New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Dead Next Door: Life After Death [PC – Cancelled]

Dead Next Door: Life After Death is a cancelled FPS that was in development by The Zombie Squad around 2003, planned to be released on PC. It was officially based on the homonymous 1989 zombie horror movie by Director JR Bookwalter: players would begin as a rookie officer in the agency known as the Zombie Squad, an elite group of soldiers formed to dispose of the zombie threat created by an accidental virus outbreak. You would ultimately discover a new breed of “intelligent zombies” that are attempting to gain control of the humans.

Today this game is basically forgotten by everyone and major websites do not have any news about it, but we can read some details in an old interview published at the time by HomeLan:

“HomeLAN – What sorts of locations and settings will be seen in Dead Next Door?

Brad Gaffney – The game’s locations and settings will be a real-world environment. Frankly, I’m tired of space stations and future cities. The player will be exploring in a city environment (unnamed city at the moment). A dark a dreary atmosphere will be the driving force for creating suspense. To add to the suspense, most sections will not be wide open spaces. Besides, there is nothing scarier than being trapped in a narrow hallway with 6 zombies and 2 bullets.

Some of the settings include a hospital, the city streets, office buildings, apartment buildings, warehouses, and a chemical plant. Of course, all the levels will be a rampaged mess, due to all the zombie activity. “

“HomeLAN – What other unique gameplay features will Dead Next Door have?

Brad Gaffney – The game will start out similar to a survival horror title, but then blend into a mission based game. It’s very easy to have a player wander around blasting everything that moves. But in later levels the game evolves to a mission based levels. It seemed like a good and smooth transition while writing out the design. Stealth will also be a key advantage to finishing the game. After all, do you really want to draw the attention of several zombies, when you don’t have unlimited ammo.

HomeLAN – What is the current status of the game’s progress and when will it be released?

Brad Gaffney – Currently, we are working on a tech demo. A few publishers have shown some interest in the title. So we are working on the tech demo to prove we can deliver. Once the tech demo is done, we will have the completed groundwork for the game. “

The game soon vanished and was never released, so we can assume the team did not find any publisher interested in funding the project.

Thanks to Daniel Nicaise for the contribution!

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Timber 64 (Rare) [Nintendo 64 – Cancelled]

Timber 64 is a cancelled 3D platform game that was rumored to be in development by Rare for the Nintendo 64, but it’s existence was kinda unclear even by reading interviews with former rare developers (and some fans consider it an urban legend). When asked about Timber 64 some of them don’t remember such a game ever being in development at the time, but others even describe a Timber 64 prototype demo they created. This contradiction between ex-RareWare employees may have been caused by how the studio was organized during the N64 era. Different Rare teams worked secretly in their own office, without knowing what the other teams were doing at the same time.

As we can read on Nintendo Life:

“Rare was famously secretive,” Steve Mayles recalls, “and that included other games being made in the company. Many people on the team wouldn’t have seen much (if anything) of DK64 and Conker.”

“Rare’s practice of separating teams across its infamous ‘barns’ naturally created some competition. “I’m not really sure we thought about that at the time,” remembers lead environment artist Steven Hurst. “In those days each team worked in relative isolation and competed against each other to develop the ‘best’ games – a healthy rivalry if you like. I do remember actually that we changed BK to be more of a ‘proper’ 3D game (similar to Mario 64) after seeing the work that the Conker team were doing.”

As you probably know Timber the Tiger was later seen in another Rare game: it’s one of the playabler racers in Diddy Kong Racing. Originally Timber was meant to be the main protagonist of the game, when it was not using the Donkey Kong IP.

As we can read from an interview by NotEnoughShaders with Steve Ellis, Martin Wakeley and Lee Musgrave:

NES: There was a rumor that Timber 64 was a game Rare was developing during the N64 days. Basically, the rumor was that Timber from Diddy Kong Racing would get his own game just like Banjo and Conker did. Pipsy and Bumper would co-star in Timber 64. Can you or Lee provide any details on this rumor? It’s interesting because Diddy Kong Racing takes place on Timber Island so it seemed that Rare really liked the Timber character.

Martin Wakeley: I couldn’t say for definite but I have no recollection of that ever being in development. Where the rumour may have started is that an early version of DKR (I think it was called RC Pro Am at the time) had Timber as the lead character. I’m sure I’ve got a badly fitting Nylon polo shirt with the game logo on it somewhere.

Lee Musgrave: There was never a Timber 64 game. Yes, there was Pro-Am64 that had Timber as the main character, but that became Diddy Kong Racing and that was the end of that.”

In february 2021 Kev Bayliss wrote on VGC:

“After finishing work on Diddy Kong Racing in 1998, I started work on a project that was to become a 3D adventure game based in a fantasy style world, similar to that of Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time but in a prehistoric environment.

The main character was originally going to be – believe it or not – Timber, the cute tiger from Diddy Kong Racing. That’s because he was intended to be the star of the previous year’s racing game, when it was originally known as R.C. Pro-Am 64.”

“In Dinosaur Planet, Timber was going to be a ‘time-travelling tiger’ with a rucksack, little fingerless gloves, a baseball cap and a small dinosaur for a sidekick.

