Dead Unity is a cancelled futuristic Sci-Fi Action/Survival Horror game that was in development from 1996 to 1998 by Aramat Productions and would have been published by THQ for the PC and the Playstation. According to former developers, the gameplay was somewhat of a “sci-fi Resident Evil clone“.
The game placed the player as an enhanced human, named Works, in the city of Unitywho has to survive from deadly cyborgs and robots from a computer generated Artificial Intelligence called Global Mediation Machine who went berserk.
Dead Unity was officially announced in February 1997 by THQ, following a deal with Aramat Productions, as we can read on IGN:
T*HQ announced Friday that it has signed an agreement with entertainment software developer, Aramat Productions Inc., to develop and publish Dead Unity, a 3-D science-fiction adventure game.
The game is promised to be an immersive, real-time 3D adventure game, set in alternate universe.
Dead Unity should be released in first quarter, 1998.
Further details were shared, again by THQ, at E3 of the same year during the publisher’s line-up announcement:
Dead Unity™ – For the Sony PlayStation, PC CD-ROM, scheduled to be launched 1998 – A 3-D rendered graphic adventure that submerges players in an alternate reality where they assume the identity of the artificially enhanced human, Works, as he attempts to power down the massive computer core of the global mediation machine.
In October 1997, an issue from Computer Games Strategy Plus detailed features and background about the project:
(…) You play Works, an “artificially enhanced human” who must power down the immense computer core of an unfathomable global mediation machine. In an alternate reality, you will face 9-foot tall metal giants called Fleshies, as well as the masterful and diabolical core of the computer itself, in a blowout showdown shoot-em up. Works may choose from over 100 weapons and enhancements that he may interchange at the touch of an ARM (Automatic Reconfigurable Munitions). That’s over 100 ways to slice, dice, maim, mutilate, impale, mangle and cripple over 30 original enemy characters. Based upon the player’s choices, there are multiple story outcomes. The game utilizes a “unity-engine” for 3-D movement through over 400 rendered scenes including environments such as an underground dam, a robot assembly plant carved out of a mountain and a 250 story skyscraper. It also features dynamically changing environments, such as breaking windows, bullet holes in walls and day to night lighting shifts.
After that, Dead Unity didn’t reappear until May 1998 for another THQ’s line-up announcement:
“Dead UnityÔ “ The new standard in real-time, 3D rendered graphic adventures, “Dead Unity” immerses players in a futuristic world of fast-paced action and hair-raising suspense with its extremely detailed story, enthralling characters, riveting game play and unsurpassed graphic quality. (Scheduled for launch in October 1998.)
The issue from August 1998 of Playstation Magazine was the last one in which the game was mentioned before totally disappearing from the surface for years.
In August 2010, the blog of CanOfTheRelics, shared two videos of the game alongside development stories from an Aramat’s anonymous ex-developer:
There are no Playable demos floating around. All the screenshots you seen in magazine ads, THQ promos…they were all mock ups. I designed the story for the project which was very complex, I was also Art Director and eventually producer on it before THQ pulled the plug with it. Long story short, Aramat was a new company and we had some really green programmers. It took over a year just to get a simple animation exporter out of them let alone AI, physics, game logic, etc…
The first E3 we put together that Video Demo that ran on monitors. The second year we “almost” had something remotely playable…but the owner of the company derailed my efforts to get actual game play in place in favor of having animated texture overlays to make spinning fans on screen and pretty much single handedly destroyed our chances with salvaging our relationship with THQ. The demo was full of bugs and you couldn’t even play it.
After I got back from E3 that year, I washed my hands of the project and started working on Arch Gothic. I put together a technology demo for it to show the rest of the company how it was done. With that technology they did manage to finish a working build for Dead Unity with a character traversing through a few rooms with weapons and some rudimentary AI…but it was too little too late. THQ pulled funding for the project and the company went under. Myself and 2 others primary to the company at that time have what was that playable build, but there is nothing floating around. You need special hardware just to play these builds and there isn’t much there. A hall and a couple connecting rooms with some robots in them.
There was a ton of art made…that’s really all that was done on it the whole time it was in development. The engineering staff just spun their wheels through most of production.
