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 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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Guerrilla War

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1989 Imagine Software

Platforms: Atari ST and Commodore Amiga

I never played the SNK arcade, but remember seeing the terrible Commodore 64 conversion by Sentient Software and wondering just how it got past quality control at Ocean Software at the time.

Also in production though were conversions for the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST platforms. It seems that these were being arranged by Ocean France, and the work was subcontracted out to a team called Prestasoft, which only seemed to have the one game to its name – Expressing.

Apart from adverts, nothing much was mentioned or shown of the conversions at all, especially in the UK press. It would be the French press which would see exclusive screenshots of at least the Atari ST edition.

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Posted in: Atari ST, Reviews | Tagged: | 3 Comments

Ramrod

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1987-1991 Gremlin Graphics

Platforms: Commodore Amiga and Atari ST
Credits: Richard Costello (Lead developer), Bill Allen (Arena subgame developer), Andy Bryant (Gun subgame developer), Kevin Bulmer (Artist) and Ben Daglish (Music and FX)

For years, screenshots from magazines have taunted us for the many games that got away from us, and none more so than Ramrod by Gremlin Graphics. Previewed in the likes of Zzap!64, Zero and various other magazines over the years – we salivated over the wonderful Marble Madness‘esq graphics with a character that looked like the distant cousin of Robocop.

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The actual title screen from Ramrod in its full and proper pixel glory.

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Posted in: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Assassin early screens

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A quick post thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz, with some images showing some minor differences and what seem to be some unused assets not seen in the final game.

The One magazine showed a preview with some early screens, one showing screens with a mountain background layer. In the final game, that level section would feature just plain blue sky and some small white clouds.

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Posted in: Commodore Amiga, Unused materials | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Alien Breed 3D unused assets and early screens

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

A quick post thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz, with a series of screenshots and magazine scans showing unused assets and features not found in the final version of Alien Breed 3D. The game was previewed in many magazines during 1995, with some of the most interesting screens being shown in CU Amiga magazine. The first preview is from March 1995:

Differences: Continue reading →
Posted in: Commodore Amiga, Unused materials | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Dragon

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1988 Firebird and then Electronic Arts

Platform: Atari ST (and likely Commodore Amiga)

An impressive looking title which featured a massive dragon main character, which took up most of the screen. This was to be a second title signed up by Firebird from ICOM Simulations, along with Blazing Barrels (which also never saw release).

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The game was shown briefly in a few magazines, and TelecomSoft’s Richard Hewison recalls seeing the game on the ST and how simple it was:

“Dragon was never advertised, and the development version on the ST was extremely simple. Basically, on the left you saw a castle with a drawbridge. The drawbridge was open, and a large dragon sprite could walk along the drawbridge and back. That was about it! The whole thing looked and felt a little bit like ‘Black Lamp’ which Firebird had only published earlier the same year (1988).

I have no recollection as to what happened to the deal with ICOM (UK) Ltd. It might have still been active when BT sold the labels to MicroProse, or the deal might have already been dead.”

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

Cyber Assault

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1990 ARC

Platforms: Atari ST and Commodore Amiga

Cyber Assault was a vector-based obstacle course game announced by ARC. In the game you must control a character called TRAX (an exo-skeletal humanoid), who can run, jump and walk through a 3D universe. Impressively he would have displayed over 70 faces animated accurately at 15 frames per second.

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The story would go that years ago, you murdered a civi-cop and were then imprisoned for life. Once a year, the worst prisoner is given the chance of freedom by entering the Cyber Assault. A deadly obstacle course race. Win and you are free. Fail and you are a dead man. Continue reading →

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

MARSOC: US Marine Corps Special Ops

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

2010 Zombie Studios

Platforms: Microsoft Xbox 360, PC and Sony PlayStation 3

As part of the launch and release of The Games That Weren’t book, we are adding assets and content that didn’t make it to print as bonus DLC content to share with you.

Within the book is an in-depth and detailed 16 page story about the ambitious MARSOC development by Zombie Studios. A game inspired by titles such as Gears of War and Call of Duty, the title would set you within the lawless port of Massawa, Eritrea – hunting down a dangerous warlord called Limbano.

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We talk to Zombie Studios founder Mark Long, senior level designer Erik Bretz, producer John Williamson about the promising development, which at one point had been picked up by SEGA for publication. You can read the full story about the development in the Games That Weren’t book.

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Posted in: Bonus, Microsoft Xbox 360, PC, Reviews, Sony PlayStation 3 | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Nightbreed RPG

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1990 Ocean Software

Platforms: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, PC and Commodore 64

This was to be the last of a trilogy of Nightbreed games produced by Ocean Software in 1990 and produced by Imagitec, overseen by David Wightman. The game would utilize essentially the same engine as Times of Lore, which they developed on the Amiga. This means it is likely that Adrian Waterhouse and Julian Gardner were the developers, with Nigel Cook on graphics duty.

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Posted in: Atari ST, Commodore 64 (C64), Commodore Amiga, PC, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Rotator

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1991 Rainbow Arts

Platforms: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga and PC

Not to be confused with the recent Psytronik release of the same name, Rotator was a one/two player tank game, where you would have to link a number of generators together to boost their flagging power. This is due to an alien invasion which is disrupting the world’s energy systems, and has thrown civilisation into chaos.

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