Ikon was a third person shooter / sandbox game that was in development for the Playstation 2 from 2002 to 2005 at Ratbag Games. In three years the project evolved and it was later know as Scavenger, as it was shown at E3 2005.
As we can read on the official press release: “Scavenger’s hero is a loner battling for his survival and searching for a sister sold into slavery. Scavenging, trading and raiding, he builds up his arsenal of weapons to wreak revenge on the men who took her. Centred around a huge desert wasteland, the game features convoy attacks (players pit their skills against escorted convoys to try and steal their cargo) and allows players to trade to increase their wealth, align themselves with different factions, and increase their attack power by modifying their vehicles and upgrading weapons.
Scavenger was a Free Roaming 3rd Person Action game with exciting vehicle combat and a unique economy simulation that the player could influence and exploit. The player could roam the waste lands hunting bandits and convoys shipping goods between settlements or escort the convoys for a fee. Each settlement produced something the others required, if the player intercepted the goods they could then sell them to the towns that needed them for a higher price. Money was used to buy new vehicles weapons and upgrades. Unfortunately Midway had no interest in taking the project into full production and moved the team on to The Wheelman before eventually closing the studio.
Even if they did find a couple of publishers interested in Ikon / Scavenger, the game was dropped by Rockstar after being dropped by Sony and sadly the development was stopped after E3 2005. Midway bough Ratbag Games and shut them down with this promising game still unfinished.
The Executives was an action game in development in 2003 for the Playstation 2 by The Collective studios, that was going to be published by Midway. The game was never officially announced and it was cancelled during the early stages of development. Only some screenshots and concept arts remains from the project
It’s interesting to note that in some of these concepts, the title of the game was changed to “Career Criminal”. A title which was also used for an internally developed but also cancelled Midway game (see “Career Criminal”, a cancelled Xbox 360 / PS3 game). That project was started soon after the efforts of The Collective were cancelled.
Time Traveler is an action game that was in development in 2003 / 2004 at Sensory Sweep Studios. From the only video that remains from the project it seems that the player would have been able to go back in time to the Titanic disaster, to change the history. It’s currently unknown if the Titanic was the scenario for only one of the various levels of the game, or if all the missions would have been set in the famous sinking ship. This project could have also been a proposal concept for an early Playstation 3 game, with a prototype build created on their PS2 engine.
This new chapter in the Alone In The Dark series was in development in 2003 at Computer Artworks Studios, but it vanished when the studio closed down the same year. Probably this project was only in early stages before the cancellation.
Maximo 3 is the cancelled third episode in the Maximo series, a game that many fans were waiting for, but unfortunately things went not as planned. The original Maximo: Ghosts to Glory is a 3D action game created as a spiritual sequel to the 2D Ghosts n’ Goblins series, developed by Capcom Production Studio 8 and released for PlayStation 2 in 2001 / 2002. A sequel, Maximo vs. Army of Zin was released in 2003 and the third game was in the works by the same team, but after only a few months of development it was canned due to lower than expected sales from Maximo 2.
Maximo 3 was started soon after Studio 8 finished to work on the second chapter (Maximo 2 ends with the promise of a third game, with Maximo and his allies teaming up to find Queen Sophia), and they created many concept arts that you can see in the gallery below, with new enemies, settings (an Arabian theme, inspired by the success of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time) and features. The “cartoony” feel of the original games was dropped for a more gritty look.
In the original design doc we can read more about Maximo 3’s gameplay mechanics and story:
Across the Southern Sea, in a land of exotic culture a great history, lies the city of Mashhad, the gateway to the ancient east, but lurking in the shadow of a proud people are the forces of blood and corruption. The Cult of Chut, a religious order legion with fanatics, is preparing to transform the city into a single bloody alter whose population will be the sacrifice in their apocalyptic ritual.