So that’s basically the story…
Very few information seems to be available about Dead Unity’s development company. Aramat Productions was established in Wilsonville, Oregon, in June 1996 by Dane Emerson, who previously worked at Nintendo of America and Lobotomy Software. According to his LinkedIn profile, the company counted 29 people in total and worked on PC, PlayStation and Sega Saturn projects for THQ, but also Playmates Interactive. By searching for other LinkedIn profiles, we can learn that Aramat had numerous cancelled projects, most of them still totally unknown to this day. Alongside the mysterious Arch Gothic mentionned above, we could add, for instance, that Jon Ediger, who was Software Engineer for 7 months within the company, indicates having worked on a “Sony PlayStation RPG video game” until February 1999, while 3D ArtistMark Thurow and Level ArtistBrian Papeindicates having worked on Decopolis, a project “essentially similar to ‘Dead Unity’” according to Thurow. Jesse Perrin who was Game & Tools Programmer during his time at Aramat worked on “Femme Fatale: a Tekken clone“. Finally, John Stenersen, who was Technical Director from 1996 to 1998 for Aramat, depicted this period as a less than complimentary memory:
Unwittingly, I was hired to manage a group of under-educated, non-professional, inexperienced programmers and high school dropouts in an attempt to create an all-female character fighting game for the Playstation (Femme Fatale). The publisher collapsed and the game was cancelled. We then focused on a DirectX 5 horror game similar to Alone in the Dark (Dead Unity) but only managed the first design milestone when it became clear the company would shutter soon.
Still according to Dane Emerson’s LinkedIn profile, it seems Aramat Productions ceased operations in December 1999. In the end, the company never produced any games.
Project 1V1 is a cancelled Free-To-Play multiplayer First-Person Shooter/Collectible Card Game hybrid developed exclusively for PC by Gearbox Software, from, at least, 2017 until 2022.
The game tried to be a competitive Esport Arena shooter, similar to titles such as Quake 3: Arena and Unreal Tournament, that faced two players against each other, each with three cards that confered special abilities.
Project 1V1 was officially revealed by Gearbox in August 2017 while, in the same time, announcing that they were holding a closed beta test for the game:
Borderlands and Battleborn developer Gearbox Software is working on a competitive first-person shooter that “combines the action of fast-paced 1v1 first-person combat with the metagame strategy of a collectible card game,” according to the project’s website. Gearbox is calling the in-development game Project 1v1.
Gearbox said on its website that it’s holding a short, closed technical test for Project 1v1. Players who are interested in taking part can sign up for the beta on Gearbox’s Shift website. (…)
The Project 1v1 website doesn’t offer much detail on the game beyond naming a trio of modes (ranked, challenge and arena) playable in the technical test. Players will apparently be able to earn crates and new cards by defeating opponents in Project 1v1’s ranked mode. (…)
Shortly after, some gameplay videos of the beta were uploaded on YouTube, before being taken down. Other than that, Project 1V1 didn’t resurface before E3 2018 where the title was showcased behind closed doors:
Borderlands fans will be frustrated to hear that Gearbox is showing a new shooter at E3 2018 to press – but it’s not the highly-anticipated Borderlands 3. Instead, Gearbox is showing it’s 1v1 multiplayer shooter and card hybrid. It’s a relatively secretive project, having been in a closed technical test last August. No footage of Project 1v1 will be shown outside of the closed doors presentation at E3, although you can expect some hands-on written impressions. Presumably we’ll also learn it’s proper name. (…)
Just after E3, numerous previews were indeed written. Thus, for example, Mediastinger wrote:
In Project 1v1, Gearbox is attempting to merge the competitive arena shooter genre with the growing popularity of watching esports. In the Arena Hangout mode, multiple players queue into a room while the game stays in windowed mode on PC. Players who are not going head-to-head in the arena are able to watch the current 1 vs. 1 battle in spectator mode while still chatting and cycling through all of the game’s menu options such as abilities, cosmetics, deck-buying/building, and more.
Other modes are planned to offer more serious instant action while the actual gameplay is what you would expect from an arena shooter that plays very smooth like a game of Deathmatch in Quake or Unreal Tournament – except with unique powerups such as turrets, tracking satellites, and even powerful swords that can be called down and need to be protected for a brief period before being picked up and used to instantly slay foes.
While gameplay was fun, Project 1v1 seems like Gearbox’s attempt to salvage their hard work from Battleborn… and I’m not sure how it can be successful in the current gaming market. The game’s main gimmick is focusing on 1v1 gameplay, a concept that is the opposite of the current demand from gamers who want instant large-scale action — which battle royale games have recently become so successful delivering.
Project 1v1 is still in a very early stage and could change drastically in the future as new modes are added. Right now, the game is currently only planned for PC and still has no release date, or even any actual footage available to be shown online.
