through all the levels with your machine gun and bombs, shooting bad guys and avoiding monkeys, native women and other innocents along the way. Basically – Operation Wolf! Continue reading →

Posted in: Mega Drive, Reviews | Tagged: | 2 Comments

MegaRace

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1994 Mindscape

Platform: Commodore Amiga CD32

MegaRace was an ambitious title due for release on the Amiga CD32 by Mindscape back in 1994, and was being developed by French programmers Cryo.

megashot19

Set in the future, the game revolves around a VR gameshow that is hosted by a Lance Boyle where you participate in a death or glory race over 15 different tracks and with 8 different supercars. Seems like something very Running Man’esq. Continue reading →

Posted in: Amiga CD32 | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Warriors of the Devine Wind

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1994 Dave Gibbons and Steve Day

Platforms: Commodore Amiga, Atari ST and PC
Also known as: Exploding Fist

Ten years after the release of the Commodore 64 classic Way Of The Exploding Fist, there were plans for an Amiga and PC game which had a lot of inspiration from the title and was a sort of unofficial port of the game with various improvements, including design inspiration from the training bits from Chambers of the Shaolin.

warriors large1

The game started as a cross-platform Atari/Amiga game, and then later moved fully to PC due to the market changes at the time. Development was by Dave Gibbons, with graphics by Steven Day (who had previously done titles such as Fireforce on the Amiga and ST). Continue reading →

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

Elite 40th anniversary – source code added

Posted: by Frank Gasking

To mark the 40th anniversary of Elite by Ian Bell and David Braben, Ian has added further sources to his archives for the likes of Apple, Atari, C64, NES – but crucially a few unreleased titles too.

This includes source code for the SNES and Mega Drive editions of the game (listed as SNES, but there seems to be Mega Drive code too) and also an amazing addition of “Elite II” for the BBC Micro.

We’re hopeful to see some of these compiled up soon and will report back here once any become available to play. Look forward to seeing remains of the BBC Micro Elite II for instance!

More details: http://www.elitehomepage.org/fourty/

Posted in: BBC Micro, Mega Drive, News, SNES | Leave a comment

It Came From The Desert

Posted: by Frank Gasking

1989 Cinemaware

Platforms: Atari ST, Commodore 64, SEGA Mega Drive

A pretty famous Cinemaware title which was originally released on the Amiga and PC, but also had other versions planned that never saw the light of day. The Commodore 64 version we are already covering within the C64 archive, which has had mentions of being in development – but there is little evidence at this stage that anything was started.

icftd st shot

For the Atari ST – ST Action mentioned in issue 11, 1990 that the game was coming soon for the platform, and may have showed a screenshot for that platform. It is very likely it could also just be a screen from the Amiga version. Continue reading →

Posted in: Atari ST, Commodore 64, Mega Drive, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment