Beta + Cancelled FPS Video Games - Page 3 of 68

They Hunger: Lost Souls is a canceled horror First-Person Shooter developed by Black Widow Games, exclusively for PC, from 2004 to 2008. It is a successor of They Hunger, a mod based on Half-Life.

They Hunger: Lost Souls was officially revealed in October 2005 by its developer:

Black Widow Games announced today the development of They Hunger: Lost Souls, its first commercial PC game powered by the award-winning Half-Life 2 Source engine from Valve Software. Based upon the highly popular They Hunger mod series, the upcoming title features a completely new horror-survival adventure. In North-Eastern Europe during the early 1960’s, strange anomalies culminate with dead corpses rising from their graves. As a tourist recovering from a tragic accident, you seek shelter in an ancient monastery overrun by bloodthirsty zombies, and become involved in an escalading cascade of calamities.
“They Hunger: Lost Souls is a first-person action game planned to take full advantage of the superior graphics, physics and new gameplay possibilities provided by the new Source technology,” said designer Neil Manke. “Without the previous technical restrictions of the now seven years old Half-Life 1 engine, we have been able to produce a brand new game far more exciting and creative than any simple sequel or remake could ever be. Fans of the original series should still recognize the basic gameplay style, although this is an independent story with no previous knowledge required.”
The new game is currently 75% complete after being secretly produced for almost a year, and a release date will be announced shortly. Regarding the adoption of a commercial model for this production, Neil explained “Next generation game engines are so complex and detailed that we would never be able to invest so much time and resources for such an ambitious project any other way. Right now we are still working out the pricing and distribution options, but our goal is a low cost alternative so it can be available for just a fraction of other commercial games.”

In the same month, Neil Manke, alongside Einar Saukas, were interviewed by Gamecloud:

Gamecloud – Why did you wish to use the Source engine from Half-Life 2 as the basis for your first game?
Neil Manke – Source is the only brush-based modern 3D game engine. In practice, it means a level designer can create interesting environments using mostly brushes, and later add special models to improve specific details. Working with brushes gives me much more flexibility and opportunity to improvise with my creativity. In comparison, most other state-of-the-art engines depend upon the rather slow and involved process of developing very specific models for every stage of architecture.
Gamecloud – What can you tell us about the back story for They Hunger: Lost Souls and how it relates to the previous They Hunger games?
Neil Manke – In the story, you are a tourist visiting North-Eastern Europe during the early 1960’s. After a dramatic, blood-curdling accident, you find yourself wandering alone in the wilderness and seek shelter in an ancient monastery. However, you soon realize things in this place of “sanctuary” are not what they should be. You then become involved in a desperate series of bone-chilling struggles to preserve your own life, and escape from this nightmarish experience.
Gamecloud – Where will the new game take place and what will the levels be like?
Neil Manke – Some of those locations have already been partially revealed in our first promotional images. Settings include: a huge ancient monastery complex comprised of many varied buildings, some clinging precariously to seaside cliffs, a zombie-infested salvage operation, an isolated farming settlement, wilderness areas with meandering river beds, lakes and waterfalls, fog shrouded swamps, and others. And there is still more to come.
Gamecloud – What new weapons can we expect to see in They Hunger: Lost Souls?
Einar Saukas – The weapons are similar to those in classic They Hunger, in the sense that they are a selection of era-relevant weapons, explosives and incendiaries. With the addition of a unique and innovative new weapon, the likes of which I can’t reveal to you, otherwise we will have to eliminate you and end this interview!
Gamecloud – What other new gameplay features will They Hunger: Lost Souls have?
Einar Saukas – There are many new gameplay features but obviously we can’t reveal much about them. For now I can only give you one example: One of the favorite features from the classic series was driving an old steam locomotive and flattening zombies with it. However, smarter zombies refuse to be such sitting ducks, so instead we decided to take advantage of realistic vehicle physics (provided by the Source engine) and give you a powerful tractor, that you can drive freely to chase the zombies down before running over them.
Gamecloud – Will this new game be episodic in nature like the previous They Hunger games?
Neil Manke – It is actually a fully independent game. However, we do have it planned as being the first game in a series. We already have a basic story outline for the sequels depending upon the reception of the first. Each game in the series is a complete story within itself, and each with an exciting and satisfying ending.

