New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Unseen News

Work on the Unseen64 book can fully start!

U64 Staff & Contributors
11-07-2015
2 Comments

Unseen64 book start

We’d like to thanks all our patrons on Patreon for the awesome support, we are happy to see that people understand the importance of having an archive to remember games that we’ll never play and with your help we can continue to keep the site online and to do more to preserve lost videogames! We have recently reached the goal of 250$ a month, so now we can finally fully work on the Unseen64 book :) We are still trying to keep the cost as low as possible, but keeping the quality as high as possible. Other gaming book had to rise thousands of $ to be created, we hope to be able to publish it with much less, in about 10 months from now.

How is this possible? Well, the main Unseen64 staff is writing new and updated articles for the book in their free time and we asked to friends and readers to help us in writing more articles. As most of this is volunteer work, instead than to pay people to write articles, we’ll send them a copy of the book, which printing and shipping cost will be covered by donations. In this way, we should be able to complete all the articles for the book without spending too much and at the same time having great articles written by experts and lovers of unseen games.

We’ll also have some help from friends that already work with publishing and designing software for their main job, to organize the best format and layout for the book. For the book cover we’ll probably organize a contest in the following months, so if you are interested in creating an artwork for it, let us know! We’ll then publish the book worldwide trough Amazon, so everyone will be able to easily order a copy. Remember that people that donated 25$ a month for at least 2 months will get a copy of the book :)

The book will be focused on cancelled videogames and we’ll also try to get interviews with developers that worked on some of our favorite projects. What’s more to say? If there’s something that you’d love to see in a book dedicated to lost videogames, let us know in the comments below!

GameCube, Nintendo, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony

Skies of Arcadia 2 [Cancelled – GameCube, PS2]

monokoma
06-07-2015
3 Comments

The original Skies of Arcadia was released in late 2000 / early 2001 on Dreamcast, and soon became a cult hit among JRPG fans. The game was developed by Overworks, a SEGA team composed of numerous legendary developers and designers, including Rieko Kodama, Shuntarō Tanaka, and Noriyoshi Ohba; who worked on past RPGs, such as the Phantasy Star series, Magic Knight Rayearth, Wonder Boy in Monster Land and the Sakura Taisen series. Hype was high and the final game was really one of the best japanese RPGs released in the ‘00, but unfortunately, it seems that Skies of Arcadia did not sell enough on Dreamcast (does anyone have official sales numbers?), maybe because of the low user base and the console early departure in early 2001.

skies of arcadia 2 cancelled

Sega was still confident about their sky-pirates project: they developed an enchanted PS2 and GameCube ports with added featured, to try to sell more copies and earn back some of the money spent to create the game. The GameCube version was released in December 2002 under the title “Skies of Arcadia Legends” but PS2 port was canned for some reasons, throwing away one of the biggest user base for RPG fanatics. As most Nintendo console, GameCube was not an easy console to sell third parties titles and with a lower percentage of people interested in turn based role playing games, Skies of Arcadia Legend bombed even harder than the Dreamcast version.

Before losing all faith in the game, Sega and Overworks were planning a sequel to Skies of Arcadia, as confirmed by interviews with developers from the original team. In June 2001 IGN asked to Noriyoshi Ohba about Skies of Arcadia 2 and he replied:

We’re considering a sequel to “Eternal Arcadia.” Regarding which platform, we’re still evaluating it.

In September 2002, before Skies of Arcadia Legends was published, Rieko Kodama told to Gamespy that work on the sequel was not yet started, but they really wanted to do it in the future:

I would love to make a sequel, but were really not working on it yet. […] We don’t know what platform we would make a sequel for, but GameCube has priority since Legend is coming out for it.

In march 2004 Ohba announced that they started some planning on the second episode:

The Skies of Arcadia sequel is in the planning stages at the moment.

In late 2004, Rieko talked again about Skies of Arcadia 2 in an interview with german Man!ac magazine (issue 1 / 2005) in which she said:

MAN!AC: There were rumors about a sequel (to Skies of Arcadia) or a “Gaiden” episode. Can you tell us something about that

Rieko : We had plans, but the other team members are currently working on other projects such as “Sakura Taisen” – this means SoA2 is currently on hold. Anyway I would be very glad about a new episode with the sky pirates.

In 2003 Overworks was absorbed into SEGA WOW and only a year later the team was split again because of another Sega company restructure: people that worked on Skies of Arcadia were scattered around on different games. As far as we were able to gather, not much was ever did for Skies of Arcadia 2 but at least a few ideas and concepts seem to have been brainstormed by the team, still hoping to release a sequel on GameCube or Playstation 2. In 2006 Nintendo and Sony released their new consoles (Wii, PS3) and whichever plans Sega had for a new Skies RPG on GameCube or PS2 will never see the light of day.

skies of arcadia valkyrie

Even without a sequel, love for Skies of Arcadia is still strong at Sega. Vyse, Aika and Fina, three of the main SoA protagonists, were added as bonus characters in Valkyria Chronicles, released in 2008 on PS3. Vyse is also a playable character in Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, released in 2012 for different consoles / PC and one of the game’s tracks, Rogues’ Landing, is based on Skies of Arcadia’s world.

Thanks to Mario for the contribution!

