Others

Utopia Industrial (Parallax Arts) [PC – Cancelled]

Utopia Industrial is a cancelled mission-based First Person RPG / Shooter planned to be a sequel to Utopia City, which was in development by Parallax Arts Studio around 2004 when the first game was still unreleased. Gameplay could have been somehow similar to Deus Ex, with missions you could resolve by using stealth or by shooting down every enemy on sight.

In this lost sequel players would have been able to explore new areas in the industrial part of the Utopian world and the virtual universe, trying to avoid harming the civilians and find the best way to take down a new terrorist group. As we can read on the old Parallax Arts website:

“After the destruction of the central city of Utopia, it became known that it was not the end. The information that there was a secret experiment in the industrial part of the Utopian world appeared. A terrorist group was at the head of the process. The group’s intentions failed in the real world, thus they try to fulfill their plans in the virtual universe.

The heart of the experiment was the following. Many of the people who made their way to Utopia were deprived of their wills and plunged into a deep dream. Their consciousness was greatly influenced in order to make them suffer and be horrified.

Images being created by the test people’s subconsciousness materialized and put on an air of a virtual body in a secret laboratory. The visualized monsters were kept in a special polygon where they were self-perfecting in order to make their “souls” tone with their appearance. Further, the monsters are planned to be directed to the real people’s dreams in order to deprive them of sleep and to drive them mad. “

At the time Parallax Arts were also working on 4 other projects: Utopia City, 1171, Caravan and Liquidator 2: Welcome to Hell. Only Utopia City and Liquidator 2 were published and after releasing Exodus from the Earth in 2007, Parallax vanished.

Thanks to Daniel Nicaise for the contribution!

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Eurasia: Apocalypse [PC – Cancelled]

Eurasia: Apocalypse (Евразия: Апокалипсис) is a cancelled real-time strategy game that was in development by ElectroTECH Multimedia in 1997, seen by many gamers as the “Russian Command & Conquer“.  The game was set in a world that survived a natural catastrophe: because of global warming most of the continents are now submerged in water. Only South Siberia and a few scattered islands remain above the ocean, so all the major world powers fight to control these remaining territories.

A playable demo can still be found online, with its ‘90s aesthetics and original soundtrack. Unfortunately this early version of Eurasia: Apocalypse is full of bugs that make it practically unplayable.

It seems in 1998 the game won the “Most promising development among computer games” prize in Russia, but the issues found in the demo killed the fans’ enthusiast. ElectroTECH decided that further development costs were not worth it and cancelled the project. Another 3D strategy game titled “Bestiary” developed by MiST Land South was also canned at the same time.

Thanks to Josef for the contribution!

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Severity (Escalation Studios) [Cancelled – PS3, Xbox 360, PC]

Severity is a cancelled eSport-focused FPS that was in development around 2007 by Escalation Studios (later renamed to Bethesda Game Studios Dallas) in cooperation with John Romero and funded by the Cyberathlete Professional League. It was planned to be released on Playstation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

As we can read in an old article published on FiringSquad:

“Mustaine told us that he already has a group of about 10 team members working on Severity and plans to expand that team to about 20 members in total.

Mustaine isn’t revealing much about the game itself at this stage but he did tell us that the game will be a mix of modern day and futuristic themes in terms of weapons and level settings. While the game will not have a lengthy single player experience except maybe for tutorial levels, he did say they did plan for AI bot play for people to practice offline.

Of course, creating a game for pro gaming tournaments means adding more features that will make the game better not just for the players but also for the spectators. In addition to support for tournament ladders and detailed stats for players, Mustaine told us that Severity has plans to expand its options for spectators, including in-game cameras that can be controlled by commentators and finding ways to display important stats to the spectators in order to get them more fully involved in the matches. Mustaine compared what they wanted to do to how professional poker matches became a huge draw among the general public thanks in part to how TV had commentators and stats for the poker matches. As far as Severity’s game modes, Mustaine told us that they are planning to have modes with different player speeds, different game physics and different weapon loadouts.”

Some more details can be found in an interview published by PSU:

“PSU: There have been beliefs floating around that the game will play exactly the same as Quake III Arena. If there’s a game with a similar gameplay style to Severity what game would it be?

Angel: It will not play identical to Quake 3 or any other game, but Quake 3 is definitely one of the major inspirations for the development team. Severity will have very unique characteristics and a rich visual environment, but it will also be a faced-paced game.

PSU: Will there be the ability to have cross-platform gaming? i.e. PlayStation 3 vs. Xbox 360 vs. PC gamers?

Angel: That is absolutely the plan!”

It seems Severity’s development was already canned or slowed down in 2008, as told by John Romero to That Gaming Site. Later Escalation Studios denied the game’s cancellation, but in the end it was never released anyway. After working on small projects such as Samba de Amigo on Wii and Doom Resurrection for iOS, in 2012 the team was acquired by 6waves Lolapps and then sold to ZeniMax Media in 2017 after they helped with the development of Rage and Doom reboot.

Thanks to Daniel Nicaise for the contribution!

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Wind Racer (Nadeo) [PC – Cancelled]

Wind Racer is a cancelled sand yachting racing game that was in development for PC by Nadeo around 2001, before they became a favorite team among fans of arcade racers, thanks to their release of TrackMania in 2003. At the time Nadeo was still trying to find their niche, working on many different prototypes such as Cyberdrive and Lanfeust of Troy to pitch them to different publishers. Wind Racer looked like a fun, sunny beach racer (with items to collect?) and we assume gameplay could have been like a simpler version of TrackMania.

Some fans randomly found out about the prototype projects in 2011, saving a few images before they could have been lost forever. In the end Nadeo was lucky enough to get hired to work on Virtual Skipper 2 and 3, something that helped to keep them alive while waiting to find real success with Trackmania.

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Armor (Kixeye) [PC – Cancelled]

Armor is a cancelled tank combat game that was in development for PC by Kixeye between 2013 and 2014. The company is mostly known for top-down MMORTS such as War Commander: Rogue Assault and Vega Conflict, but for Armor they planned a third-person real time online shooter similar to World of Tanks.

Players would have been able to choose between many different tank models, shooting down other players in online battles in huge maps with destructible buildings. In the end Armor was never completed, maybe because it was too different from what the team was used to developing.

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