The game went into alpha in April 2006:

They Hunger: Lost Souls has now entered alpha stage. All level development is finished and refined. We are now focusing on final resources and content, which basically means integrating scripting, dialogues, additional models and animations.

However, in the following months, updates by Black Widow Games were pretty scarces. In October 2006, Saukas shared a little update about the development and told that various game models and animations were redesigned:

The game is now very close to release. From our previous screenshots, you can see the biggest issue we had was the lack of proper zombies. We were using “placeholder” models as temporary replacements for zombies during most of the development process, so we could continue working on other areas while we didn’t have enough people to model and animate new zombies. But in the last few months we were able to focus on the game pending issues, especially additional models and animations.
Our work is concentrated now on game improvements overall. There isn’t much left to do, but the game still needs lots of small details and tweaks that are very time consuming. We understand our fans are anxious to play it, but after about 2 years of development, it doesn’t make sense to rush its release now and sacrifice quality, when the game is so close to be finished. We still don’t have an official release date, but we can say it will be “very soon”.

In April 2007, an interview from Planet Half-Life clarified things a bit more:

Planet Half-Life: Ok, then … so what’s really going on?
Black Widow Games: Although we have never announced an official release date for They Hunger: Lost Souls (TH:LS), the truth is that our internal schedule had originally planned its release for end of 2006, but then we decided to delay it to implement further improvements.
It’s important to understand there’s a key difference between the original They Hunger, produced as a mod, and this new commercial game. A successful mod needs to be imaginative, very entertaining and have a good quality overall, but nobody expects a free mod to be flawless. In comparison, when someone buys a commercial game, the expectations are much higher. Players demand it to be polished in nearly every detail, and game developers have an obligation to provide this since they are getting paid to do so.
Planet Half-Life: The gaming landscape has changed, as it usually does, quite considerably in the time since we last spoke. Being big fans ourselves of zombie-themed games, our ears naturally pricked up when late last year Turtle Rock Studios announced the development of their new game, Left 4 Dead. Do you feel that you will be in direct competition with them, and what do you feel will set your game apart from theirs?
Black Widow Games: We are actually glad to have Left 4 Dead arriving around the same time as Lost Souls, because these two major titles based on the same zombie survival theme will probably attract much more attention together than each individual release.
As a matter of fact, the zombie genre is about all these titles have in common. L4D is a fast paced, adrenaline driven, pure action game focused on cooperation, where players have to always stick together to protect each other. If a player runs low on ammo, gets lost from his friends and surrounded by zombies, it’s game over for him… but that’s when Lost Souls begins.
Just like the original They Hunger series, Lost Souls is a horror game, where the player is expected to feel lonely, defenseless, and completely surrounded by zombies. Of course there’s also plenty of zombie killing as the player gradually finds out how to defend himself, but this is just part of the gameplay along with exploration, puzzle solving and story telling.
With L4D and Lost Souls based on opposite premises, there’s no possible comparison between these titles.
Planet Half-Life: Do you expect Lost Souls series to have more than three installments, or will this be a trilogy?
Black Widow Games: Lost Souls is the first chronicle and it’s composed of two episodes. The initial episode works as a “prelude” to the entire series, introducing all the story elements, a wide range of weapons, some of the key characters and all kinds of zombies. It has the player looking for shelter at an ancient monastery, where he can gradually learn basic zombie survival principles and the subtle art of killing the dead, all the while discovering some of the mystery about their origins. The following episode will introduce less conventional weapons and focus on exploring the surrounding areas, as well as revisiting the monastery.
The prelude episode will be released this year, and the next one just a few months later. In fact, we have already produced most of the second episode, but since there was too much content to be beta-tested and improved, we decided to focus our efforts to finish the initial episode earlier and release it in advance, instead of holding the game release until the entire chronicle was ready.

