Preserving Cancelled & Unreleased Video Game History Since 1999
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.
Thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz and Hall of Light, here are a number of early screens from Fire and Ice on the Commodore Amiga showing a few assets that didn’t make the final cut.
Grzegorz found early screenshots in various magazines (ACE, CU Amiga, Generation 4 (1991 October), Power Play (1991 issue 4), The One (1992 April).)), showing the game before the main protagonist was set in stone. Continue reading
A short entry for a title that was previewed in Generation 4 magazine, issue 19 from 1990 – thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz for the heads up. The game was called AAA for the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. The magazine snippet was brief, but said the following:
“AAA is a fabulous arcade / strategy game, with awe-inspiring graphics and animations. Suffice to say that we will talk to you about it soon! The game will be released on Amiga and ST during 1990.”
Thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz, here are a number of early screens from Alien 3 on the Amiga, featuring an unused picture with the Alien head (which Grzegorz believes was going to be a level loading screen) and a screenshot showing a different score panel arrangement from Amiga Action magazine.
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.
Dizzy and associated characters and images are © The Oliver Twins and Codemasters. “Dizzy” is a trademark of Codemasters. (c) 1986 – 2020.
Within the book is an in-depth and detailed 12 page story of the Dizzy Returns project, and what should have been Dizzy’s triumphant return for both new and audiences back in 2013, but was just not to be. We talk to creators Andrew and Philip Oliver and artists Duncan (Dunk) Nimmo and Nick Myles about their vision for the game and the failed Kickstarter which prevented the game from being fully started.
Thanks to Niklas Lindholm, we learn of yet another lost football management game, this time with a game in the Ultimate Soccer Manager series, with the 2000 edition. Niklas has produced a brilliant video about the series, where he also talks about the cancelled edition here:
Trouble had started when some of the old team decided to leave Impressions due to various reasons undisclosed, and the code was too messy/complicated for the new crew to be able to pick up and resume in an effective way. They decided to restart development, and had a promising and playable alpha coming together after a short space of time.
The problem was (according to an unnamed developer on the project), Sierra were incredibly impatient, and were frustrated at the delays caused. They wanted the game for a Christmas 2000 release, and were not willing to give the team more time beyond that. The friction caused by this saw productivity fall as morale dropped. When it was realised that the Christmas 2000 deadline would not be met, Sierra decided to cancel the game.
At present, all that remains are a series of adverts and screenshots – but it is hoped that something of the cancelled development will surface in the future. Maybe one of the developers still has something tucked away that they could share. For now, check out a few additional items provided by Niklas from his research.
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 14 page story about various conversions of Putty Squad across almost 20 years that never quite made it, including of course the famous Amiga 1200 edition. We discuss the various developments with Phil Thornton (Putty Squad designer), Andy Roberts (PS2, CGB project leader), Jon Wells (CGB developer), Galahad (A1200 version saviour), John Twiddy (A1200 developer + other various conversions), Michael Smith (CGB artist) and Nick Lee (A1200, Mega Drive and PS2 artist).
Virocop is an often overlooked classic Amiga game by Graftgold that was released in 1995, a spiritual sequel of sorts to the likes of Quazatron and Magnetron that you may have missed. If you did, then check it out!
Thanks to contributor Grzegorz Antosiewicz, we are able to show a series of early screenshots during its time in development that show different features and assets which didn’t make the final game.
This is a smaller piece intended for inclusion in The Games That Weren’t book that didn’t make the final cut. Within the book is an in-depth and detailed 18 page story about the unreleased Carmageddon TV (CTV from this point on) by Visual Science. Often it has been stated that CTV was due for release on the Gizmondo hand-held, but this wasn’t the case at all. In fact, it was a conversion of the original PC classic.
We had planned to tell the story of the Gizmondo conversion in the book, but had to cut the piece due to space. As part of our Bonus material series, here is the full raw article for your enjoyment, where we speak to the Stainless Games team – Patrick Buckland, Ian Moody, Steven Haggerty, Neil (Nobby) Barnden, Kev Martin and Will McCourt. Special thanks to Justin Castle for allowing us to use his screenshots from the demo.
Please note that it hasn’t been professionally proof read compared to the published pieces in the book. Apologies for any errors, which we will be happy to fix over time.
Although Visual Science’s Carmageddon TV development had been faltering and eventually saw a professional relationship destroyed, elsewhere another was about to be repaired after half a decade towards mid-2005, when opportunity arose to develop for the new upcoming and exciting Gizmondo handheld. However, this was not the CTV conversion as often reported over the years online.
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 18 page story about the unreleased Carmageddon TV (CTV from this point on) by Visual Science. We talk to creative director (and later temporary project manager) Ken Fee, lead developer Grant Clarke, design leader Pat McGovern, lead vehicle artist Iain Anderson, level designer Jim Thompson, lead front-end (UX/UI) designer Mark Traynor, main physics programmer David Guthrie and freelance vehicle artist Paul Walker.
Many of you may recall playing Fire and Forget 2 by Titus back in the day, although it was sadly a fairly “forgettable” game on the C64 at least from the author’s point of view.
Something which I had never noticed, and was brought to my attention by Karl Kuras, is that the adverts state that the game was based on the arcade game by Titus – complete with an actual photo of the cabinet too.
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Games That Weren't® is the registered trademark of Frank Gasking.