(…) At E3 2018, I visited the folks at Gearbox to sit down and play an alpha build of Project 1v1 that was being shown to the press. It was the very first time the game was being shown outside of the studio.
You can imagine my surprise, then, as I discovered a game that already felt incredibly well-polished. Of course, 1v1’s UI will likely go through a number of iterations before its eventual release, but a slick menu already presented several different character designs, allowed me to experiment with a range of different weapons and abilities, and play a handful of different maps. But it was in the gameplay that things felt impressively far along. Project 1v1 is sublime to play; the gunplay and traversal felt great, there were no bugs or crashes, and each match ran as smooth as silk.
The arsenal of weapons included plenty of your typical FPS selection, but there were some inventive standouts too. Beyond light machine guns, shotguns, and rocket launchers, there were neat weapons like the railgun – a super powerful rifle with a secondary fire option that allowed you to shoot across the map with the bullet by pressing the right mouse button. And it was a similar story with abilities, too. Three cards can be selected for special skills, activated at the press of a key and differing in cooldown according to strength. These ranged from passive recovery buffs to sentry guns that could be placed to cover a choke point. My absolute favorite was the Excalibur – a sword that, once planted in the ground for a few seconds, could be wielded to devastating effect. Slightly OP, perhaps, but hilariously fun to shoot across the map and instant frag an opponent.
1v1’s maps are like a condensed version of a classic arena-shooter, complete with a balance of cramped hallways, mini choke-points, a wide open space or two, and designed with plenty of verticality. It would take you less than a minute to circumnavigate any one of them, but they all had been crafted in a way that let you quickly put distance between you and your opponent by dashing around a corner or hopping onto an above ledge. Some had strategically located springboards so you could quickly ascend to a map’s highest level. Aesthetically, some were more interesting than others, but I absolutely adored one, in particular, set against the backdrop of a dystopian futuristic city.
The local network I was playing on consisted of only four players at any one time, which worked well for 1v1’s curious multiplayer setup. Given that the game is specifically designed for duels, other players spectate while waiting in a queue. With a limited number in the server, the wait was never long, but I do wonder how things are supposed to work when there are three, four, or ten times that number. Gearbox didn’t have an answer for me when I enquired as to many players are likely to be pooled in a single server moving forward.
As it turns out, each match was so intense that I genuinely enjoyed my time spectating, and it was super fun to hear people gasp and cheer at my own efforts. But not every 1v1 match is going to be so entertaining, and the novelty of the format would only last so long. It remains to be seen how this all translates to a full release. Not to mention, while I definitely appreciated the bespoke 1v1 map design and the entertainment value of duking it out with a single opponent, I can’t say that the game wouldn’t be just as fun with a few more players in a server with me. 1v1 is great, but why not 2v2 and 3v3 as well?
As of right now, the foundation is in place for Project 1v1 to make a big splash on the free-to-play scene. I thoroughly enjoyed the gameplay, the performance was exemplary, and the card system is a blast. It needs fleshing out, of course, but assuming that there’s an audience out there ready to embrace it, the future looks bright for Gearbox’s unorthodox shooter.
(…) I have managed to play the game for around half-an-hour (and countless rounds) at a private appointment at Gearbox’s room during E3, and I have to admit, I did enjoy what I saw. I did see a lot of potential in what they’re creating, but with a few concerns.
The gameplay is great. The game is extremely fast-paced, just like an old Unreal Tournament, the matches are very quick, the respawn times are nonexistent and the few weapons I could test were diverse, balanced and fun to use.
Just like older Unreal Tournament games, there is no aim button, there’s no auto-healing (you can heal by picking up health icons scattered throughout the stage), and there are lots of traps scattered throughout the stage, such as pits. The level design is creative, even though I have only managed to play on three different maps. Besides your two weapons, you can equip yourself with different perks, such as an ultimate rocket attack and an extra jump. Whenever you use your special moves, you need to wait for them to recharge. You can also pick up a card icon to get an instant recharge. From what I could play, Project 1v1 looked promising: a nice throwback to simpler, arcade-oriented shooters, with a lot more emphasis on chaotic fun than realism.
With that being said, I still have a few concerns about the game.
One of the main concerns is regarding waiting times. As previously mentioned, the game is based around 1 vs 1 matches, meaning that everyone else in your room needs to wait for quite some time before being able to play the game. Depending on the amount of people inside your lobby, you’ll have to wait for up to 15 minutes in order to play a 5 minute round. The game automatically shrinks its screen size during the waiting moments, most likely in order to let players mind their own business surfing through the internet or doing something else on their PCs while they wait for their turn.