After that, unfortunately, everything went silent for Black Widow Games and They Hunger: Lost Souls. The game was mentionned on two issues from PC Gamer, the first one in August 2007, and the second one, a two pages preview, in March 2008. This was the latest news regarding the game before totally vanishing for an entire decade.

The rest of the story is a little weirder. In January 2015, a thread dedicated to the game on the Mapcore forum revealed some messages from one of the ex-developers, Teddy Bergsman Lind, on the project:

I was part of the team for a few years up until 2007/2008. At that time the game was about 60% finished, with 5-6 segments more or less done (the levels were huge). It should be stated Neil truly did a great job on the levels. I should still have the game anno 2008 on an old computer in a storage somewhere.
Everyone on the team, Neil and Einar included, pitched in in their spare time, and given the AAA scope of the project it was likely tricky business to sustain. Einar used to dream about starting up an actual dev studio to produce the game, and should there have been financial means I think it would have happened. Had Kickstarter been a thing back then, who knows. Our conversations eventually faded sometime in 2009; at that time to my knowledge the project was still alive, but I doubt it still is, at least as a commercial product.
I spoke with Einar for a while last night; he and Neil lost contact with each other years ago and have not been able to get back in touch since. There were some speculation Neil has been in bad health for a while. However, a few months ago Neil tried contacting Einar again. They weren’t able to get back in touch afterwards, so that’s the latest info there is. As far as project status goes though, it’s not cancelled. I think both of them are keen on getting back on track even after all these years.

In May 2019, builds coming from alpha and beta versions were leaked on ModDB.

To date, nothing has ever really been revealed about what happened during the development of They Hunger: Lost Souls. Through the various developer interviews, we can understand that Black Widow Games wanted to be perfect in the design of its first commercial game. Were the rumors that circulated about Neil Manke’s health true? Out of respect for Neil, Einar, and the rest of the Black Widow Games team, it’s perhaps best not wanting to know about it, and be grateful to have gotten, years later, the playable builds of They Hunger: Lost Souls, in order to appreciate their work.

Videos:

Full playthrough of the 2006 alpha:

Full Playthrough of the 2008 alpha:

Images before the redesign:

Images after the redesign:

Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Zombies: The Awakening (Krysalide) [PC/XBOX/PS2 – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

22-12-2022

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Zombies: The Awakening is a canceled survival-horror first-person shooter developed by Krysalide for the PC, Playstation 2 and Xbox around 2003-2004 for a release planned in the beginning of 2005.

Using the Unreal Engine 2, Zombies: The Awakening was the first game from a small team composed of 15 people. Few is known about the game itself apart from the official announcement on the old website that we can now find everywhere on the Internet:

“Mix of FPS and survival/horror. Balance between action and adventure to offer a varied experience to the player.
Interactive use of the surroundings in order to survive in the besieged town : find objects to block paths, use electricity or gaz to forge a path to freedom. Find food and medication to save your skin and that of other survivors.
Beware the contamination… zombies attacks will slowly turn you into one of them… See your body changing, becoming slow and clumsy, but also more resistant to bullets and other attacks. But will you find a cure in time ? Find medikits, ingredients to a serum and use the sickness to your advantage.
Find other survivors. Each will bring new skills in medication, combat, electronics… and each one will have a different personnality and weaponry.
When ammo is sparse, use other mayhem devices : electric drill, molotov cocktail, and many more…

Half of the city is plunged in darkness. If you want to avoid surprises, find reliable light sources.