Actually, I even tried out Timber in a project prior to DKR, where he walked around on all fours like a real tiger cub. It was an early 3D platforming test and I wanted him to use his claws to scale walls. But this project was abandoned and so he was moved into DKR and that’s as far as his career went!

Now, if only somebody could dig up that really old demo with Timber in his rucksack…”

In the end not only Timber 64 was once a real concept in development at Rare, but it was kinda real for 2 different projects: there was a first Timber 64 3D platformer (then cancelled to create RC Pro Am 64 / DKR) and later a different Timber 64 3D action adventure (which later became Dinosaur Planet / Starfox Adventure).

These two Timber games for Nintendo 64 could have been mentioned to someone in the gaming press, and the rumors started circulating. As written by Bayliss, now we just have to wait for someone to find footage or even a playable version of those Timber 64 demos.

Dai Mao ZARK Densetsu [NES / Famicom – Cancelled]

Dai Mao ZARK Densetsu (大魔王ZARK伝説 – Legend of the Great Demon King ZARK) is a cancelled side scrolling action RPG that was in development by J & U for Famicom (NES) around 1990. Previews and screenshots of the game were published in Japanese magazines at the time, but it quietly vanished and today not much info remains about this game. By looking at the few screenshots available it seems you could use your horse to move through different levels in an overworld map similar to the one seen in Super Mario Bros 3, and each stage had some fantasy enemies to fight.

As noted by Chris Covell, this may have been somehow related to another cancelled Famicom RPG titled “Off Zarken”: if you can read Japanese and would like to translate the main details found in these photos, please leave a comment below!

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Heaven vs. Hell (TKO Software) [PC – Cancelled]

Heaven VS Hell is a cancelled RTS that was in development by TKO Software around 2004 – 2005, planned to be released on PC in 2006. It was set in a dystopian future in which God wants to punish mankind and reset the world, but Satan wants some fun too. You would choose between one of the 3 factions (God’s army, Satan’s arm, human army) to play in many strategy-focused missions, following each side of the storyline.

The game was previewed by many websites at the time, such as IGN and Gamepressure:

“In Heaven vs. Hell, mankind in the 25th Century has grown arrogant with technology, manipulating natural order enough to finally get the Big Guy’s attention. God unleashes wrathful vengeance, hoping to cleanse Earth and start again.”

“God gets a little miffed about humanity’s meddling in his design so he decides to reboot the whole system and start from scratch. Rather than dooming all of humanity in the process, God decides to let them wait out the reset period in heaven. The devil considers this a breach of the rules and decides to launch an attack on heaven. There are three campaigns, one for each faction and plenty of multiplayer options. “

“In total, it should take about sixty hours to complete the crossing. It is obvious that each side of the conflict is diametrically different, and its aspirations are different in relation to wild people (called “primates”), who in Heaven vs. Hell play the role of one of the three raw materials (the other two are sulphur and farms). The forces of hell want to incarnate them into the legions of the condemned, the armies of heaven try to save them, and the people want to understand them and use them as slaves.

Just like in the classic RTS, here too, we are building bases that are the centre of our missionary forces. As in the Warcraft and Kohan series, for example, the construction of certain buildings affects the area around them. Therefore, the hell bases are accompanied by burnt and destroyed earth, and the angelic ones by truly paradise views.”

Up to 2,000 units can be seen on the screen during the skirmishes, including giant flying demons, succubus, hell worms, angelic archers and proud cavalry in shining armour, as well as special and exceptionally strong heroes such as the Archangel Gabriel or the Messiah.”

Unfortunately in 2005 TKO Software was closed down by their parent company, leading to the cancellation of Heaven VS Hell and 60 developers losing their job.

Thanks to Jackgrimm99 for the contribution!

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Barnyard [Beta – GameCube, PS2, PC]

Barnyard is an action game based on the movie of the same name, developed by Blue Tongue Entertainment and published by THQ for GameCube, Wii, PlayStation 2, Game Boy Advance, and PC. Footage of beta gameplay has been uploaded to the IGN youtube channel as a video titled “Barnyard GameCube Video – Clip Compilation 2”.

The main differences in this beta footage are:

  • animals could freely walk around the map
  • there was a life-counter (was completely removed in the final version)
  • players had “happiness level
  • the map was completely different
  • The mobile phone had a music player, battery energy, and an integrated camera that could take photos.
  • There was also a multiplayer mode for some of the minigames such as chicken coop (this minigame was heavily changed in the final version).

Besides IGN’s gameplay on Youtube there’s an official trailer where the Beta version was shown for the first time. It’s still not known if the version in this trailer was different from the one IGN previewed.

In 2021 more beta gameplay footage was found with other differences from the final version:

  • The NPCs still had an AI
  • currency was different
  • the models of the trees and of the fences were different
  • map still had some difference, but it’s pretty close to the final appearance
  • minigames with up-to 4 players multiplayer were still there.

This gameplay was found on a Spanish website named 3DJuegos. The released Barnyard seems to have been built from a canceled, unannounced game in which all NPCs could interact with each other, build relationships and more. This is why the beta version of the game had more advanced NPC AI, but it’s still not known why it was later removed.

Article by InfiniteC0re and @longhorn#5853

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