Unreleased & Cancelled Video Games across many platforms.
Welcome to Games That Weren't!
We are an Unreleased and Cancelled 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 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 video game history since 1999.
Contributor Mathew Chakko flagged up that “The Sporting News Baseball” game by Epyx Software in 1988 was advertised with a panel area that had a number of differences compared to the final game. Here it is:
There is a MPH meter and also what seems to be a wind direction line too? Very minor differences from what was probably just a slightly earlier build used to screenshot. Interesting though to see :) Continue reading →
Another month and another update at GTW64, with a number of new entries and updates that we’ve been adding since the last. Hope everyone is well, and keep safe in these strange times.
Platforms: Sony PlayStation, Atari Jaguar CD edition and SEGA Saturn
Thanks to Ross Sillifant for the heads up, a short clip of what seems to be the unreleased PlayStation version of Aliens vs Predator can be found in this fascinating video of the E3 show back in 1997: https://youtu.be/W1iDYImB2Zw?t=7529
It should start at the right place, but if for any reason it doesn’t – skip to 2:05:29. Ross also found an archive link where Jason Kingsley talks about the project in a development diary – with some fascinating details.
The entire video (which has been online for a few years) is worth checking out, as it features a number of unreleased titles within. The game was also planned for release on the Sega Saturn, which also saw cancellation. The PC version was delayed and eventually released in 1999.
In April 2023, contributor Molasar fed back a number of other links showing parts of the PlayStation edition and various scans. Here are the resources:
More gameplay from E3 1997:
Scanned screenshots from Micromania Spanish magazine:
Aaron: While we’re here to primarily talk AvP Extinction, I know Mike you used to work at Fox Interactive and had some hand in the development of AvP Classic. Now it’d be criminal of me not to ask you about it while we’re on here and we’ve got you. So, tell us about that experience working on that game?
Mike: I had worked at Acclaim. That was my first job in the industry, and I worked on a lot of things. I feel like there was something Aliens – I think maybe it was being talked about when I was at Acclaim. Then I left Acclaim, I went to Sony and then about a year after I left to Acclaim, I ended up at Fox so it must have been that Alien Trilogy was being talked about when I was there. I got there and it was a license deal so we weren’t really involved but we were also basically like handling reviewing of all the licensed products right just for like video gameness. Because I had like a bad relationship with Acclaim. When they came for like the final approval of Alien Trilogy they said well why don’t you take care of this, like have a little fun and so I went into the room.
I was like “No you can’t ship this. It’s awful” and I have to thank whoever that was for letting me have that tiny, tiny iota of revenge but after that shipped, I was like “I really like these Aliens games. Like this is kind of fun. I want to do something like with AvP because we had this Jaguar game we’re playing. The Jaguar game – the thing that made it so cool was that they built models of all the Aliens and they photographed them from all the different angles and made sprites. So even though it was kind of janky that they looked really good because they were they were models instead of hand-painted and so I found those guys. It was Rebellion in the UK, and I was like “Hey look we want to do another AvP game. Can you just basically do like what you did before and do that on Playstation?”
And they were like “Yeah cool”, and it was like a really tough project. Like they were really small. It was like five or six people on the team and the model thing just wasn’t really working on Playstation and design wise, like the design wasn’t really there and they didn’t have a great plan. Luckily for me, I went to go work at Activision on Battlezone and as I was leaving, I handed the project to a guy named Dave Stalker who just comes back to the story like a few years later. I said to Dave “You’re a designer. This game really needs a lot of design now” So it turns out after I left, he basically spent like a year and a half at Rebellion working with them on the design of the game and it turned out to be a great game.
Oh, and like five minutes after I left, they were like “Hey we really don’t want to do this the model thing. Can we just make 3D models of everything” and Dave was like “Yeah sure.” They blamed me for that. They were like “Oh we asked him, and he wouldn’t let us do it.” At the time I was at Fox, we kept saying hey it’d be really cool to do like an AvP RTS and we talk about it at lunch all the time right. So a couple years later I was talking to Novak who’s one of the founders of Zono and he’s like “Yeah we’re doing this AvP RTS” and I was like “Ah that was a great idea. I’m glad they finally did that.” So, I guess that’s my history.