20 hours of intense gameplay, 11 levels to test your survival instincts, 20 weapons and 12 sidekicks.
Various and dangerous enemies, with different behaviors and intelligence. Hordes of living dead, squad based military, zombies, and bikers from hell ready to plunder town…”

On December 2003, a developer from Krysalide was interviewed by Ownt and shared more about the game:

“Zombies is a first-person shooter created to replicate the vibe of Resident Evil while offering the freedom of movement of a first-person game. Krysalide hopes to avoid the heavyweight competition of FPS by standing out for the gameplay peculiar to any good survival horror game.
The game will last about 15 hours and will be a series of missions and puzzles placed on a linear frame. Each mission will allow you to meet a new secondary character with his own weapon and special skills.
The project is ambitious, especially since it is planned to integrate into the game a substantial multiplayer part that the developer of Krysalide compares to Counter Strike with zombies in the center and on each side of the character classes (bikers, soldiers, police officers, survivors).”

However, after some gameplay was revealed initially on February 2004, the game vanished before French website NoFrag was informed from the CEO of Krysalide himself, Loïc Barrier, that it was definitely canceled due to lack of publishers interested in the project:

It’s been a year since we last talked about Zombies: The Awakening, and for a good reason: today I had confirmation from Loïc Barrier, the boss of Krysalide, that the game will never be released. It was canceled, apparently a while ago, when Krysalide realized that no publisher would accept the project as the developer had designed it.

We can speculate that it was too ambitious for a first game from a small team of 15 people that had never made before their own game.

After the cancellation of Zombies: The Awakening, Krysalide would still work as an outsource company on various projects made by French developers such as The Crew and Dishonored 2 before disappearing.

Article by Daniel Nicaise

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Microsoft, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Terra: Formations (Starcave Entertainment) [X360/PS3/PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

21-12-2022

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Terra: Formations is a canceled first-person shooter with real-time strategy elements developed by Cellien Studios, a two men team subdivision of game company Star Cave Studios, for PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 systems, from 2004 to 2017.

The game was first revealed in the beginning of 2005 by Cellien as a multiplayer FPS using the Torque Engine:

“We at Cellien Studios are developing a game on the Torque game Engine from www.garagegames.com. Terra: Formations is a Sci-Fi FPS game that will be played online much like Unreal Tournament style. The project website is www.terrathegame.com and our studio website is www.cellienstudios.com. So far our studio only consists of two people but for a two man team and only 5 months of development I feel confident that we will be able to release a demo in the coming months so keep an eye out.”

After a year of silence, Gamesindustry announced Terra: Formations, now headed by Star Cave Studios:

“Irish Star Cave Studios Limited proudly announces the development of its first “AAA” title and first multiplatform game, Terra: Formations! In Terra: Formations, players have the freedom to select their preferred style of game play, ranging from high action First Person Shooter (FPS) to more strategic Real-Time Strategy (RTS) in a ranking system set up much like a Role-Playing Game (RPG)! It’s the clash of the titans when it comes to game genres; FPS, RTS and RPG – all tied together in this awesome looking fast-paced, action packed, futuristic Massive Multimedia Online Game (MMOG), also featuring single-player options and adventure elements!
By the year 2157, mankind had depleted the resources of planet earth with his lust for power, technological advancements and greed. Ironically, the very machines that played a role in mankind’s irrevocable position were the only chance of survival! After several years of uncertainty, hope was reborn with the efforts of the Global Military Alliance to Terraform one of earth’s celestial neighbours, Jupiter’s moon called “Europa”. It wasn’t until the excavation of the satellite’s icy crust that mankind learned the truth; he was not alone and something, somewhere, was waiting, watching, learning and preparing for battle!
As a player in Terra: Formations, you join the ranks of an elite military force with the objective of reshaping the environments of inhospitable worlds, experience the evolution of a developing planet, and take command to become humanities only hope for survival in an epic struggle for control of the solar system.
Four classes of characters offer different insight to the chaotic world, each providing a unique blend of interaction. The Soldier faction allows for adrenaline pumping action that players have come to expect from traditional FPS games. As a member of the Engineer class, the player becomes the key element in the development of the environment by constructing and repairing mankind’s lifeline to the world. The Researcher class explores the evolution of the world to enhance society’s tools and develop new technology, and finally the player can opt to take command of the action from the perspective of the Commander class to bring order to an uncertain future, tying RTS elements into Terra: Formations.
Star Cave Studios Limited is a privately owned game development studio based in Ireland, and the cream of Irish developers! Founded in June 2004 by industry veteran Keith Killilea, CEO, its focus is to create state-of-the-art computer games targeted not only at the PC platform, but also the next generation gaming consoles! During the course of 2005, Star Cave Studios Limited acquired Cellien Studios, based in Austin Texas, and Single Cell Games, based in Australia, and has now become the leader of Irish game development!”

