Beta + Cancelled Sony Video Games - Page 46 of 222

Eden is a cancelled psychological horror game that was in development in 2009 by Zentropa Games as a tie-in / epilogue of the Antichrist movie directed by Lars Von Trier. Zentropa Games was part of Zentropa Entertainments, the Danish film company started in 1992 by Von Trier and producer Peter Aalbaek Jensen and from an interview published on Eurogamer DK it seems that Aalbaek was the one to suggest making a game related to Antichrist.

Eden was based in the same universe as Antichrist, with a new plot starting where the film ends. The player would have assumed the role of Willem Dafoe‘s character, who goes back to the lodge in the woods (called “Eden”) to try to figure out the cause for the violent events seen in the movie. Eden would have been a deep dive into your darkest and most gloomy personal fears, as players had to create their own profile at the start of the game, answering to a series of questions about their fears, and thus making the adventure a very personal experience, that would change for each individual.

We can assume gameplay would have been somehow similar to the Silent Hill series mixed with Heavy Rain and other Quantic Dream games, but played in first person. The game was conceived to be played multiple times, to see all the different endings and events. Zentropa Games planned to release Eden in 2010 for PC, Xbox Live Arcade and PSN.

As we can read in an article by Superannuation published by Kotaku:

“Morten Iversen, formerly a writer on the Hitman franchise at IO Interactive, led the development of the game, and Politiken added that “Von Trier [had to] approve the [team’s] final design. […] In an e-mail, Iversen said Eden “was originally intended to be a companion piece to [the film],” but the development team ultimately felt Antichrist’s audience was too narrow, so they decided to reposition it as a unique story-driven title appealing to people interested in games like Heavy Rain. Iversen compared the connection between Eden and Antichrist to that of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and the Andrei Tarkovsky film of the same name: there would be elements – the setting and general universe – discerning fans would recognize, but it would still be an accessible product for a larger audience.
The game began “with a short prologue about legal and emotional repercussions” of Antichrist’s events, and then tasked players with “collecting clues in a mystery that slowly unfolds – [they] unlock areas in and around the cabin [from the film],” Iversen said. In order to succeed in Eden, players had to confront their personal phobias and “explore the darkness in [the game’s] universe” and within the players.”

Unfortunately in early 2010 Zentropa Games had to close down because of economic issues:

“Even after receiving 100,000 Euro in aid they just couldn’t manage to keep it going. It seems that the games industry in Denmark is coming to a crushing halt as now 4 developers have closed in the last 12 months. “There was just no budget to continue development. Over the years it became increasingly clear that there simply was not enough money,” said Morten Iversen, former head of Zentropa Games to PC World.”

Only a few concept arts remains from the development of Eden: if you know someone who worked on this game that could have some screenshots or videos, please let us know!

Microsoft, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Skate or Die Reboot [Xbox, PS2 – Cancelled]

monokoma

20-06-2017

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In 2002 Electronic Arts commissioned Criterion Games (the team mostly known for their Burnout series) to develop a 3D reboot of Skate or Die, the popular skateboarding game published by EA in 1988 for many home computers and the NES. Unfortunately this Skate or Die sequel for Xbox and Playstation 2 was cancelled after just 1 year of development.

Skate or Die “reboot” was in development by the same team that also worked on TrickStyle and AirBlade, two games very similar to the Tony Hawk’s videogames, but with hoverboards. Thanks to an article dedicated to Criterion Games published in Games TM Magazine (issue 100, September 2010) we can read that:

“Criterion started talking to EA in 2002 and they asked if we’d be interested in doing a remake of the old C64 and NES game, Skate Or Die. These guys wanted to make a skateboarding game, so we did it.”

It seems that after Acclaim filed for bankruptcy, Criterion approached EA as a possible new publisher for Burnout and in the end they also pitched a new racing game titled “Need for Speed: Split Second”, that EA greenlighted along with the new Skate or Die project.

