New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Psychic Warriors [PC – Cancelled]

Psychic Warriors is a cancelled squad-based, cooperative multiplayer action game that was in development around 1998 by Black Ops Entertainment and would have been published on PC by Electronic Arts. Players would have taken the role of DEA agents with special psychic powers, fighting against a supernatural group of drug lords who are selling a strange new drug on the market. It seems the team was able to create an early playable prototype before the project was canned by EA for unknown reasons.

While the plot sounds like from a low-budget movie, it could have been a fun adventure to play with friends. Psychic Warriors was never officially announced, but a former EA designer shared some memories about working on this lost game and two (tiny) screenshots. If you know someone who worked on Psychic Warriors, please let us know!

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Venom Spirit [SNES – Cancelled]

Venom Spirit is a cancelled action adventure that was in development for Super Nintendo around 1994 by the Pickford Bros, while they were working at Software Creations and after publishing their cult-classic Plok. The game was planned to use pre-rendered 3D graphics on the 16-Bit console, somehow similar to what Rare also did with their Donkey Kong Country series. While Venom Spirit was never officially announced by the company, many details about the project were shared online by John and Ste Pickford:

“This was just after we’d licensed our concept / game design for Plok to our employers Software Creations, and directed the development of the game internally for the SNES. We felt flushed with success, and Venom Spirit was going to be our ‘follow up’. The game was completely unrelated to Plok, but it was a new character and an original game design for the SNES, which John and I worked on near constantly for about two years in our spare time.

We would have been ahead of our time if we’d been allowed to pursue John’s idea of creating all the graphics as 3D models, then using renders of these in the game. […] We also did a hell of a lot of work on the game design itself. We planned a real big, Capcom style action adventure, somewhere between Super Metroid, MegaMan and Strider. We had all the levels laid out, characters and bosses designed, set pieces planned.”

“Seeing Donkey Kong Country come out months later made us realise that we were on the right track. We had the ideas and we had the skills to make great video games, we just didn’t have the opportunity.

We did the deal with Software Creations, and the game ended up in development briefly (with some cool tech too), but, as is so often the case with jobbing development studios, being paid to do movie license games is a much more attractive proposition than risking money making original IP, so the game was dropped in favour of a Cutthroat Island game for Acclaim (with the cool tech being used in that game instead), and Venom Spirit never happened.”

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Mythos (DigiFX Interactive) [Cancelled – Playstation, Saturn, PC]

Mythos is a cancelled first person shooter set in ancient Greece that was in development by DigiFX Interactive around 1996 / 1997, planned to be released on PlayStation, Sega Saturn and PC. Players would take the role of an ancient Greek demigod who had to rescue the land from the clutches of Hecate, the evil goddess of the underworld.

As we can read in their original press-release:

  • 15 unique magical weapons to acquire by exploration and combat. Lightning bolts, Magical spears, Fireballs, and transformation spells all at your command!
  • Fully texture mapped 3D rendered world. Randomly changing environments of land, air and sea!
  • 12 unique levels in which to walk or fly around in real time. Each with an awesome boss monster with which to do battle!
  • Mission types include: Search and rescue, total demolition, escort and defend villages.
  • Unique DAY AND NIGHT missions add a totally new unique gaming environment! Real world time simulations start in the day and progress into night!

Unfortunately DigiFX Interactive closed down in late 1997 due to financial issues. When the team was disbanded they were also working on other canned titles such as Mission to Nexus Prime and Kaiju.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Virtually Board Snowboarding 2 [N-Gage – Cancelled]

Virtually Board Snowboarding 2 is a cancelled snow-racing game that seems to have been in development by Fathammer for Nokia’s N-Gage. The title was listed among some of the early games announced for the console-phone hybrid, but it quietly vanished. Thanks to derSlammer we found out this was indeed a sequel of the original game released on Club Nokia.

Players would have been able to choose between 3 game modes (big air, half pipe and snowboard cross) with local multiplayer via Bluetooth. As far as we know SSX Out of Bounds remains the only snowboard game released for N-Gage.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Kaiju (DigiFX Interactive) [Cancelled – PC, Mac]

Kaiju is a cancelled real-time strategy game that was in development by DigiFX Interactive around 1996 / 1997, planned to be released on PC and Mac. Players could choose between 2 factions: kaijus (those giant monsters from classic Japanese movies) and humans. Depending on which faction you would play as your objective would be to protect or destroy cities.

As we can read from their official press-release:

“The city is under attack! Giant monsters breathing fire are leveling every building in sight. It is up to you to mobilize your forces and develop new technologies in order to stop these giant creatures, or choose to command a cadre’ of crazed dinosaurs, giant lizards, sea monsters, radioactive space monsters, “King Congo” (the biggest ape you ever saw) and other huge destructive creatures whose sole purpose is to obliterate mankind! No this isn’t just a “kill the bad guy” strategy game…it’s total destruction!

KAIJU is a Windows 95 and Macintosh “real time” strategy game with an entirely new twist! KAIJU contains one of the most unique and highly playable battle and economic systems in existence. Players can choose either the humans or the monsters! As the humans, the player must defend the cities from the creatures by using all the resources available. As monsters, the player must crush, stomp and obliterate every human (and everything) in sight! We’re not kidding, this game allows total destruction of everything!”

Game features:

  • Over 40 new units unique to KAIJU, including aircraft carriers, super attack planes, phase cannons, plasma mines, and artificial lightning generators, and “special” characters such as the “PSI”, the “Hero”, the “Brainy guy”, and the “Military guy”,
  • Create special characters that affect ‘normal’ units and structures. Just one example includes a unique character called a “PSI” that uses a sixth sense to battle the monsters. If the “PSI” enters a Radar Station, it becomes a “Monster Control Tower”, with the ability to ‘take control’ of any monster for a period of time.

Unfortunately DigiFX Interactive closed down in late 1997 due to financial issues. When the team was disbanded they were also working on other canned titles such as DigiFX Mission to Nexus Prime and Mythos.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!