After that announce, however, the game was put on-hold indefinitely, before surprisingly coming back from the dead in September 2012 on platforms such as Steam Greenlight and Indiegogo, using this time the Unreal Engine 3:

“In Terra: Formations, players have the freedom to select their preferred style of game play, ranging from intense action First-Person Shooter to more strategic RTS planning in an online multi-player universe.”
The key concepts of Terra can be summarized by the conflicting species, player classes, life forms, technology, locations, and gameplay that are designed to make a genre hybrid, player driven world possible.”
Terra: Formations main features:
Rich, highly detailed, atmospheric and wonderful alien enviroments
Changing environments reflecting your terraforming progress, becoming more habitable and supportive of your species requirements. Tug of War gameplay.
Permanent changes in environments – terraforming levels will remember your changes.
Groundbreaking genre crossing gameplay, combining First Person Shooter with Real-Time Strategy.
Highly detailed player characters, with customizable appearances
RTS online gameplay where you give real players control commands.
Advanced AI Droids for FPS defending & RTS resource play.
4 distinct classes of characters; Soldier (FPS), Commander (RTS), Builder (FPS+RTS), and Medic (FPS).
Hi Tech Weaponry & Several Ground / Air Vehicles
Commander Special Attacks such as air-strikes, cloaking, superweapons.
Aliens have the ability to turn Humans by infestation into fellow Aliens.
Global online points & stats system.
Open Mod System allowing map makers to create new worlds.
“The game was announced back in 2006 for all major platforms from PC to Consoles and the screenshots you see in the Gallery tab at the top of this page is the playable demo from back then! We spared no expense to create “AAA” class graphics, code, game-play and pulled all-nighters with barely no lives at all. To develop the whole game we needed a publisher and in the end Terra needed to be put on hold – until now!“

On the Indiegogo page, we could read further details on the company and some ideas behind that game:

“Based on our funding target, we would expect to nail the deadline for Beta Release in late 2013. We know exactly what we are doing, and as Terra has been many years in the making, we are confident in our deadlines! We will keep you in the loop with our development at all times, and give you a look into the process and progress we are making.”
“Example of how amazing Terra will be, your playing on the multi-player level and the world around not just changes due to the terra-forming but stays changed even when you return later to it! We want to bring you an experience of game-play not done before and a dynamic living world you would expect to be on.”

Unfortunately, the crowdfunding campaign wasn’t a success, the game only collected 75$ on a fixed goal of 175,000. After this failed campaign, Terra: Formations disappeared again, but attended a third comeback, this time in the beginning of 2014. Rebranded as T.E.R.R.A. and using Unity as new engine, the project was slightly different about what was initially planned from it’s former form and was, once again, put on Steam Greenlight:

“We are an small team of 4 so far working on this title but if we are funded we can bring in extra help from our peers to bring the game to an completion stage. For the past few years the game evolved from it’s concept of different demo versions towards today, believe me we have had plenty of time to do trial & error on blending the genre’s! We ended up with the finish concept after all of this to what it is now, so much had changed we changed the name to the current form to represent this.”

