Xbox 360

Fable 2 [Beta – Xbox 360]

Fable 2 is an action RPG developed by Lionhead Studios and directed by Peter Molyneux, published by Microsoft Game Studios. It’s the sequel to Fable  and it was originally announced in 2006 and released in October 2008. [Infos from Wikipedia] In these images we can see a series of early concept arts that were used to create the final game, some of which show armors that were never used in the end.

In some early screenshots there is a beta version of the Bowerstone Market city market, an unused NPC (the little bald man), a different looking hero’s sister, a removed desert area and an unknown forest that looks still incomplete. Attacks that used the world’s scenery were removed. The developer diaries showcase this incomplete versions of Bowerstone market and those attacks that did not make it.

Here are some more removed features:

The dog can be called using the voice communicator, too, although Molyneux told the crowd that feature was still iffy and not ready to be shown.

There’s no HUD and no mini-map on the screen in Fable 2. Instead, you’ll have the dog acting as a scout. He’ll always stay a few steps ahead of you and try to guess where you’re headed.

Sound like a lot for one dog to handle? Well there’s more. The dog also acts as your journal of sorts. He’ll point out what’s new in a region you’ve previously been to and remind you of important things that you may have forgotten about in your questing.

Puzzles will also exist that you’ll need the dog to help solve, he’ll act as your bloodhound to follow scents, and even help you get chicks – just like real life. If that weren’t already enough, the dog will also be playable in a variety of minigames.

He also mentioned that your dog will play with other dogs. In fact, he said it has to happen although he was hesitant to add any details other than saying, “You’ve got to be able to meet my dog.” They’ll all be unique in both mind and appearance and will be customizable to match your desires. The aim is to have no two dogs be alike.

While your melee weapon is linked to the X button, there are dozens of variations you can attempt. Combat is largely rhythm based but, unlike many games with similar systems, the range of the timing seems fairly broad. Pressing X, X, (hold) X and then releasing creates a different result than X, (pause) X, (hold) X and release. To help players feel the rhythm, drums begin to pound when you string combos, signaling times to press the X button. It’s an almost tribal experience. And though the drums are initially jarring, their beat melds into the ambient noise quickly. It wasn’t long before it felt as if the music were in rhythm with my button taps and not the other way around. Blocking is also done with the X, simply by holding. This also powers you up for an attack, but each time you parry that charge is instantly dissipated. So you can’t block and then suddenly released a powerful strike.

In Lionhead Fable II Diaries (that you can download at the official Lionhead website or check below) we can even see some footage from various prototypes of the game, as the Combat Demo, world creation and other interesting development stuff. The earliest  Fable II prototype was created with the Fable I engine, but we still don’t have any screens from that version.

Also, Robert Seddon linked us to an article on Kotaku about pregnancy in games, where we can read about another removed feature from the game:

Technically, your female character in Fable II doesn’t get “pregnant” – you just get a cut scene that explains you gave birth and then the game resumes with a cradle in your house. It’s the same for male characters as it is for female. But that wasn’t the way that Lead Designer Peter Molyneux designed it.

“Originally we did plan to depict pregnancy in game with the female hero’s stomach expanding,” he said. Lionhead Studios decided to opt for a cut scene instead, though, after considering all the moral quandaries that come of having a six-month pregnant mom-to-be wielding a broadsword and getting cut up by bandits.

Thanks to Randy for the contribution!

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Hero (Midway Prototype) [Xbox 360 PS3 – Cancelled]

In 2008 Midway were working on various prototypes for the Xbox 360 and PS3: this one was a proto for a third person shooter / hack ‘n’ slash (that somehow reminds me of Phantom Dust), based on Unreal Engine 3 and inspired by Gears of War style cover system, that at the time was known as “Hero“. With the bankruptcy of the company, this project was cancelled but you can find a lot of info in the video below.

Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!

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Urchin (Rare Ltd.) [Xbox 360 – Cancelled]

Urchin was an adventure fantasy / horror game that was in development at Rare Ltd. for Xbox 360. A few pieces of concept art were revealed by Rare artist Ryan Firchau at the “Nordic Game Conference”, held in Malmö in Sweden in May 2008.

