Microsoft

Arc Angel (Rare Ltd) [Xbox – Prototype]

Arc Angel is a cancelled futuristic racing game prototype that was in development in 2003 for the Xbox, by a team lead by Chris Seavor at Rare LTD. There are just a few info about this lost project as a nice article at Pure Rarity:

Chris said that for the record Conker 2 was never scrapped; he just didn’t want to do it at the time and that was how Arc Angel was conceived. A nice easy racing game, or so he thought. During the four months he headed it a fair amount of design was nailed down but it eventually proved to be too ambitious. Also, some team members left the company or moved to other projects leaving Arc Angel with a lack of resources. Eventually the game was cancelled and Chris was put on Quest as lead artist.

Some more info can be read in another article from the same site:

He told me Seavor was initially on Conker 2 but then moved onto a racing project which was cancelled. Supposedly he is now on something MMORPG. This was some really interesting stuff but I wanted to find out more about it so I asked Tony Wong as well. He hadn’t heard about the racer but confirmed that the Conker team has been disbanded. As for the MMORPG, he said he couldn’t comment on it since it was not official.

I remembered a post in the FatBabies forums about Nintendo cancelling a futuristic racer and asked Martin if this was the same game. He told me it was the Rare management — not Nintendo — that had cancelled it and that it probably was futuristic. He explained that Nintendo always leave people alone if they produce good work.

Sadly there are no preserved images or videos about Arc Angel. If you know someone that worked on this prototype, please let  us know! We would love to save some screens in the archive. 

Obscure D [Beta / Rumor – Xbox 360 / PS3 / 3DS / PC]

Obscure D is a cancelled survival horror game that was in development by Hydravision and it would have been published as a digital download by Playlogic for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Nintendo 3DS and PC as a digital download. The game was to launch in Fall 2012, and was a Sidescrolling Horror game similar to Bloodrayne Betrayal, but had returning and new characters from the Obscure Series (Liddyah Thompson, Carlos Petrovita, Molly Hampsterview, Jacob Small, Claire Richards, Jason Mcreary, Ashley Thompson and Josh Carter).

Obscure D was to take place before Obscure 2 where Ashley’s sister was looking for her after she went missing. Here is the main chapters that we would have been able to play in the game:

ACT 1:
Liddyah Thompson, a Senior at the new Leafmore High School in Fallcreak, decided to get a search party together and search for her missing sister and her sisters boyfriend. Her sister is Ashley from the first game and Ashleys boyfriend is Josh from the first game. The game would take place 3 days before Obscure 2/The Aftermath. Right after they get into the woods they are attacked by a disformed man and fight him off. Liddyahs boyfriend Carlos is then killed by a monster, who rips him in two. After that, she vows revenge and looks for the source of the creatures. Next Jason is killed when the car he is trying to start to escape explodes. When it explodes a hole in the ground is revealed, and the survivors escape into an abandoned sewer. This sewer turns out to be the Sewer from the first game near the old school. While traveling the sewer, Molly, another friend, is attacked and her arm is cut off. Liddyah manages to save her, and wrap the wound.

ACT 2:
They continue and find access to the old school, where they are again attacked by more creatures. After fighting there way through the school, they find out that Molly is infected due to spores being implanted in her wound after her arm was ripped off. She then mutates and attackes Liddyah. Liddyah is then infected by the virus, and tells the final survivors she is going to die. The other survivors, Jacob and Claire, think they still can save her, and they all travel to the hospital in the woods. After a brief fight with a creature, Liddyah starts to lose control. She quickly snaps back back into it. She starts to climb higher in the hospital, and gets to room 304. She discovers Ashley and Josh are inside trapped in a cage being experimented on. After freeing them, and after a short tearful reunion between sisters, Liddyah transforms into a creature. The player now takes control of Ashley, and you must fight. Liddyah then kills both Claire and Jacob, but right after Liddyah is killed by a trip wire fence activated by Josh. Ashley then goes and breaks down due to the loss of her sister.

EPILOGUE:
After a twist of ironic fate, Ashley and Josh make it to the old high school from the First game. They are intending to burn down the school, since this is where everything started. Right after, they are attacked by a mutated man with an axe. Ashley is killed, and josh is heard screaming in the final moments. Right after, another deformed man picks up the camera. Shown a few minutes later, Creatures start to escape into the woods, and Obscure 2`s story now begins…

As we can read at Survival Horror List, it seems that development for Obscure D began as a budget title for the PSP and Nintendo DS as Obscure Dark Aura. The game was to star Shannon and take place right after Obscure 2. This version was scrapped and the concept evolved into Obscure D, but sadly the developer closed down before finishing the project.

The game was to take a more cartoon like look, and was aimed at being a T game rating. Obscure D would have had 4 player online coop on the Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows versions, and an exclusive ACT for the 3ds version to make up for no coop.

Thanks to an Hydravision Employee for the contribution!

NOTE: Obscure D has been resurrected as Obscure 2013 and has been 50% or so redeveloped from scratch. More content will be posted once the final game comes out in Late 2013

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Anarchy Reigns (Max Anarchy) [Beta – Xbox 360 / PS3]

Anarchy Reigns (aka Max Anarchy in Japan) is an online beat ’em up action game developed by PlatinumGames and published by Sega for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. The developers shared some videos, showing the game in a near complete beta state on their Youtube Channel, in which we can see a different HUD and increased amounts of gore over the final version. Also, at PlatinumGames’ blog, there’s an interesting article about the development of the game (in Japanese).

According to the post, Anarchy Reigns started life as an online multiplayer sequel to Mad World An initial prototype, as seen in the images below, show that the game was once presented in a similar cell-shaded visual style in certain early test-rooms.

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Rayman 3 [Beta – PS2 / Xbox / GameCube]

Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc is a platform game developed by Ubisoft and released for the Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC in 2003. A Rayman 3 beta demo was leaked online sometime ago, with some differences as character models, voices and controls. I did not play the final version of Rayman 3, so if you can notice some more differences in the development screens or the beta videos below, please let us know!

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inSANE (Guillermo del Toro) [Cancelled – Xbox 360 / PS3 / PC]

insane Guillermo del Toro cancelled game

inSANE is a cancelled survival horror game that was development from 2010 by Volition in collaboration with film director Guillermo del Toro and to be published by THQ for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.  The game was intended to be the first installment of a planned trilogy of Insane games, but in August 2012 THQ announced the cancellation of Insane with the intellectual property rights transferring to del Toro. It’s currently unknown if del Toro will try to find some other developer and publisher to continue the development of this project.

Thanks to VolMuseum for the contribution!

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