The developers managed to release it in Early Access around Spring 2016, but in April 2017, as we could read on the comments section, Starcave decided to rebuild the game to it’s core in order to get significant improvements:

“There was a break in the development, where we were reviewing everything of the Early Access release build and have decided to rebuild the core to make better improvements for between EA to Full release to be as smooth as possible. More updates will appear as soon.”

It will never materialize and, since then, Starcave disappeared from the picture alongside T.E.R.R.A. which isn’t playable anymore.

Article by Daniel Nicaise

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Microsoft, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Moscow Rhapsody (Illusion Softworks) [X360/PS3 – Cancelled]

monokoma

21-12-2022

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Moscow Rhapsody is a canceled First-Person Shooter published by D3 Publisher and developed by Illusion Softworks, between 2006 and 2008, for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles.

For several years, little information was available regarding Moscow Rhapsody, until August 2019, when the Czech website Visiongame.cz interviewed Marek Rabas, who was lead programmer on the game, in order to learn more about its concept and the origin of its cancellation:

VG: So you mentioned that you left after the unannounced Illusion Softworks project was canceled. We have it in the archive, it’s Moscow Rhapsody. Could you tell us more about this game? Apart from a few pictures, not much can be found about it. So was it’s cancellation a reason for you to leave?
Marek Rabas: “Moscow Rhapsody was a First-Person Shooter that had some interesting inspirations. The first was Rainbow Six : Vegas, which combined 1st person and 3rd person cameras. So it was the FPS where you used the covers, and when you were in the cover, the camera just switched to 3rd person. The story took place in Russia and was inspired by the book Icon, which dealt with the coup. When some people go crazy and shoot the president, creating total chaos in the country. The player then had to move in this situation and try to solve it. It had a very interesting concept. I think that the game had hope of success and we worked on it for two years, helping to make the engine on which Mafia runs. Unfortunately Moscow Rhapsody was made for publisher D3 and not for 2K Games. So when 2K bought us, they canceled the project and moved people out of it to complete Mafia II. So it was an impulse for us to leave. They took our project and the relationship between the Mafia II team and the Moscow Rhapsody team was not entirely good.”

After the release of Mafia II, Illusion Softworks (then renamed 2K Czech) was merged with another internal studio at 2K Games, Hangar 13, to continue developing other games based on the Mafia license.

Article updated by Daniel Nicaise

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Microsoft, PC / MAC, Xbox

Dreadnoughts (Xenopi Studios) [PC/XBOX – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

19-12-2022

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Dreadnoughts is a canceled cooperative multiplayer First-Person Shooter developed by Xenopi Studios from 2000 to 2002, for the PC and potentially Xbox platforms.

The game was revealed in February 2001 on the official website of Xenopi as a game mainly designed for cooperation of players in multiplayer mode:

“Dreadnoughts is an exciting new first-person action game set in the distant future which pits different competitive factions against each other in a battle to determine dominance over whole planets. Designed from the start to focus on cooperative multiplayer gaming, Dreadnoughts is the first game to seamlessly combine the adrenaline and excitement of first-person shooters with the strategy and tactical finesse of capital ship combat.
Instead of trying to duke it out single-handedly with every other player, the player is a crew member of a gigantic fighting ship known as a Dreadnought. Crew members must work together to survive battles with competing Dreadnoughts. These battles can have simple objectives such as “Destroy the enemy Dreadnought” or complex and detailed missions with multi-task objectives such as “Gauntlet Run”, “Domination”, and “Capture & Escape”.
Because Dreadnoughts gives the player a choice of character roles, players can play the way they want. Take to the fields as a skilled combat warrior, or build up defenses and repair damage as an engineer. Wreak havoc on the opposing team as an assassin or lay waste to enemy fortifications with the incredible firepower of the Siege Warrior. Play as a scout and use your speed and agility to recon the enemy while the sniper picks off guards from afar.
If you’re more the strategist, then take your place at the Command Bridge and enjoy the awesome firepower of a fully armed Dreadnought at your command! These “Flying Fortresses” are armed with heavy cannons, anti-grav drives, ion shields, and the ability to take enormous punishment. All of this action takes place both indoors and outdoors in a world with unending terrain and huge complex interiors.”