I feel some balance needs to be made regarding it, with multiple duels happening at the same time, in order to keep people busy. That’s also a great way to promote championship creations. I don’t know if Gearbox has this plan in mind, but I really hope they come up with something like this when the game finally comes out. (…)
After that, Project 1V1 felt again into oblivion, only being briefly mentionned in July 2019 by French website NoFrag.com, announcing that a new closed beta test was on its way:
(…) If you are a fan of Randy Pitchford‘s games, or frankly have some time to kill, you will be delighted to learn that this future Free-to-play is opening up to a new closed test session, subject to an NDA (no authorized videos, or even screenshots). To participate, you will need to go through the Gearbox site, SHiFT, and link your Steam account there.
Compared to the previous test session, this one adds 3 maps to the 2 already existing, new playing cards and a revamped interface.
From there, it looked like things were getting tougher for the game. Again forgotten by everyone, it came back once again from the dead, in July 2021, when someone on Twitter/X asked Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford whatever happened:
On going. The pandemic shook us up a bit, but we went through a chrysalis and I am excited for what will emerge.
Unfortunately, it seems that this revival was ultimately a waste of time since during the summer of 2022, the cancellation of the game was officially announced on Reddit:
Hey Project 1v1 faithful, I am finally able to share some news about Project 1v1, the server, and the community.
It is my unfortunate privilege to let you all know that I’ve been notified through official channels that there “are no plans to resume development”. I know this is a heartbreaking thing to hear for most of us, but unfortunately this is just something that happens in the world of video game development.
With that news being official, and after some discussion, we’ve made the choice to close down the Discord Server. The server closure will take place on September 1st 2022. This will give everyone here ample time to be able to jump onto servers with one another and create your own internal communities to duke it out in other games if you wish. I didn’t want to shut the server down right away because I know a lot of the folks here made friends along the way and I wanted to make sure we all had the opportunity to keep those connections.
I appreciate everyone that has been a help to the community, donated for giveaways, participated in events and the playtests! While we may not get the end result we were hoping for, I am sure we have helped the team inside of Gearbox Publishing in many ways. I know I feel feel proud to have had an impact in that way and so should us all!
It is unclear to this day why Gearbox made the decision to cancel Project 1V1. We can speculate that in a very competitive market, whether it was the Collectible Card Game’s aspect or the arena shooter, it was difficult for a new original title to be a financial success. Battleborn, itself built on the remnants of Brothers in Arms: Furious 4, was a dismal failure, and a comparison can also be made with The Amazing Eternals, very similar to Project 1V1, and which was canceled precisely because of this competitive market.
Enemy Front is a World War II First-Person Shooter released in 2014 for the PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 by CI Games (formerly City Interactive). The game put you in the shoes of Robert Hawkins, an American war correspondent, caught up across Europe with various Resistance fighters, fighting during real World War II historical events that were largely never transposed in video games, particularly First-Person Shooters, such as the Warsaw Uprising. It features open-ended levels allowing for the players to have their own playing style, similar to the Crysis serie.
But before being available as such, Enemy Front had a slightly different approach that was eventually ditched following a small chaotic development leading to redundancies, restructuration and cancellation of some CI Games projects.
Everything began in November 2011 with the announcement of the project by City Interactive, with Stuart Black, mostly known for Black, as Creative Director, as we could read on Engadget:
Stuart Black’s “exciting new story-driven WWII shooter” will be called Enemy Front, publisher City Interactive announced today. The game will be powered by CryEngine 3 and will launch on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC with an expected 2012 release date.
The title got more coverage in the beginning of spring 2012, debuting with an interview of Black by Digital Spy where we could learn that he took inspiration of 60’s and 70’s World War II movies for the tone of the story, especially Where Eagles Dare, but also The Dirty Dozen:
We talk to Black about why he chose to work on this project, how Enemy Front takes its influences from classic war movies like Where Eagles Dare and its back-to-basics approach to multiplayer.
DS: Why choose this project and why choose City Interactive?
S.B.: “Well, City Interactive in particular, I was just really impressed with their attitude. When I left Codemasters and I was looking for another project to be attached to, I certainly didn’t want to do another modern-day shooter having worked on two. I was kind of, ‘I haven’t got any ideas to bring to the table for a modern-day thing’, so I was instantly attracted by the idea of a World War II game.
“As I said earlier, one of the first questions I always ask myself is: ‘Right, if I want to play this style of game, could I go out and buy it tomorrow?’ And when it comes to a quality World War II shooter, no I can’t.
