Primal 2 [PS2 – Cancelled]

Primal 2 [PS2 – Cancelled]

Primal was a PS2 game developed by SCEE Cambridge. Despite a prominent advertising campaign, it went largely unnoticed upon release, failing commercially. However, development on a sequel had already began shortly after the first game launched. As early preliminary work was underway, Sony acquired the license to develop an offical tie-in game for the TV show, 24. The development of Primal 2 was thus cancelled in favour of doing that game, as stated by Paul Donovan:

Any hints that there might be a Primal sequel in the pipeline? Pleeeease! :)
Sorry, afraid not. We were playing around with ideas for a Primal 2 and did some prototypes of some new features but then we got the 24 license so we did that instead :-) – Paul Donovan, Senior Programmer, SCEE Cambridge

In 2012, the game was re-released as a PS2 classic for PS3. This is when Chris Sorrell, creative director of Primal, wrote an article on the official PS blog where he and the concept artist of the game, Mark Gibbons, revealed some bits and pieces of the possible plots that were considered for the sequel:

Mark Gibbons – Lead Artist, Primal:
Once the game was completed, preliminary work on a sequel was begun that featured Jen’s lover Lewis as the central character. Primal II would’ve told the story of his journey through Oblivion’s Hell, back to Mortalis, the real world.

Chris Sorrell on February 28th, 2012 at 10:39 am said:

[and finally] – If there were to be a Primal 2 it should feature Jen. …Well I do agree with that one. Further to the comments by Mark, yes we did explore a Primal 2 with Lewis as a lead character. We also explored another take that had Jen as lead and centred on the notion that the demons of Oblivion had found a way through into our world. That one had some cool imagery that I recall – Jen in a flowing leather coat riding a spike-wheeled moto-X bike, Prince Jared driving to Jen’s rescue in an ice-cream truck (garbled music blaring) and sub-way tunnels teeming with spider-like Wraith mutants. Ah, if only..

In addition, Mark Gibbons once published some of the concept art he made for this sequel via his old portfolio. His website is no longer online, but part of the concept artwork was retrieved and posted by fans after the original site went offline.

Thanks to Erameris for the contribution!

Images:


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5 thoughts on “Primal 2 [PS2 – Cancelled]

  1. Ross Sillifant

    I’ve tried getting into Primal numerous times and it, like other Sony games of that era (The Getaway, Ghost Hunter etc) whilst the production values and use of the PS2 hardware is fantastic, gameplay sadly never seemed to grab me at all :-(

    Not overly surprised to hear it bombed at retail either.

    Hats off to Sony for trying something new, but i and others perhaps would have taken to a PS2 incarnation of Medievil, G-Police or Colony Wars….

  2. Kaiden Clement

    Primal 2 was in development as a concept for PS2 by Cambridge (as Paul said on Playstation Blog) but when the studio got the license to 24, we moved to that. (Yes, I am a former employee of SCEC). We did however actually start development of Primal 2 up again around November (December?) of 2011 under the working codename of “Demon Huntress” (To throw any potential leaks off). Unfortunately, Sony laid off a ton of our staff (Including Me) in January 2013 and Primal 2 was cancelled. It was being developed as a PS4 launch title and when cancelled it was actually I would estimate 80% completed. We were actually in talks with Hudson Leick and she was set to return and voice Jen. Its a shame this didn’t happen, because I believe it really would have been a hit. It was open world, it was a revival of a cult favorite, and it had online multiplayer. What could have gone wrong? Its ridiculous, they cancelled the game during the lay offs and restructure, and instead our side project, Killzone Mercenary, was released instead. Now they are developing some awful looking VR game. What a crock.

    1. monokoma Post author

      Thanks a LOT Kaiden, it’s really an interesting info :O I hope that one day we could be able to preserve some images or videos from that lost version of Primal 2, it would have been great :(

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