On july of the same year, Homelan Fed managed to get an interview with three Xenopi’s developers:

HF: What games influenced the development of the game design and why?
D. S. – “Obviously, the major first person shooters out there like Quake and Unreal Tournament influence us, along with the team based games like Tribes, Team Fortress, and Counter Strike. Along with those influences, the ship concept part is based somewhat on that old Genesis game Herzog Zwei. In that game, you had powerful ships that functioned as your main base of operations while your units tried to take over smaller bases to gain more power. We thought that dynamic could be adapted well to a team based first person shooter. I also liked the idea of two ships getting in firefights with people manning turrets against an enemy ship and trying to board it, and I’m sure I got inspiration for that from Skies of Arcadia.”
HF: What is the story premise behind Dreadnoughts?
J.B. – “It’s very sci-fi…it takes place in a galaxy that had previously been unexplored by our three warring species (the human “Terrans”, the insectoid aliens called “V’reen” and the self-replicating machines known simply as “The Droids”).
The backstory is this…numerous unknown signals were being picked up as the war grew closer to this uncharted galaxy. It turns out that the signals eminated from numerous planets within this galaxy. Further exploration uncovered the remains of an ancient alien civilization that had found a way to draw energy from the surrounding planets through a large number of, what are now referred to as, “outposts” that seem to be this alien civilization’s equivalent of oil drilling platforms or solar farms. So now, a few years after the discovery of this civilization and the power contained within these outposts, the different species have begun to tap into this new power and have derived technologies and weaponry that use this seemingly inexhaustable resource. These numerous outposts and the power they represent are the key to victory for the different species. Whoever can establish control over this galaxy will hold a power without equal and will be able to ensure their victory.
The plan now is to take control of the galaxy planet by planet with your team and Dreadnought at your disposal. Although the looming question is…what happened to this alien civilization? How could a species that held what appears to be unequaled power disappear? What caused their demise? Or Who?”
HF: How does the class-based design for the game work?
J.B. – “As mentioned, the different classes of characters provide roles for the team. All have completely unique abilities and will have class-specific weapons available to them. However, our goal is to make each class unique beyond just the weapons they can carry. Currently, we have 7 classes which include a Commander, Combat Warrior, Siege Warrior, Sniper, Assassin, Ranger, and Technician. The Commander’s main role is leading the team and piloting the Dreadnought. This role is vastly different than the others. The Commander is much less combat oriented and will be directing the assault from the Dreadnought, managing the systems, directing energy to the 3 major systems (engine speed, shields, and ship weapons). Essentially, you are “Kirk” on the bridge directing the action when you play as the Commander.
The Technician is also very unique. He’s basically designed as a defensive player who will be assisting the Commander in defending the Dreadnought, repairing and building turrets, repairing generators, and assisting the Commander in managing the systems. But the Tech can also mix it up on the battlefield with his weaponry and ability to construct anti-infantry turrets.
The other classes are more similar in that they are combat oriented, but their abilites and strengths still differ greatly. For instance, the Assassin can cloak to “near-invisible’ (a la Predator) and has a melee attack that is an instant kill…and the Siege Warrior is the heaviest armed and armored class, but will be slower and have less of a vertical range with his jetpack.”
HF: How do the dreadnoughts themselves figure into the game?
D. S. – “Your Dreadnought is not only your base, but it’s the most potent weapon in your arsenal. On one hand, you have to protect it and keep the enemy from boarding it and trashing the place, but on the other hand it’s very useful for taking over outposts or for attacking weakened enemy Dreadnoughts. It’s all about figuring out the right time to switch from defending your Dreadnought to attacking with it. Anyway, the whole score of the game is based on how many times you’ve destroyed the enemy team’s Dreadnought before time runs out. So if they destroy your Dreadnought, they get a point, and vice versa.”