“I’d have to go back to Brothers in Arms or World at War, but then World at War is very different because it’s a Pacific campaign and the Japanese fighting was very different, with the Banzai rushing and surprise ambush attacks, it’s not your typical Nazis in Europe.
DS: Is it the case that these games are a bit old now? Will you be introducing more modern elements?
S.B.: “We hopefully want to modernise it and take like a modern blockbuster kind of approach to it. And get out of that [Saving] Private Ryan rut. That being a front line grunt, with some sergeant constantly barking orders at you, saying, ‘Go here, take that machine gun, up that hill!’ You almost feel like a bit player in your own game.
“It’s like, ‘I ain’t the star’, this other guy, the guy that I’m following, he’s the f**king lead and I’m some secondary character. So we wanted to get you back to being the hero again in that way and to get out of that Normandy to Berlin run.
“Which you can understand why lots of games do it, because until then, most of the big battles, the Allies lost! Researching this and looking at all the historical battles it’s like, ‘OK, I can see why everybody starts at Dunkirk because until then there were no victories’, and who wants to take part in a game where you’re always on the losing side?
“So that combined with the idea, OK we want you to be the hero, we want to look back at the old ’70s war movies, that kind of man-on-a-mission flavour. Dirty Dozen, and in particular, Where Eagles Dare, that was a big influence. I was really surprised when I saw that movie at how well it stands up.
(…) So that kind of became our template. Getting back to that more action-orientated thing instead of that reverential approach to the war.
“Keep it authentic, authentic weapons, authentic locations, but get a bit more adventure spirit into the action, particularly in the story.”
DS: Was it a challenge having a realistic historic setting and having those adventure elements?
S.B.: ” We’ve taken some historical events, in Saint-Nazaire, France, there was a famous Commando raid on a naval base so we have that happening, you take part in that. But you’ve got your own objectives off to the side, leap-frogging or piggy-backing on this commando raid to do your own thing. There’s plenty of flexibility in that.”
DS: In the presentation, I believe a slide said it was ‘beat-based arcade action’; what do you mean by that?
S.B.: “What we mean that it is fairly linear, and it is split down into moments of specific action. What you played here was effectively the first beat of this game, with the beat being the action around the old house, right? There’s significant moments of action, a tank coming rolling in, bursting into a wall or whatever, that would be a particular beat of action.
“That’s what we mean by beats by that, it’s the pacing of the action. The peaks and troughs of it. As I said, it’s a demo we’ve got right now, it’s about keeping the intensity going. When we do our final there’ll be much more peaks and troughs.”
DS: And there will be opportunities for stealth?
S.B.: “You should always have the opportunity, in any given situation – well, not say any, but in the majority of given situations – it should be up to you how you approach that. If you want to take that quietly or want to lock and load and go in all guns blazing.
“Or say, ‘I’ve got a huge sack of smoke grenades here, I’ll just start tossing these around and get the planes in blowing the s**t out of this stuff’, and mix and match them, right?
DS: How are you approaching multiplayer?
S.B.: “We wanted to take a focussed approach to it, a team-based game. The closest equivalent would be Day of Defeat, that would be the shorthand way of describing it.
“It’s territory-based, the levels are sort of corridors. You’ve got the range territories up these corridors, two teams, eight a side we’re hoping. Each territory that you take has different equipment associated with it.
“What I can’t really do is go into a team-based game that doesn’t have that kind of stuff on it anymore, and just have this kind of pure skill-based game. So there will be different classes, your heavy guys, your scout guys, your typical grunt guy, engineery type guy and then different equipment.
“You all have starting equipment based on your class and there will be different movement speeds and characteristics of your classes. And then depending on which control point or territories you’ve taken over will unlock different equipment for you to use during that play session.”
The following month, numerous video previews were shared showing gameplay and the game was also present at E3 2012. Thus, Game Informer wrote a preview about the singleplayer and the multiplayer components:
(…) There are going to be 10 different enemy class types, with jobs spanning from typical armed opposition and medics running around the battlefield healing enemies you merely maimed, to enemies whose job it is to run off and call for back-up by blowing whistles or shooting off flares.
Another way Enemy Front focuses on gunplay is by offering three unique play styles that correspond to different types of shooters. You choose your style at the beginning of your game. Hope mode offers rechargeable health. Honor mode takes away rechargeable health but lets the player pick up and use health packs. Players also scavenge for health packs in Glory mode, which offers the purest cinematic experience by taking away your crosshairs and HUD.