But all is not lost: Maximo stands against this tide of destruction. Having followed the trail of his lost love, Maximo arrived in Mashhad with hopes that his journey will soon end. Now he will pit his sword and wist against the church’s faceless leaders and rescue Sophia; the possessed conduit through which Chut makes itself heard.
Maximo 3 stars with Maximo and his band in bad shape. In their quest for Sophia, the heroes have encountered the Cult of Chut, death worshipers who find a “man who walks with Death” an affront to their beliefs. As a result, Baron has beel killed, Tinker maimed and Maximo and Grim have been merged into one, thanks to a curse. Maximo and Tinker have been hunting down cultist sects when they arrive in Mashhad, seeking revenge and a cure to Maximo’s condition.
The new connection between Maximo and Grim would have been used as one of the main features of Maximo 3, needed to progress through the game:
Maximo is covered in tatoos, which are actually the external manifestation of the cultist’s curse that has trapped Grim within him. With the press of a button, Maximo transforms into Grim, allowing him several abilities.
As a result of the curse on Maximo, turning into Grim drains Maximo’s Health. Stay as Grim for too long and Maximo will lose a life. Only by collecting the souls of the evil cultists can Maximo sustain himself in Grim form.
At some point in the game, Maximo will use Grim’s form as a disguise to infiltrate the cult’s tower during Chut Holy Day. Gameplay will have the players switch the two forms.
As a phantom. Grim can slide up walls, flow like a shadow along walls, give a little extra distance to a jump and glide down from long drops. In addition, the player can perform several attacks with his scythe. Grim attacks do not always kill, rather they are used to “prep” an enemy for Maximo’s attacks, such as breaking a cultist’s protection spell or “mortalizing” ghostly foes.
While in Grim form, the player cannot talk to innocents as they are too scared. However, Grim’s attack will free the innocents of the cult’s influence, turning them from enemies to normal innocents that Maximo must rescue from othe enemies.
After this first concept phase, Capcom Studio 8 created an early playable prototype with a test level which would have been the hub world of the game, to test out Maximo’s new abilities, as Wall Jump, Carry / Push / Pull / Throw items, Swim (to maneuver around obstacles, resolve puzzles and find hidden treasures in deep lakes), Talk to NPCs to gain information, advance the story, start mini-quests, rescue innocents from enemies and free them from the influence of the Cult.
Some new items and weapons features were also planned, as the Sword Grapple to grab ledges, the Flintlock Rifle (a new gun-weapon type), Claws to climb up walls, the Crossbolt Gauntlet (to shoot bolts and to use it as a grapple hook to swing or to be pulled towards a secret area) and the Horn (to knocks enemies back and to cause parts of the scenario to shake and break to find new paths). There was also a “lock on” mechanic, very much like the 3D Zelda games.
Maximo 3 was going to be a much more ambitious project than Maximo 1&2 and would have taken the series into a full action-adventure game, more similar to The Legend of Zelda. The new lead designer was heavily inspired by exploration / puzzle aspects of Zelda, so the game was going to be more focused on exploration and to be less linear than the previous titles.
In the Maximo 3 prototype it was possible to explore a small town, to interact with a few NPCs, climb upon its walls and fight with some enemies. There was just one functioning enemy, which was a the basic cultist that you can also see in the concept arts. Looking at this unfinished prototype and reading the design doc, it seems that Maximo 3 could have been the best game in the Maximo series, but unfortunately not much more work was done on it, as it was canned soon after the creation of this early demo.
Capcom Production Studio 8 was full of talented artists and after they finished Maximo 2 they started to work on 3 interesting pitches: Maximo 3, DeVargas and Final Fight: Seven Sons, the unreleased FF that was planned before Final Fight: Streetwise. In the end, only FF: Streetwise was greenlighted from Capcom, but when it was released it failed to achieve mainstream success and it bombed in sales. Capcom decided to not invest in their California team anymore and sadly Production Studio 8 was closed down in 2006. Only few concept arts, a video and a few pages from the design doc remain to preserve the existence of Maximo 3.
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