Microsoft

Clown Combat [PS3, Xbox 360 – Cancelled]

Clown Combat is a cancelled parody FPS planned for Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 that was conceived by Eagle Claw Studios around 2002 – 2003, after William Bill Anderson finished working on Maximo Ghost to Glory and opened his new team. The project was quietly announced as being in development and The Playstation 3 Bible even published the title on their “confirmed games for PS3” list, but in the end not much was ever revealed and it was soon forgotten by everyone.

In 2016 during an interview we published in our book “Video Games You Will Never Play” Bill shared some more details on his unseen game:

“Clown Combat is still on my wish list for the future, fingers crossed and I’m still working on the design. The idea behind Clown Combat was to make a mainstream FPS game that was family friendly, where the clown characters were made of morphing plastic and therefore could do things way beyond realistic shooter games of today.  It’s a parody game that pokes fun at a lot of science fiction movies along the way, from Logan’s Run to Star Wars and more. Currently I’m still working on game play designs and level designs for the game and with any luck we’ll get it made still.”

Concept art and models created for the game can be found on Bill’s Clown Combat website, also preserved in the gallery below to remember the existence of this interesting project never released on Xbox 360 and PS3. Maybe one day we’ll be able to play it on PC or next-gen consoles.

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Fairytale Fights 2 [Cancelled – Xbox 360, PS3]

Fairytale Fights 2 is the cancelled sequel to Playlogic’s 2009 fantasy hack & slash. Just like in the first game players would have been able to play as cute fairy tales characters, cutting down colorful enemies and flooding levels with blood. The team created an early prototype for this sequel, but it was soon canned when Playlogic officially went bankrupt in 2010. Some screenshots and footage was later uploaded online by former Playlogic developers, preserved below to remember the existence of this lost project.

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Pumpkin Man [Xbox, PC – Cancelled]

Pumpkin Man is a cancelled third person shooter that was in development by Metro3d and Red-Purple Game Technology, planned to be released on the original Xbox and PC. Players would take the role of a dead guy named Joshua, trying to open the gates of hell to let demons celebrate Halloween on earth.

The game was shown at E3 2003 and some websites such as Psillustrated and Gaming Nexus wrote about it:

“In Pumpkin Man, Halloween is the most important night for the forces of evil where Hell spirits are allowed to use the Crystal Seal and visit Earth for a single day. To Hell’s misfortune, the path to Earth was suddenly sealed with the All Saints Crystal, and the Gates of Hell officially became the path of no return.

It’s up to the Clown, a legendary leader known throughout every corner of Hell, to begin organizing a secret fight to reopen the Gates of Hell on Halloween. Meanwhile, Joshua, a small-town boy is accidentally killed and becomes a peddler in Hell.  Even in his afterlife, he could not forget what a girl once said, “Joshua will definitely become a hero.  I want to be his bride on that day.”  As Joshua ends up accused of revolting against the leadership of Hell and imprisoned in the Slave Ground, the Clown can’t fight alone and Joshua is his only hope!”

“A large emphasis has been placed on the four-player support although there will be an entirely unique experience on the single-player side of things. Currently there are plans to have 40 multiplayer levels, 20 single-player levels, 25 different enemies and 13 different weapons.”

Unfortunately Metro3d filed for bankruptcy in 2004 and Pumpkin Man was canned and forgotten by everyone, until July 2021 when u/2dmee shared on Reddit a playable demo they found in a Taiwanese online forum (uploaded on Archive):

“A couple of years ago I started buying new & sealed retro games from China/Taiwan and reselling them on Ebay UK. One day I came across a big box PC game and the artwork looked really good and it caught my attention, but I couldn’t find any info about the game anywhere, despite being quite well versed in the art of advanced google search syntax.

“The seller that offered the game for sale also had some other titles that were produced by Red-Purple Game Technology so I can only presume he had the deadstock from their offices after they ceased development/trading in 2004. He had 1 boxed, sealed copy and 1 open copy in a jewel case so I bought them both.”

“I have the complete game files on 3 discs, but I don’t have them ripped to my PC atm so I thought I would upload the demo first.”

Thanks to Aaron for the contribution!

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Project ACLAND (Krome Studios) [Xbox 360, PS3, PC – Cancelled]

Project ACLAND is a cancelled horror game that was in development by Krome Studios around 2006 / 2009, planned to be released on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. The team spent 3 years prototyping the project, with huge focus on its violent and gory aspects: there are no details about its gameplay but we know players would fight a huge monster while trying to survive its fury.

As far as we know Acland was never officially announced by Krome Studios before its cancellation, but former Krome’s Creative Director Steve Stamatiadis talked about it in an old article published by Games ON:

“We also had this monster game that we’d been wanting to do for a long time, called Project ACLAND”. The game was at least three years worth of work according to Steve, but it was something that publishers had shown definite interest in. “The lack of R18+ rating was a problem, as it was going to be really gory,” he says, “like a monster movie. But there was no way you can sell a game like that in Australia. At times I was thinking ‘Why would I want to make a game that I can’t even play here?’”

The ACLAND monster, named after Acland Lane behind Krome’s Brisbane offices, would later go on to star in Blade Kitten. ”I’d really love to come back do Project ACLAND right,” Steve says, thinking of the future. “It’s been three years, and nobody’s done anything like it, or even close.”

Unfortunately there’s only 1 tiny image showing the monster 3D model in Project Acland: if you know someone who worked on this lost game who may help us preserve more images, please let us know!

Here’s the same monster as seen in Blade Kitten:

Thanks to Maik for the contribution! 

TRON 3.0 (Climax Studios) [Cancelled – Xbox, PC]

TRON 3.0 is a cancelled sequel to TRON 2.0, which was in development by Climax Studios around 2004, planned to be published by Buena Vista Interactive for Xbox and PC. The same team already worked on Tron 2.0: Killer App for Xbox, so we can assume the project was successful enough to convince Buena Vista to hire them again for another game.

As far as we know TRON 3.0 was never officially announced, but concept art was found online by fans of the series and preserved below to remember the existence of this lost game.

If you know someone who worked on this project and could help us save more details, please let us know!

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