In what is a surprising revelation for a first-person shooter with online multiplayer gameplay, the team at City Interactive is focusing one mode, and it’s not your standard deathmatch. The mode is called Conquest, and it’s a team based multiplayer mode where two teams work against one another to capture points in a corridor like level, as Black describes it. The corridor design of the stages, as opposed to the open environments typically seen in other online shooters, plays into the overall design of Enemy Front. Players are being fed into team versus team shootouts, as opposed to multiple miniature skirmishes happening all over the map. It’s all about playing tug-of-war with the front line of battle along the level.
With its presentation at E3, other websites wrote various previews. For instance, Gamerant wrote:
While still pre-alpha in construction, the demo shown at E3 followed the main character – referred to as ‘Alders’ – battling his way through a French village occupied by German forces. As an OSS Ranger dropped behind enemy lines, the players is not simply required to complete a straightforward objective as part of a larger offensive, but stumbles upon a conspiracy that will send him hurtling across Europe.
The game’s stages set within France, Poland and Germany may not exactly be untapped wells, but the studio’s commitment to CryENGINE 3 means that there will be some new features to experiment with. Enemy Front, like Black, will be placing an emphasis on the destructible environments and construction that the new engine makes possible. Enemy gunfire was shown to result in everything from splintered wood to pulverized masonry, so the moment-to-moment instances of spraying-and-praying do offer a satisfying amount of visual and audio feedback.
While the implausibility of the plot – sending a single soldier across Europe to do what an army cannot – may imply a suspension of disbelief in terms of danger and overwhelming odds, players won’t have to indulge themselves in invincibility. Occasionally the number of approaching enemies will mean that avoiding a skirmish is the best course of action. But, this being a game designed by Stuart Black, the game’s mechanics aren’t exactly beholden to a sense of realism.
A pistol with infinite ammo is set to keep the action moving forward, just one of many tropes of the genre set to appear. A proper English Commando and an alluring female French resistance fighter will be aiding Alders in his investigation, and those capable of dispatching German soldiers will be treated with a smart remark from Alders worthy of a wink to the camera.
The developers promise a wide range of period weaponry including lesser-known models of machine-guns and throwing knives, the use of vehicles in combat, and the ability to work with friendly forces as their missions align with that of Alders. Among the locations teased was the ‘Wolf’s Lair,’ Hitler’s base of operations on the Eastern Front, so expect the game’s campaign to depict a seriously grueling trek.
The basic gameplay of Enemy Front is not attempting to reinvent the shooter genre in any way, and while the footage shown was far from finished, the foundation seems strong. Artificial Intelligence behavior and hit detection all seemed to be well-tuned, and the design team’s decision to work all ammo and directional indicators into a single widget in the corner of the screen, thus leaving the rest of the screen free from obstruction, was a particularly nice touch.
On the other hand, French website Jeuxvideopc.com was far less impressed:
To be completely honest, we wonder why City Interactive unveiled its new title to the press. Not only does Enemy Front seriously smack of deja vu by offering us the role of an American hero whose goal is to sabotage the German lines all over Europe, but what we were able to see was perhaps one of the ugliest things seen at E3. When the developers told us that it was the Cry Engine 3 that was running their game, we had a hard time believing them. Not only are the environments absolutely sad, with a crying lack of life and vegetation, but the game also lag like a Doom 3 on a Pentium II. We were promised that the AI will be ultra-worked (it rushed at the player without thinking), that the environments will be destructible (it was only scripts) or that immersion will be the heart of the title (the player could withstand the bullets equivalent of the Battle of Stalingrad without dying), it was hard to believe them. Finally, only the explosions made in Cry Engine 3 and the correct modeling – nothing more – of the enemies were the only good points noted during this presentation. For the rest, it is a question of shooting stupid Germans with imprecise weapons and without punch and of taking cover while waiting to see heads sticking out. The maps may well be of a large size (to be honest, I did not understand the layout of the level) and the weapons (25 in number, all from the period) varied, we do not really see what City Interactive wants to accomplish.
However, after those presentations, Enemy Front went silent for months. City Interactive announced that they wouldn’t be present at Gamescom 2012, and during August 2012, the company went to a major restructuration that led the studio to rebrand as CI Games, cancel projects that wasn’t targeting the AAA market such as a Sniper: Ghost Warrior iOS game, delay numerous times Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2, and, finally, reboot Enemy Front. It was made official only in October of the same year, thanks to VG247:
According to Polish website Miastogier, citing an interview with City Interactive Chief Executive Officer Marek Tyminski, Black and the firm parted ways after his vision for Enemy Front was found to be “different from” the firm’s expectations.