Adam: So, the game, there was a PS1 version in development that was dropped, and they just went with PC for that one, right?
Mike: Yeah it was it was PC, Playstation and Saturn and so Playstation was kind of like the lead SKU around the time that I left. I think what my understanding what had happened was like I said development was a little troublesome and I don’t think it was troublesome like that they couldn’t handle it. I think it was just they bit off more than they could shoot right. It was the amount of stuff they were trying to put into the game I think was more than a Playstation could handle and so I think after I left, they just pragmatically said “Let’s just drop this and stick with PC that can handle so much more memory, more power”.
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Then finally, not quite related to the PS edition, here were some details about a CD update for the Jaguar version that were uncovered by Ross Sillifant:
Our publisher Bitmap Books have just released a bit more detail in their latest newsletter about the upcoming Games That Weren’t book, including a sneak peak at how its shaping up, so here is a bit of a preview for you:
Giving an illustrated snapshot of a wide range of unreleased games from 1975 to 2015, The Games That Weren’t includes titles across a variety of arcade, home computer, console, handheld and mobile platforms spread across 644 pages. Many games are expanded upon in detail, with those involved sharing their untold stories and recollections, as well as attempting to solve some mysteries along the way. Assets and screenshots are shown for most titles, some never seen until now. In the case of games that don’t have anything to show, there are specially created artist’s impressions, giving a unique visual interpretation of what could have been.
In hoping to bring back more regular updates now the book nears conclusion and publication in a few months, here is the first GTW update of 2020, including a new Vic 20 section. This update includes a bunch of new entries highlighted by Peter Weighill, which I had stupidly missed for the Christmas update.
Something i’ve wanted to do for a while, and got prompted again after a discussion with Mat Allen and seeing news that a Hungry Horace game existed for the Vic 20. Something that will hopefully grow into more in the future:
Well, another year has passed and when preparing for this update, I realised that it had been almost 12 months since the last full update. Sorry about that! Hopefully reasons are now a lot clearer as to why that was! :)
Once the dust settles a bit, then we will be back in full trying to recover and preserve more lost C64 titles and make up for lost time. We are also starting to create and add videos to some of the entries as something a bit extra.
Many thanks to all our contributors for this update, including in particular Fabrizio Bartoloni, Csaba Virag, Hedning/GP and Jazzcat who contributed a lot to this update and for Vinny Mainolfi for all his support. All the best for 2020 and hope you enjoy the update! Continue reading →
Just a very short post to host some demo/hack disks that I found in Level Up games in Canterbury on some old C64 disks.
They seem to be credited to a Derick Boorman who lived in Kent and hacked around a bit with some old C64 demos, changing scrolltexts etc.
Please note, these were probably done when the author was very young – so the credit changes to themselves can be ignored. I did similar lame things when I was probably around their same age!
We managed to find Derick thanks to Gerard Sweeney, and they confirmed that it was them and their work. They didn’t recall much, but remember passing on their C64 to their nephew when moving over to the Amiga around 1990/1991. Derick also used to frequent in Computer World in Canterbury, and suggests we should bin any other disks we find ;-)
In case you want to see something a bit different, here are the disk images for posterity:
Thanks to Ross Sillifant for the heads up, this is a new and previously unseen Game Boy game that was due for release back in 1994 and was recently recovered and released by AIR Entertainment.
It is a pretty neat puzzle game that is around 99% complete, just missing some final polish. It’s unsure at present why the game never saw release, but check here for more details about the game and download below:
After 5 years of work (give or take), we’re pleased to announce The Games That Weren’t book coming soon in May 2020 from Bitmap Books, covering unreleased games since the dawn of the industry.
More details coming soon, but very excited to finally share the news after keeping quiet for so long.
A short entry for what was to be an educational based title created for the Sony PlayStation by Runecraft around 1999 time, based on the famous children’s series.
Thanks to lead artist David Tolley, we are able to show you a brief glimpse of some of the game assets (and quick photos of the design document) that David recovered recently from an old hard-drive. Continue reading →
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Games That Weren't® is the registered trademark of Frank Gasking.