In the following months, a FAQ page was also published on the website in order to learn more about the game:

“In the standard game, the players of the game are split into two or more teams. Each team has a large capital ship, or Dreadnought, as their base. Unlike other team FPS games, the bases in this game can be piloted and moved. The goal of each team is to destroy the other Dreadnoughts while protecting their own Dreadnought from destruction. Each time a team destroys a Dreadnought, the team earns a victory point. After a preset time limit, the team with the most victory points wins. Scattered across the game world are several outposts. Each outpost can be captured or recaptured to produce energy for a player’s team. Captured outposts can also be outfitted to attack opposing players or Dreadnoughts that pass by. While the Dreadnought ship is a team’s base and has to be protected, it also possesses great offensive strength. When it is used effectively to help attack enemy outposts or even weakened opposing Dreadnoughts, it can often turn the tide of the game. Players have several classes to choose from and can switch between classes inside Dreadnoughts and outposts during the course of the game. Each class has specific strengths and weaknesses.
The characters will all have jetpacks that allow them to fly for a period of time, similar to Tribes. Using the jetpack will drain energy. Not using it will allow the jetpack to “recharge”. We are currently planning on allowing the lighter classes a broader range than the slower, heavier units.
There is a large holographic map of the game world on the bridge of the ship. The captain uses this map as an interface to define the path he or she wants the ship take. So the piloting interface of the ship is handled more like a Real Time Strategy game. This method is easy and quick, and it will allow the captain to spend his or her time directing the team and not just piloting the ship.
As indicated by their name, Dreadnoughts are heavily armed and protected battleships. There are several different strategies a team can use to destroy another team’s Dreadnought. The simplest way is a direct “Dreadnought-vs.-Dreadnought” battle. While this is the easiest to initiate, it’s also probably the least advantageous. Since Dreadnoughts are pretty much equally armed/armored (at least, at the start of a game), the chances of winning a simple “head-to-head” battle are about 50-50. Another way to destroy the opposing team’s Dreadnought is to send Raiding (boarding) parties over to the other Dreadnought in order to destroy critical systems and THEN bring in your Dreadnought to finish off the crippled enemy Dreadnought. Yet another strategy is to increase your Dreadnought’s energy reserves (by taking over energy-producing ground outposts) thereby increasing your Dreadnought’s firepower and making your Dreadnought “stronger” than the enemy Dreadnought. Players should note that the Engineering station allows the team to adjust energy apportioning for the Dreadnought – you can direct more power to shields for greater protection, or more power to weapons for greater firepower, or more power to engines for greater speed. It’s a system which really is designed to reward strategists as well as tacticians.
Each ship has a baseline energy output that keeps all systems functioning normally. Captured outposts generate energy and beam it directly to your Dreadnought. Acquiring extra energy can increase each system’s output. The team that has captured more energy outposts earlier in the game will have an obvious advantage, but these possessions may change many times during the course of a battle.
Teams can also use captured outposts as a place to repair and reload. They can add automated turrets to fortify the outpost. These turrets can be used to attack passersby and wear down the shields of Dreadnoughts if they fly too close.
There is a standard base soldier class, along with more specialized classes like the sniper, the technician, the ranger, the assassin, and the Siege Warrior (a heavily armed and armored fighter). There is the important Commander class as well. This player is responsible for coordinating attacks and defenses as well as piloting the ship. Of course, the Commander can still personally mix it up with the enemy in hand-to-hand combat if he or she feels the need to.”

Unfortunately, Xenopi became more and more silent afterwards, and it was not until July 2003 that they announced the cancellation of Dreadnoughts, apparently already stopped for a while. We can assume that the project had not interested any potential publisher and that Xenopi was forced to fall back on more economically viable projects, before disappearing completely. Their only game was Pandamonium, a web game released in 2003.

Article by Daniel Nicaise

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