As a result, the vision for Enemy Front, announced in November 2011 as a World War II first-person action-shooter, has changed direction.
“Following the first game shows, press releases, we decided to take into account the media attention and now we have made a number of quite significant changes in the game storyline and assumptions, including the main character,” Tyminski said.
“We’re currently working on these elements, among others, a very experienced person in the industry in the United States, Mark Bristol. Recently, [we] also decided to create an extensive multiplayer mode, in which our team in Romania is responsible for”.
A representative from City Interactive confirmed the changes made to Enemy Front with VG247, as well as Mark Bristol’s appointment and Black’s departure – which occured in August.
“We can confirm that Stuart Black is no longer working with City Interactive on the Enemy Front project,” Marshall Zwicker, the firms North American Vice President of sales and marketing told to VG247.
“Based on on early builds of the game and various internal and external feedback that we received, we decided to take a different approach to the gameplay, and the story and characters in the game than originally envisioned. We are now working with Mark Bristol, a very experienced cinematic director from the US and together with him we have been implementing what we feel are some really compelling changes.”
For his part, Black was rather hurt by this decision as we could read on Gamesindustry:
(…) Black was made redundant from his last project, WW2 shooter Enemy Front for City Interactive, just a few months ago.
“And I kind of felt, regardless of how they framed it as ‘we’re making you redundant because of strategic and financial reasons’ it’s inevitable, I would do the same, that people are going to think ‘he f***ed that up.’ The only reason you get rid of your Creative Director halfway through is because they f***ed up in some significant way,” he explained.
“So I kind of felt I looked really bad, my credibility is really going to take a hit from this when people start hearing about this and I just felt like I’ve got everything to prove. And it just comes down to making a game, so let’s just make a f***ing game.”
Last time anyone saw Black on the industry circuit was a press tour in May, where he was showing off his work on the City Interactive WW2 shooter Enemy Front. A game he thought was going well, and a game, he says, he was determined to finish. But just weeks after the press circuit he found himself suddenly and unexpectedly redundant.
“I don’t really have an answer for why, nobody ever really talked to me about any problems either with how I work, the quality of the work that was being done. It was kind of the opposite, everybody was really happy with the work.”
“The only thing that I can think is that when I was off doing my thing in the States telling people there’s going to be a Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare kind of vibe to the game rather than the Saving Private Ryan reverential vibe, and actually they were going ‘no, we actually want Private Ryan.’
It’s clear that the redundancy hurt Black. He explained that he felt it was blow to his credibility and his reputation.
Despite announcing two different projects back then, it seems Stuart Black didn’t really work in the video game industry anymore after this.
Enemy Front was re-announced during the Gamescom 2013 with, alongside Mark Bristol, Raphael Van Lierop as Freelance Creative Director. The final game retained some design ideas from Stuart Black’s version, but some weapons and levels were cut, with also a different tone in the story, a different main character, a different art style and features like the different enemy types, the vehicles driving, the partially destructible environments and the customizable difficulty levels were dropped. Enemy Front was finally released in June 2014 and was met with mixed to negative reviews by the press.
Enemy Front wasn’t the only victim of City Interactive’s 2012 August restructuration. Alongside the Sniper: Ghost Warrior iOS project by Vivid Games, the company had to axe their multiplayer Free to Play First-Person ShooterWorld of Mercenaries, and rebooted for the second time the game Alien Fear, which became Alien Rage.
World of Mercenaries is a canceled military Free-to-Play multiplayer First-Person Shooter developed and published by City Interactivearound 2011-2012, exclusively for the PC.
Not much is known about World of Mercenaries as information about it covered only 4 months. The game was officially announced in March 2012 by its developer, the Romanian subdivision of City Interactive, as we can read on MMOBomb:
Powered by Unreal Engine 3 and to be distributed digitally via Steam, World of Mercenaries is a skill based competitive FPS with stunning graphics, fluid controls, customizable weapons and focus on teamwork as a core element for player progression. Immerse in the life of a fearless mercenary!
“Our veteran team is comprised of some of the most devoted FPS fans in the world and we’re excited to use our knowledge and experience to fuse the best elements of previously released games in the genre with new and exciting advancements – be it in terms of graphics, controls or skill based game play.” says Bogdan Oprescu, Executive Producer for the title. “Our closed beta program will be an integral part of the development process for World of Mercenaries, as it is our goal to deliver a game made by, for and with FPS fans. We are shaping the future of competitive FPS, and are fully confident it will be achieved with the enthusiasm and help of our beta testers.”
