Mindhack is a cancelled Massive Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter developed by Mindware Studios around 2001-2002, exclusively for PC.
No information about Mindhack’s background are available at the moment. By looking at the few artworks and screenshots of the game, we can tell that it was set in a futuristic science fiction universe. The game was revealed in March 2002 with a short explanation of its concept on a dedicated website:
“Mindhack is an Online Action Game which combines popular and proven elements of first person action games with the principles of mass online games (massive socializing support, persistent character, etc.). The system of game rules is relatively straight forward while providing a great number of game types and many different ways players can enjoy the game.
Mindhack is not intended solely for hardcore players but also for mass-market players preferring the action genre. Players will be attracted by familiar action principles combined with many socializing elements which will allow them to interact with other players in ways not seen today in games of this type.”
Using a proprietary engine called MENG, it seems the game was showed at the Game Developers Conference 2002 in order to sign with a publisher, apparently without success, before falling into obscurity for a few years.
In 2006, following the future release of Mac and Linux versions of their first game, Cold War, Phoronix was able to interview programmer Patrik Rak. Mindhack was briefly mentionned about its cancellation:
“(…) The goal at that time was to develop a FPS based MMO game, but several month later we have concluded that the MMO market became so crowded that all but the best backed up of these project are necessarily going to bite the dust. So we quickly steered to more conventional waters of the third-person single player world, before any serious harm was done.”
According to former CEO Karel Papik, the technology primarly developed for Mindhack would later served as a basis for Cold War.
Mindhack wasn’t the only cancelled game from Mindware Studios. In 2006, the company had to axe Voodoo Nights and Unknown Heroes, both due to a lack of publishers interested in the projects.
If you know someone who worked on Mindhack and could help us preserve more screenshots, footage or details, please let us know!
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