SNO is a cancelled action adventure that was in development by Headstrong Games in 2014 – 2015, planned to be released for PC and unannounced consoles (possibly PS4 and Xbox One). The project was officially announced in February 2015 on their site and by reading its description it sounds a bit like Okami, but unfortunately it soon vanished with no explanations.
“Usher in Spring and bring your frozen world back to life in this 3rd person action puzzle game.
Clear the ice and snow that have blanketed your world. Encounter and defeat mysterious ice demons intent on holding back Spring. Discover ancient secrets and paths through the frozen wasteland as the Gods guide you on your journey.
SNO toys with your expectations, leaving you wondering whether you’re a dead soul raised to tend a magical land, or an android designed to repair a deserted spacecraft. As you emerge from your grave-like stasis chamber, it’s apparent a catastrophe has occurred – the world is carpeted in a thick layer of snow. As you clear the ice and snow, you reveal verdant patches of grass that catch the light and start to fend off the creeping frost.”
Headstrong were mostly known for theirArt Academy series and Battalion Wars series published by Nintendo, but around 2017 Kuju Entertainment (their parent company) dissolved the team to incorporate their employees directly into Kuju.
If you know someone who worked on this lost game and could help in preserving more images or footage, please let us know!
Need For Speed 10 “TerrorFive” is a cancelled chapter in the long-running NFS racing series, pitched to Electronic Arts around 2008 and planned for Xbox 360 and PS3. It was conceived as a strange mix between a racer and some kind of terrorism – hacking adventure, trying to imagine illegal street racers in a post 911 US city.
A racing gang / terrorists named “TerrorFive” would drive around the city while doing missions and hacking jobs, such as looking into the Police network and security cameras. Yeah, it sounds a bit like Watch Dogs, but probably most of these concepts were just meant to be the settings of the game and not it’s main gameplay.
While EA never officially announced this game, in 2010 they released Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit which was a completely different project. We can assume the pitch for TerrorFive never went much far from its early concept or prototype. Concept art for the game was found online around 2014, as reported by Kotaku.
Drakkhen is an early-3D western RPG originally developed by Infogrames in 1989, published for Amiga, Atari ST, MS-DOS and Super Nintendo. In 1994 Kotobuki System / Kemco developed a spiritual successor for the SNES, published as Super Drakkhen in Japan and released in North America as Dragon View.
However in 1991 Infogrames was already working on an official sequel by the same team, planned for PC, Amiga, SNES and FM Towns. While this lost version of Drakkhen 2 is now forgotten by everyone and not many details are available, Youloute was able to find an article with some screenshots, published by french magazine Generation 4 (Issue 38 and 41, November 1991 / February 1992).
Thanks to Olivier, who translated the main details in these pages, we know more about the project:
“Game would be released for PC 256 colors, Amiga, FM Towns and Super Famicom. Cartridge would of course feature a battery to allow in-game saving. There’s only one warrior and animations are more detailed. More beat em up phases where each gamepad button would be used in the Super Famicom version. Moving across the world will be in 3D, except Super Famicom where game will use its specific hardware. Release still being planned for Q1 1992.”
“To learn a bit more about Drakkhen II, we asked project manager Philippe Agrpnidis: video games production is slowly getting close to movie production, visual quality with VGA and MCGA, sound with Roland and Sound Blaster, and new CD platforms such as CDI, CD-ROM, changed the landscape within six months. Hence, like a movie production, the game requires multiple people: Philippe Agipnidis as project manager, François Marcela-Froideval for scenario, Etienne Guerry for story-board, Guy Selva for production and, of course, another one for graphics, plus one for sounds.”
Rest of the text mentions there would have a been a small book included with the game box to help gamers.
Also, as mentione by Julien, Drakkhen II would have been more like an action adventure than a RPG.
Amazing Tales (AKA Project Caspian) is a cancelled MMO planned for Xbox 360, that was in development by Flying Lab Software around 2010 – 2011. The team was mostly known for their Pirates of the Burning Sea MMO, published by Sony Online Entertainment for PC in 2008, but when massive online games became an overly saturated genre, they were not able to find new publishers interested in their skills.
As the PC market for MMO collapsed, we can speculate their idea was to pitch an original MMO for consoles as it could have been more profitable with less competition. They started the project creating an early prototype for Xbox 360 running on the Cryptic Engine, showing off some of their ambitious concept: a “pulp online adventure game set in the Weird 1930s”.
“…the premise of Amazing Tales was based on a variety of genres ranging from pulp, to sci-fi, to adventure. Amazing Tales brought together great themes seen in movies such as Indiana Jones, Sky Captain, or The Mummy. What made this project so fun was the freedom we had with throwing in ideas. We had big plans for this game… and we couldn’t wait to see it all unfold.
We weren’t sure exactly if we were going to sell this game as an MMO, but we knew it was going to be multiplayer. We’d start out with the player choosing which class they’d like to be. The classes ranged from Adventurer, Vigilante, Scientist, Occultist, or Monk. Then we’d throw them in the middle of Egypt, where they had to band together with other players to take down the threats of the planet. What were the threats, you might ask? Our enemies ranged from Atlanteans, martians, Nazis, occultists, the undead, dinosaurs, and various other creatures, hellbent on wreaking havoc on civilization!
Further progress in the game would lead the player to other locations, such as New York, Shanghai, or London. Missions would consist of teamwork and strategy of playing off yourself and your teammates’ abilities. The end result of missions would lead the players into an ultimate boss fight. A major selling point we wanted to have in Amazing Tales were the boss battles. We wanted them to be memorable, so we wanted them to be huge. The fights themselves, AND the actual boss. Players would be up against giant alien robots, Tyrannosaurus Rex’s, or battles aboard huge war zeppelins.”
By reading this description we can say it sounds like an interesting and fun concept for an online multiplayer game. By looking at remaining footage and screenshots from the early prototype, it really looks like this could have been a great addition to Xbox Live.
While the team put all of their efforts and talent into Amazing Tales, unfortunately they were not able to secure funds from any publisher. The project was canned and soon Flying Lab had to close down with no money to stay alive. Artwork, screenshots and footage from the Amazing Tales prototype were shared online by former devs such as Fiona Turner, Alison Burkley and Bruce Sharp.
These documents are preserved below to remember the existence of their lost game.
ZTA is a cancelled open world action game that was in development by french studio SDP Games (Smack Down Productions) for Sony PSP. As you can imagine from its name, the game was meant to be a clone of GTA, but focused on the zombie apocalypse. This lost game was revealed some years ago by a French website, with a few details directly from the developers. It seems SDP Games tried to pitch their project to Rockstar Games, but without any luck.
As we can read from the original article (“translated” with Google Translate):
“This is our very first game prototype! It was indeed a GTA with Zombies on PSP, very zany with the music of Weird Al. We were in contact with Rockstar for the edition, but we never could agree on a budget. Unable to find another publisher, we had to abandon it to move to Nintendo DS ”
Only a bunch of screenshots from the ZTA prototype survive today after the closure of the studio, preserved below to remember the existence of this lost game.
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