World of Mercenaries was launched into closed beta in May 2012, and further details were shared:
City Interactive has announced the launch of the closed beta phase for World of Mercenaries. Beginning today, anyone with a beta key can redeem it through Steam and start playing it. The closed beta comes with two maps in two different modes. These two modes are described as a ‘classic’ and a ‘heavy team-oriented’ one. There are currently six different weapons and a dual health system to use.
Play your own way: get into fierce battles and mow down your enemies, back up your team members by blasting from afar; navigate skillfully and master the map; plan your own strategy and have your game evolve along with your style and each map’s unique terrain!
Purists will find a new battlefield for fame and glory; casual players will be more than just targets. World of Mercenaries is all about combat action and having fun!
However, after only 3 weeks of closed beta, City Interactive announced, on the now-defunct website of the game, that they putted the beta on-hold, in order to focus on the feedbacks by beta testers:
We would first like to thank all of you for applying to the game’s closed beta, for the interest and enthusiasm you have showed and that helped us go forward each day, and to our beta testers – for all the feedback you provided us with. We are very grateful that such a great community has started to shape around World of Mercenaries, thanks to each and every one of you.
We are entering a phase where we need to process all this information, as well as work on taking the game to another level.
As such, we will be putting the closed beta on hold as of today.
This was officially the last time World of Mercenaries was mentioned. In August 2012, City Interactive went into a major restructuration which resulted from the cancellation of a Sniper: Ghost Warrior game on iOS, as well as a reboot of Alien Fear and Enemy Front, whose developments were chaotic. The company was rebranded as CI Games and made the decision to only focus on AAA games. During the Enemy Front reboot, it was announced that City Interactive Bucharest would be in charge of developing the game’s multiplayer mode:
(…) Recently, we also decided to create an extensive multiplayer mode, in which our team in Romania is responsible for.
It is more than likely that World of Mercenaries was canceled during this process. In March 2013, Polish website Gram.pl confirmed that the game was officially canceled by CI Games during the report on the activities of the company:
“On February 13, 2013, the Issuer’s Management Board informed that due to the verification of the commercial potential of the game World of Mercenaries, the City Interactive S.A. Management Board has decided to stop development work on this game. In connection with the above, an impairment was made on the value of unfinished development work on World of Mercenaries for an amount of PLN 5.7 million.
On July the 20th 2005, Tecmo once unveiled a lineup of their upcoming games. Among these games was Bastard!! Online, an MMORPG based on the Bastard!! manga by Kazushi Hagiwara. According to various media outlets, the game was initially slated to be released exclusively on PC in Asian territories.
When rumours began to circulate that the game was cancelled, GameKult.com uploaded an article featuring many images and other minuscule details. From the site, we can read:
The project Bastard !! Online is not aborted, as evidenced by the first real images of the game, released two years after the development was announced. For those who are still wondering, it will indeed be an MMORPG adaptation of the famous manga by Kazushi Hagiwara, plunging players into the chaos of Meta-Licana. PvP oriented, the game will offer allegiance to one of the competing factions, at the command of generals Nei, Gara, Karsu or by joining the camp of the oppressed led by Princess Shira. It remains to be seen whether the universe heroic fantasy, the game system and the presence of the charismatic Dark Schneider will prove convincing enough to captivate the Japanese public. The launch of the game is still planned for 2007 in the land of the Rising Sun.
Despite plans for a 2007 release, Bastard!! Online was never launched. However, in 2008, Gamekult.com published another article titled “Bastard!! Online Lives Again.” The article revealed that the developers had spent an additional year enhancing the graphics to make the game much more visually appealing than what was previously shown. The website provided the following details:
Announced almost four years ago, the project Bastard !! Online is still relevant. As immortal as Dark Schneider, this impossible MMORPG is reborn from its ashes through these new images, enhanced with a trailer extra. Don’t laugh, the developers were particularly keen to highlight the efforts made on the graphics part of the game in a recent interview. For the rest, we know that this MMO based on the work of Kazushi Hagiwara will require allegiance to one of the game’s factions, commanded by the highly charismatic characters Nei, Gara and the others. The game is now scheduled to go live in 2009, at least until further notice..
Years have passed, and Bastard!! Online was never released. Ultimately, the game was cancelled on December 18, 2009 as Tecmo concluded that the development time required, coupled with their market forecasts, made continuing the project unfeasible. What remains of the game are a few screenshots and trailers.
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