Saturn, Sega

Vectorman 3: Ultra [Sega Saturn – Cancelled]

monokoma
29-06-2015
1 Comment

Vectorman Ultra is the cancelled third game in the Vectorman series, started with the first one developed by BlueSky Software and published by Sega for Sega Mega Drive / Genesis in 1995. Vectorman 2 was released in November 1996 and after it went gold it seems that BlueSky started to pitch a new sequel to Sega (Next Generation magazine published a rumor about it in their website that year), planning to develop it for Sega Saturn, the “new” Sega console that was released in May 1995 in USA.

Ellis Goodson, the artist that worked on the original Vectorman and other cult games as Skullmonkeys and Shadowrun, drawn many concepts to be used in the design doc for Vectorman Ultra created by Jason Weesner. It’s interesting to notice that these concept arts were sold sometime ago on eBay and in some of those auctions they described the game as planned for the Nintendo 64, but it’s possible that they got confused because of “Ultra” in the title (N64 was known as Ultra 64 before its final name).

It’s currently unknown if Sega Saturn’s Vectorman would have been in 2D or 3D, but looking at those awesome concept arts it seems that at least this lost game would have had some side-scrolling levels. We hope to be able to see more from this project sometime in the future, it would be interesting to know if any actual prototype was started at all. Some years later Sega tried to revive the Vectorman IP with a new PS2 game developed by Pseudo Interactive, but that was also cancelled.

Thanks to eSPy, Youloute, S.J. Reed and Ellis for the contributions!

Images:

Nintendo, Wii

Zblu Cops [Cancelled – Wii]

Liam Robertson
22-06-2015
1 Comment

Zblu Cops was a cancelled adventure game based around the French comic book of the same name. It was being developed by Biodroid exclusively for Wii with a release being targeted for mid-late 2010.

Zblu Cops banner

Bringing Back The Classic 90’s Adventure Game – Zblu Style

The original Zblu Cops comic series, a comedy about a group of incompetent yet reluctantly heroic group of law enforcers, grew a modest cult following in its country of origin throughout its run. However, with no official English translations of it ever released, its fanbase was never able to expand beyond there in any great numbers. Biodroid’s video game would have been its first foray into English-speaking markets with the team hoping for an international release.

The title entered development midway through 2008 with ambitions high, one former developer recounted, calling it “an attempt to revive the classic 90’s adventure game”. Biodroid’s initial pitch to comics publisher Glénat placed a high emphasis on accurately conveying the humour and goofiness of the comic, but was very much set on blazing its own trail. It would have seen players controlling 10 different members of the Zblu Cops, each with their own unique abilities used to solve puzzles and take down enemies. Two officers were rendered on screen at a time, but you could cycle through a wheel of other playable characters to alternate between them in real time; similar to the LEGO video games. It was to be fully playable in 2 player local co-op, as well.

Zblu Cops Wii screenshot

Excerpt from the initial press release:

On a criminal trail which takes them underwater, through the jungle, down the sewers, up the tower-blocks, inside a volcano – and even into deep space – the Zblucops display all of their notorious dysfunctionality, bad taste and even worse humour… before emerging triumphant with a fist-full of medals.

This action/adventure game brings to Wii the kind of strong storytelling, humor and dialogue found in traditional adventure games.

Cutscene art:

Zblu Cops was presented in a cel-shaded art style; a play to authentically represent the hand-drawn look of the comics. Even more crucially, we were informed that Bill and Gobi, the writing duo responsible for the series, were actively involved with development on the project from its inception. Their contributions mostly included overseeing the art direction, in addition to having final say on any other aspects. We were told that the two were very laidback when it came to writing duties, allowing the developers plenty of creative freedom. Read more

Nintendo, Wii

MegaStar [Wii – Cancelled]

Liam Robertson
16-06-2015
No Comments

Mega Star is a cancelled music game that was being developed by EA Montreal in late 2009 with a release being targeted for the following year exclusively on Nintendo Wii. It was in the works for approximately two months, never advancing past the pre-production phase of development.

MegaStar project EA

The logo and mock-up for MegaStar’s title screen.

According to an artist who worked on the game, it was being prepared as EA’s response to Just Dance, which launched in November, 2009. The Montreal team had previously worked on other music titles, such the Boogie games, but Mega Star was being pitched as a much more direct competitor. It was planned to have had similar Wii motion dancing mechanics to Ubisoft’s game, but would have added its own twist in the form of a singing component via a USB microphone, similar to that of Boogie.

MegaStar EA Cancelled UI mock-up

Up to 4 people would have been able to play together locally with any combination of the two gameplay types (karaoke and dancing) simultaneously. Its setlist would have been mostly comprised of rock/pop music. Some of the examples given in EA’s user interface mock-ups include artists, Fergie and Avril Lavigne. Although these were merely for conceptual purposes, these were selected purposefully to convey the theme of the game to EA’s management. There was also plans to feature customisable avatars for players, similar to Miis.

User interface concept art/mock-ups:

MegaStar had a brief life span in development and was ultimately cancelled in mid November, 2009. After the success of EA’s Wii titles began to dwindle, EA Montreal was subject to a complete studio refocus. Games that the developers at Montreal had worked on included Spore Hero and Skate It; both of which received a lukewarm to negative critical reception and failed to meet sales projections. The company’s general manager, Alain Tuscan blamed the “unpredictable” climate of the Wii’s market and shifted the company into focusing solely on HD platforms.