“[After Burnout 2: Point of Impact in 2002], we were talking to EA Canada about doing a Need For Speed game, so we put together a pitch to do a stunt racing game called Need For Speed: Split Second.“

Criterion had an interesting concept for Skate or Die, to let players to freely move around the levels on foot, choosing the best spot to start doing tricks on the skateboard, entering into shops to buy new boards and interacting with NPCs. In 2002 this was quite a new way to conceive a skateboarding game, when most Tony Hawks games still had the same gameplay mechanics as the first one.

“In Tony Hawk you were always on the board and it was all about tricks and high scores, but I wanted to explore what it was like to just go out for a skate and have that feeling of just doing whatever you want, […] I wanted to be able to get off the board”

Unfortunately EA had even more ambitious plans for Skate or Die (it seems they also proposed to make it a tie-in for Jackass or Dogtown and Z-Boys), not only they wanted to enter in competition with Tony Hawks, but even against such as massive game as GTA 3:

“But the project was apparently subject to all kinds of pushing and pulling at the behest of the publisher. We were told ‘you can’t just make a Tony Hawk game – it’s got to be like Grand Theft Auto,’ and that was the first time we were like, ‘Really?’ ‘It’s got to be open world.’ Well, what does that mean? Nobody really knew.”

The team at Criterion knew that it would have been impossible to meet EA’s demands, so they decided to quit the project before it would became a development hell:

“We watch as the game changes direction before our very eyes, from classic skating game to GTA-inspired open-world ideas through to an ingenious skating evolution concept but the simplicity with which the various videos flow onto the screen belies the confusion and trauma the team went through in trying to score when the goalposts were moving so quickly and so frequently. Sullivan tells us of a number of serious illnesses he went through as a result of the constant stress, and he wasn’t alone – the team was in turmoil.”
“We called a meeting with the EA guys, told them we were walking away [from the Skate or Die sequel] and they went mad, threatening to sue us, put us out of business… there was a lot of anger and frustration, […] then we got a call from the Need For Speed guys and they said ‘we can’t work with you guys any more; you just walked away and there’s a shame on your company, so we can’t talk to you. […] I remember coming back to my desk and there was a folder on my desktop called EA and I just clicked delete. We learned a lot about how a game should be made, and we learned a lot about working with an external publisher – how we had to get our shit together earlier but also how we had to stand our ground.“

In the end Criterion and EA signed a new agreement and they started working together on Burnout 3: Takedown, released in September 2004 for PS2 and Xbox. In august of the same year Electronic Arts acquired Criterion and they became one of their internal development team that later create such titles as Black, Need for Speed and new games in the Burnout series.

If you own issue 100 of Games TM, let us know if there are more screenshots from the cancelled Skate or Die sequel in the magazine!

Microsoft, PC / MAC, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Alien Fear (Alien Rage) [Cancelled/Unused – PC, PS3, Xbox 360]

U64 Staff & Contributors

13-06-2017

1 Comment

Alien Fear is a FPS that was announced in September 2010, initially developed by The Farm 51 and published by CITY Interactive. In February 2011, CITY Interactive was displeased by the work done by The Farm 51 and moved the project to one of their related companies based in Bydgoszcz, Poland. Here was what we could read on Polish website Polygamia on that matter:

The Farm 51 will no longer produce Alien Fear. Reason? The developer does not meet the artistic requirements.
Do you still remember Alien Fear? We didn’t know much about the game itself, except that it was a “shooter set in a science fiction setting with horror elements”, it would probably run on Unreal Engine 3, and that it was to appear only in digital distribution on PS3, 360 and PC. Now we also know that City Interactive has moved its production to its internal studios, or in legal terms: “while retaining all rights to the production elements of the Alien Fear game already made and received” – it will continue producing the game in its own development studios.
The stock exchange announcement states that it was “the Contractor’s failure to properly fulfill its obligations under the contract, in particular the failure to perform the subject of the contract on time and taking into account artistic requirements.”
When asked for a comment, Marek Tymiński from City Interactive told us: “We focus on the quality of our games, we want Alien Fear to become a hit. This will be brought closer to us by the decision to transfer the project to an internal studio, and – which will happen soon – by expanding the team with new faces from abroad and from Poland.

