Gothic is an action RPG developed by Piranha Bytes and released in 2001 for PC. As we can read on Wikipedia, the team worked more than 4 years on the development of Gothic’s technology and some screenshots from an early beta version with much more blocky polygon models and fewer details were found by derboo in Power Play magazine issues 5 & 9 / 1998 and issue 5 / 1999. Check the gallery below to see the beta screens and compare them to the video from the final version! Also, LOTS of info and screens can be found in this topic @ World of Gothic.
Grease & Grudge (also known as Road Race) is a tech demo for a new racing game that was developed for the Panasonic 3DO, but they never released a title like that for the console. It is possible that this tech demo evolved somehow into Need for Speed, but for now it’s just a speculation. If you have more info about this demo, please let us know! Scans from Edge magazine 1 and 3.
Thanks to Pcloadletter and Celine for the contributions!
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a FPS developed by the Ukrainian developer GSC Game World, published for PC in 2007. As we can read in Wikipedia, the game was first announced in November 2001 as “S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Oblivion Lost” and had its release date, originally in 2003, pushed back several times. Meanwhile hundreds of screenshots of the game had been released, as well as a dozen preview video clips, due to years of delays some considered S.T.A.L.K.E.R. to be vaporware.
In late December 2003, a pre-alpha build of the game was leaked to peer-to-peer file sharing networks. This build, marked as version 1096, inadvertently acted as a fully-functional tech demo of S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’s engine, despite its lack of NPC enemies and fauna.
At the end of February 2009, due to popular demand GSC Game World released “xrCore” beta build 1935, dated October 18, 2004. It uses a completely different physics engine with many cut monsters, levels, and vehicles. It was also significantly larger than the retail release. It is however somewhat unstable, but features the full game along with a “fully functional ALife system”. It is currently available for free download from the GSC servers and mirrors. Also, oldest leaked builds of the game can be found in here.
Below you can see many videos from STALKER’s prototypes, alpha and betas. More videos and links can be found in the STALKER beta topic in our U64 Forum. Thanks to Megalol for the contribution!
Lucifer (aka Farralin) is a cancelled a Action RPG with a gameplay similar to Diablo, that was in development in 1998 by Eclipse Entertainment as a collaboration with Electronic Arts Canada. The game was being prototyped in the Genesis 3D engine and the design called for randomly-generated dungeons featuring mini-bosses, permutation driven monsters, a deep item reward system and networked multiplay. Lucifer featured an ambitious design and state of the art (for the time) graphics, that could have made it to rival to games like Diablo II and Dungeon Siege.
Eclipse Entertainment created a small demo in a couple of weeks and EA was really impressed by their work, but ultimately the studio and the publisher were unable to come to deal terms that were mutually agreeable, so the game never moved beyond an early protoype and pre-production phase. After releasing a couple of golf games (Jack Nicklaus 5 and 6) Eclipse Entertainment was closed down and Lucifer vanished forever with them.
Thanks a lot to Tim Fields and Bob Cooksey for the help in preserving more info and concept arts from their lost project!
Thanks to derboo for the scans (Power Play magazine 6/1998).
Assault Korps is a RTS that was in development in 1997 / 1998 by Corrosive for the Playstation and PC, but it seems that the game was cancelled as we cannot find any info about its existence, apart from an early preview that was published in Edge magazine issue #53. Assault Korps was going to play as a tradional real time strategy game, but it was inspired by TV-series like the A-Team and ’50 war films.
Players were able to control a squad of commandos drafted in to counter the activities of a coalition of evil dictators, known as “the Kern”. At least 18 single player missions and a multiplayer mode were planned. As in GTA, it was possible to get into any vehicle found in the levels, as cop cars, tanks and many more.
If you have some more info on this project or its development team, please let us know!
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