While details are scarce, it is known that Urchin was in development by the team that was responsible for Conker: Live and Reloaded. After that title, was released, they helped finishing Perfect Dark Zero for Xbox 360 launch before regrouping as the “Conker team” again. In late 2006, Urchin was cancelled after only a few months of work.

As Zenek has wrote on the Rare-Extreme Forum, it appears as if there was a Dumbot from Conker: Live & Reloaded named “Urchin Pig Girl”. From this little easter egg and from one of the concept arts leaked, we can speculate that the protagonist of Urchin was going to be that little girl with her pig, called Lilith. Other game characters were a professor (The Dean?), werewolves and zombies.

Some more info on this cancelled project were shared in an interview with Chris Seavor:

Well, Urchin was the little thing I always wanted to make and who knows may well still make one day (not called Urchin obviously)…… A lovely , creepy , beautiful and tight little fairy tale for those who felt short changed by Fable’s good v bad mechanic.. In Urchin, it was ALL about being bad :)

Urchin had a ton of concepts done, some design, and the whole story arc figured out… I’d planned it as 3 games, each with a cliffhanger ending.

Another interview from Eurogamer:

Chris Seavor: Yeah. I wanted a change and I asked them. They said, okay, we’ll get back to you. That’s when I started Urchin, which was a dark fairytale from the point of view of a character who was the baddie rather than a good character. It was in the mould of Fable. The hook was, it wasn’t about whether you were good or bad. It was about how bad you were. But it was moral in that badness is down to your point of view, which is how I managed to get it to work in terms of problems parents might have with it.

When you killed the princess and ripped open her guts to get her heart, which was one of the quests, on the face of it it looked like you were quite a bad character, but in reality you’d then find out the princess was an evil vampire character who was killing local girls. That was an example quest. That’s how we managed to pitch it so it was all right with all the ratings people. That would have been quite good. It was certainly different.

When were you making Urchin?

Chris Seavor: Straight after Live & Reloaded, for the Xbox 360. We did a load of stuff. We had the graphics looking great on that. We spent a good eight months on that. We had a fighting system I called “Dirty Fighting”. The girl was quite brutal. So when she fights she has to use everything. She’s not very strong so she has to be very clever. So she does things like kick them in the knackers and use traps. She had a pall, this pig, who you also used in quests. He was quite heavy and strong, and she was quite light. It was a kind of a Banjo-Kazooie dynamic in that one was helping the other and one had strengths and one had weaknesses. But it was also about the character.

We did the thing Molyneux said he was going to do with the dog in Fable. We had already done it with the pig in that it was also the thing that was your manual, the in-game help. He would tell you stuff and say, oh, that’s interesting, what’s over there? And off he’d run. It worked really well.

Chris Seavor: It was going along and going along, and Microsoft were quite interested and then they weren’t. Just at that point when we were going shall we do this or not, are we going to pitch this for a greenlight, Chris and Tim said, oh, do you want to do PD? I went, oh, all right then. So we carried on with that.

That was another one of those things where I look back and think, should I have done that? Should I have stuck to my guns? I don’t know. It’s hard to say.

Another interesting description of Urchin was written by Xellos in the Playtonic forum:

It was an game about a roughly 12-year old gothic female child. You would have a wild boar as a companion solving the game’s various obstacles and puzzles. He was quite heavy and strong, and the girl was quite light. It was a kind of a Banjo-Kazooie dynamic in that one was helping the other and one had strengths and one had weaknesses.

There was going to be a fighting system in place called “Dirty Fighting”. The girl was going to be quite brutal. When she fights she has to use everything. Since she’s not very strong, so she has to be very clever to survive. She would do things like kick her opponents in the balls, or use traps to kill them.

It was going be having a dark fairytale like story. For example: One of the quests would involve you killing a princess and ripping open her guts to get her heart, on the face of it it looked like you were quite a bad character, but in reality you’d then find out the princess was an evil vampire who was killing local girls.

Thanks to Oolon for the contribution!

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