Blade Land is a cancelled RPG that was in development by Nihon Soft Hanbai / Manjuydo for the PC Engine around 1990. For its time it looked quite original: with quirky characters and enemies moving around a modern-day city setting it reminds us of Shigesato Itoi’s Mother / Earthbound series. The game was shown in a few gaming magazines at the time, such as Famitsu and PC-Engine magazine: if you are able to translate these japanese scans let us know if there is some interesting information in there!
LandFall is a cancelled MMORPG that was in development by Paragon Studios between 2011 and 2012, planned to become their “Next-Gen MMO” after their classic games City of Heroes and City of Villains. The game was quite ambitious for its time, taking inspiration from the “new wave” of survival / crafting indies such as Minecraft and Terraria, while letting thousands (?) of players explore procedurally generated islands to gather materials and craft new tools, weapons and buildings.
LandFall would have been played on savage islands full of dinosaurs and other kinds of weird monsters: possibly their idea was somehow similar to what Ark: Survival Evolved would offer some years later, but with a graphic style more similar to something like Fortnite.
Unfortunately in August 2012 Paragon Studios was closed down by their parent company, and every game they were working on had to be halted. While LandFall was never officially announced, many former Paragon developers and artists shared online artwork, screenshots and details on their lost project. Some of these images are preserved below, to remember the existence of this cancelled game.
Justice Unlimited is a cancelled superhero action RPG with gameplay similar to Diablo, that was pitched by LucasArts around 1997. We would imagine it as a top-down 2D adventure, exploring modern-day cities and the suburbs taking the role of different superheroes to hunt down criminals, level-up and collect rare loot. While the game was never officially announced, some details and artwork were shared in the book “Rogue Leaders – The Story Of Lucasarts”:
“From 1997 to 1998, LucasArts worked on a game concept meant to challenge Blizzards’s popular Diablo RPG game. The entire concept was essentially “Diablo, except with superheroes” recalls LucasArts designer John Stafford. Lots of concept art and story were generated for the game, but no work was completed on a game engine, and the idea was shelved.”
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 demothey 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.”
Dark Hermetic Order is a cancelled first person action adventure game that was in development around 1996 by Intelligent Games as a sequel to Azrael’s Tear, planned to be published on PC by Williams Interactive. The team was mostly known for such titles as Imperium and Dune 2000, but unfortunately many more of their projects never saw the light of day (Bloodline, Flying Circus, Conjure, King of Wall Street, Deadline News, Cops & Robbers). In Dark Hermetic Order players would take the role of a secret agent with magic powers, who infiltrates a strange cult to eliminate their leaders.
Some details about the development and cancellation of DHO were shared online by former IG’s employee Jason Redway:
“After the release of PGA European Tour Golf and the subsequent course discs Jason moved on to a project that was already in progress with Intelligent Games. This project was called Dark Hermetic Order (DHO) and was underway for Williams Interactive. It was a follow-up to the recently released Azrael’s Tear and would be Jason’s first commercial product utilising his 3D skills. Using 3D Studio, Jason created several rooms and became a senior member of the team over the year that followed. Unfortunately during a management re-shuffle at Williams Interactive DHO was cancelled and work stopped. During the next year Jason worked on several prototype projects and some cancelled demos including Subbuteo, Need For Speed 2 and Flying Circus.”
“Previously we had a 3D adventure game (Azreal’s Tear), a golf game (PGA European Tour) and the recently completed Waterworld – this one was the closest that we had experience of combat strategy gaming. Initial ideas were that we would use the 3D engine we had produced Azreal’s Tear and the recently cancelled Dark Hermetic Order to create the first realtime 3D RTS. With this brief I was tasked to create a short atmosphere setting video that we would present to Westwood.”
A single screenshot from Dark Hermetic Order was published in a few gaming magazines such as PC Player Germany, but we hope one day someone could find footage or even an early prototype.
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