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This Means War! (bigBIG Studios) [PS3, PSVita – Cancelled]

This Means War! Is a cancelled third person team-based shooter that was in early development by bigBIG Studios around 2009, planned to be released on Playstation 3 or PSVita. The team was mostly known for Pursuit Force and Little Deviants, but they worked with Sony on many more canned projects, such as Survive, Autorobotica and this one.

By looking at the only remaining images we speculate This Means War!’s gameplay could have been similar to Battalion Wars, possibly with a huge emphasis on team VS team online multiplayer. Players would have been able to use military weapons and vehicles to fight other teams on small spherical levels (somehow similar to Mario Galaxy planets). Many different character classes would have been available as DLC to be purchased on PSN, each one with different skills, appearance and nationality.

Unfortunately as far as we know This Means War! was never officially announced by Sony nor bigBig Studios, so we don’t have more details about the project and why it was never released. In 2012 Sony closed bigBIG Studios: some images from This Means War! are preserved in the gallery below to remember the existence of this lost project.

Thanks to Tonz for the contribution!

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Survive (bigBIG Studios) [PSVita – Cancelled]

Survive is a cancelled zombie game that was in development by bigBIG Studios around 2009, planned to be released on the Sony PSVita. The team was mostly known for such titles as Pursuit Force and Little Deviants, but they worked on more games for Sony that were never released. Unfortunately as far as we know Survive was never officially announced by Sony, so we don’t have details about its gameplay.

By looking at the only available screenshots, we speculate it was going to be some kind of tower defense / survival adventure set in a zombie-apocalypse world. In 2012 Sony closed bigBIG Studios: some images from Survive are preserved in the gallery below to remember the existence of this lost project.

Thanks to Tonz for the contribution!

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Broken (Magenta Software) [PSVita – Cancelled]

Broken is a cancelled detective adventure game that was in development around 2011 – 2012 by Magenta Software, planned to be published by Sony on PSVita as one of their launch titles. The team was inspired by movies such as Mystic River, Zodiac, and Se7en: players would take the role of a detective in Miami, examining crime scenes and trying to stop a serial killer.

As far as we know the game was never officially announced by Sony nor the team, but some details and screenshots were shared online by former Magenta Software developers and artists:

“The Idea of the game was to showcase the features of the new PlayStation Vita hardware by utilizing some of the unique game-play scenarios the hardware could offer, such as the touch-screen, the back of console touch sensor, the cameras and the gyroscopes. In the initial game-play, the detective would be represented as a floating first-person camera, and navigate interior crime-scene environments by touching point of interest nodes in the 3d scene which would trigger dialogue, navigation, interactions, and cut-scenes. During development, this progressed through moving a 3d character model along “rails” between points, and further into the player having full autonomy of the character in a first-person perspective.”

“Another unique element of the game was the use of the console itself as an in-game “smartphone” owing to the device’s similarities. When evidence was collected from the crime scene, it could be examined within the smart-phone. The phone could be used to make calls to other officers during the investigation, examine evidence with Mini-games such as DNA matching, and even take photos of the game’s environment using the gyroscopes to detect the orientation of the device.”

In the end Broken was canned by Sony when they switched their market strategy:

“Regrettably for budgeting reasons Broken was eventually canceled by Sony, as early sales forecasts for the PS-Vita indicated that only larger budget games such as Uncharted, or much smaller budget games were expected to be successful on the console, leaving Broken in an unfortunate middle-ground.”

Screenshots from this lost game are preserved in the gallery below, to remember its existence.

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Kabuki Samurai Sensei: Bride of Shadows [3DS, PSVita – Cancelled]

Kabuki Samurai Sensei: Bride of Shadows is a cancelled action RPG adventure that was in development by Smack Down Productions (AKA SDP games) for Nintendo 3DS and PSVita. The game was announced in August 2010, with just some concept art and vague details about its gameplay. Players would explore medieval Japan, through temples, floating castles and dizzying waterfalls.

The game was planned to feature Zelda-style side quests and “Dragon Ball style action”, with the main protagonist using swords and shurikens in epic fights. Battles would take place in arenas, with Quick Time Events, using magic elements of fire, earth, wind and water against different types of demons from Japanese folklore.

While the game was initially announced as a 3DS exclusive, we found footage of the game running on what seems a PSVita. At the time Smack Down Productions did not have a publisher for the game, so we speculate they never found one and the project was quietly canned. Bride of Shadows concept and models were later reused for a simpler side-scrolling hack & slash titled “Kabuki Samurai Sensei” which seems to have been published on Apple Store in November 2011, but later removed.

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Cult County (Renegade Kid) [Cancelled – 3DS, Wii U, PS3, PSVita, PC]

Cult County is a cancelled psychological horror game that was in development by Renegade Kid around 2013, originally announced for Nintendo 3DS at PAX 2013 and later also planned for PS4, PS3, PSVita, Wii U, PC, and Xbox One when they unsuccessfully tried to fund the game on Kickstarter. Their plan for the project was to create an episodic horror tale, something like “The Walking Dead meets Silent Hill 2 from a first-person perspective”.

The team is mostly known for cult-classic Nintendo DS horror titles such as Dementium: The Ward and Moon, plus fun platforming adventures such as Mutant Mudds and Xeodrifter. While they always showed skills and love for Nintendo consoles, their games never sold much unfortunately.

Some details about Cult County can still be read on their Kickstarter campaign page, which raised just  $ 46.736 of their $ 580.000 goal:

“Cult County is an all-new first-person survival horror game that blends the episodic story-telling of The Walking Dead with the classic tension-filled exploration and action of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, presenting an opportunity for fans to help a veteran team produce a new experience that is fresh, exciting, and scary!

Rebirth of the survival horror FPS genre, crafted with fan input.
Story-driven gameplay, featuring memorable character interactions.
Small West Texas town filled with tension, mystery, and scares.
Vulnerable and personalized melee and firearm combat.
Varied cast of creepy enemy encounters and devious boss battles.

You assume the role of Gavin Mellick, whose mother has fallen deathly ill. Unable to reach your older sister, Alissa, by phone you drive the 6 hours across Texas to visit her in person and share the sad news. You return to the small town where you spent your summers as a child with Alissa, at your late aunt’s house. There is a particularly savage dust storm rolling in when you arrive.

Unable to locate your sister, you ask some of the locals for help. You quickly learn about their suspicions of a cultish group that recently moved into town, and the unexpected suicide of Father Pearce. The locals offer very little help finding your sister, and it isn’t long before your search takes an unexpected dark turn, leading you down a road of no return.

You are alone. You are unarmed. You see strange “people” linger on the edge of the dust storm, who seem to be watching your every move. But, as soon as you turn your head to face them, they disappear. Who are they? Where do they go? What do they want?

As you explore deeper into the town, searching for any clues that might lead to your sister, you meet various town folk who offer their own anecdotes on what the “people” might be. Some claim they are just your imagination, and some say they are part of the new cultish group who recently moved into town. One person even goes as far to name them “Dust Devils“!”

With no support on Kickstarter, Renegade Kid possibly tried to find a publisher for Cult County, but without success. After releasing Moon Chronicles and Dementium Remastered on Nintendo 3DS, in August 2016 Renegade Kid announced that it was shutting down. It’s currently unknown if Cult County could be resurrected in the future, but if so we could see it from Infitizmo, the new team created by former Renegade Kid cofounder Gregg Hargrove.

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