The Farm 51 responded that they still had rights over the work done so far on the game, so CITY Interactive reworked Alien Fear to change some of the previous work, and planned to release it on Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. This was, again, revealed by Polygamia, in April of the same year:

We claim that the withdrawal from the contract made by City Interactive S.A. does not produce any legal effects, and therefore the Agreement is still in force. We were accused of lack of punctuality when the project was delayed by City Interactive S.A. intentionally or at least demonstrating a lack of due diligence or organizational skills. The artistic level of City Interactive S.A. products, which we allegedly did not meet, has been sufficiently documented in reviews of other games of this company, therefore we will not comment on this allegation, leaving the dispute to be resolved by independent experts. All allegations made by City Interactive S.A. are not confirmed by the facts and therefore we argue that they were invented in order to break the Agreement and achieve previously set goals, which we can only guess at. We are convinced of the bad intentions of City Interactive S.A., which may result, for example, from the desire to avoid payment of the contracted amounts from the project budget, mainly sales royalties.
We declare that the copyrights to parts of the project are still owned by The Farm 51 and will only be transferred to City Interactive upon payment of the remuneration. Therefore, until the disputes regarding withdrawal from the contract are clarified, City Interactive S.A. should at least refrain from distributing undue rights to third parties.
The Farm 51

In the late summer of 2012, CITY Interactive restructured and was renamed to CI Games. At the time that they took control of Alien Fear, The Farm 51 reported that the game was 75 percent ready but it is unclear exactly how much was playable.

There are screenshots available of both versions of Alien Fear: the game as designed by The Farm 51 and the later game that was reworked by CITY Interactive/CI Games. Screenshots from the first half of 2011 reveal that Alien Fear utilized a point system similar to the one used in Bulletstorm.

The game’s location was set on a ship in deep space. At this point, Alien Fear was similar in tone to the 2008 game Dead Space with many dark corners populated by monstrous aliens. Others who have viewed these early screenshots of Alien Fear compared it to Doom and Alien. The reworked version of Alien Fear by CI Games used less of an horror setting with larger and more mechanical oriented characters, somehow similar to Gears of War.

In May 2013, Alien Fear was reworked again due to another commitments by the time and title was changed into Alien Rage. As we can see in the screenshots from the second version by CI Games, it featured a cooperative mode. This was scrapped in the final retail version. The director credited to the game is Mark Bristol. It marked Bristol’s first director credit on a video game and he would also direct Enemy Front in 2014. Alien Rage was released on the PC on September 24, 2013, and later on the Xbox 360, and Playstation 3 in October 2013. It received mixed to negative reviews with many critics focusing on the game’s generic play and glitches.

After Alien Fear, The Farm 51 began work on several new projects, including a FPS mixing The Bourne Identity and Gothic and another FPS with an Indiana Jones atmosphere. They would ultimately create two games for the Xbox 360/Playstation 3: Painkiller: Hell & Damnation and Deadfall Adventures. Work on the Gothic based game likely ended up in Painkiller where the player fights demons, while the Indiana Jones game became Deadfall Adventures which is set in the universe of Allan Quartermain, a 19th century novel and series of films from the 1980’s about an archeologist adventurer.

Article by Blake Lynch, thanks to Daniel Nicaise for the contribution!

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Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 2 (PS2), PSP, Sony, Unseen News, Xbox

Shadow of Memories / Destiny (The Day of Walpurgis) [Beta]

lytron

13-06-2017

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“Shadow of Memories” is a 2001 released Visual Novel by Konami in guise of a Third Person Action Adventure for the PS2. Set in the fictive German town of Lebensbaum, the game combines solving a murder case (the protagonist’s very own) with a time travel element and gothic fantasy elements. Like Visual Novels, the game did not offer many possibilities to stray from the predestined path(s), which baffled a portion of its players and reviewers at the time as well as its total lack of action elements in any form. Yet, like Visual Novels, its strengths are its setting, atmosphere and story, which branch into not less than half a dozen different endings. Known as “Shadow of Destiny” in the US, the game was ported to several other platforms: in 2002 it was released in the EU for the original XBox, a short time later a PC version was produced for the west and finally in 2009/2010 it came out for the PSP in Japan and North America.

Microsoft, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Chase [PS3, Xbox 360 – Cancelled]

monokoma

30-05-2017

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Chase is a cancelled action adventure with RPG and racing elements that was in development around 2010 for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, possibly to be published by Evolved Games. While we received some details about the game’s story and gameplay, we don’t know the name of the studio that was working on this project and it seems that only an early tech demo was developed before its cancellation, probably because the pitch was not fully green-lighted by the publisher.

Described as a “cinematic and emotional action RPG and Driving game”, Chase could have mixed some interesting gameplay mechanics from different game genres, within modern day real world settings. Some of the areas planned for the game included California (Los Angeles), Nevada (Vegas), California (San Francisco), Utah (Salt Lake City), Arizona (Grand Canyon), Texas (Baytown Refinery, largest oil refinery in the United States), New York (New York City), Michigan (Detroit), Illinois (Chicago) and Louisiana (New Orleans).

Such games as Burnout Paradise, GTA, Twisted Metal and Midnight Club: Los Angeles were quoted as inspirations for the game’s feel and gameplay, and in Chase players would be able to explore 12 different areas in North America, driving around with many upgradable vehicles (cars, trucks, motorcycles, jet skis and airboats) while trying to escape from enemies or chasing down a target, for example a truck with a gas tank that has to be destroyed. Each vehicle would have had many weapons at its disposal, you could customize your car as you please to became a powerful road warrior. By looking at the early tech demo footage, we can say it kinda looks a bit like the Mad Max game tie-in developed by Avalanche Studios and published in 2015.

Two playable characters were available, Logan and Gina chase, each with their own skills and strengths. We can assume the final game would have included many cinematic cut-scenes with a feel similar to high-speed action movies, with reckless driving, chases, car combat and crashes. Levels would have had destructible environments, dynamic night and day cycles as well as weather that would influence gameplay.

Here are some details from the beginning of the story planned for the game:

“Logan Chase has only scratched the surface of the plot from the secret group called The Hand of the Patriots. The clock is ticking and it’s up to Logan and his wife Gina to stop the chain of events that will cause the United States to fall into chaos.
Logan Chase has lost everything and is now an inmate of a maximum security prison awaiting his execution date. This former agent has been labeled an enemy of the state, locked up and all that he cared for has been taken away from him.
The victim of a major cover-up he has been betrayed and lied to by everyone he trusted even his own lawyer. There is a long list of dirty cops, rogue agents and other dark forces standing between him and freedom. Believing his own life is over Logan’s only concern is for his wife. Before his imprisonment he was able to secure her escape. Gina Chase is probably the only person that knows his innocence and is also a target on the run.
HAND OF THE PATRIOTS: From America’s social elite to generations of political dynasties and hard core religious zealots . The Hand moves in shadows and has pull in it’s many political, religious and charity organizations. They are the one’s who are pulling the strings.
After receiving the final verdict of guilty Logan is being transported back to the prison along with other prisoners. He is told by the warden that they finally have word on where his wife is and she will soon be taken. Handcuffed and bound he fights but can’t get free. But then the prisoners attack the guards and grab the keys. A fight between the prisoners and guards begins on the bus.
The prisoners have the bus and the cops are chasing them. A firefight between them begins. (This includes cars and helicopters). Logan shoots down the helicopter and takes out most of the pursuing cop cars but the bus is on fire and can’t go on much longer. He spots a transport filled with new cars. He decides to jump for it from the roof of the bus. Logan makes the jump and begins to hotwire one of the new cars. The cops are closing in as he starts the car and floors it off the carrier.”

It seems that while Chase was set in real-world settings, there would have been some sci-fi or near-future elements, such as chemical compound used by Hand of the Patriots to render the masses passive and release their free will, and the high-tech combat cars you can see in the footage below.

Multiplayer was also planned for Chase, we can assume it could have been some kind of car combat online mode similar to Twisted Metal.

If you know someone who worked on this game please let us know! We’d love to save even more details about it, before it could be forgotten.

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