Action Adventure

Hell’s Deep [PS2 PC – Cancelled]

Hell’s Deep is a cancelled action adventure that was in development in 2002 by Qube Software for the Playstation 2 and PC. The project was meant to be an ambitious sandbox game, similar to GTA3, but set in a big medieval city, during a dark and menacing time. As the main focus of Qube has always been the development of 3D software for 3D middleware and not games,  they probably found some problems during the development and Hell’s Deep was soon cancelled. Only few artworks and some 3D models are archived in the gallery below, to preserve its existence.

Thanks to Sewia for the contribution!

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Full Throttle 2: Payback [PC PS2 – Cancelled]

Full Throttle: Payback (aka Full Throttle 2) is a cancelled action adventure game that was in development in 2000 by LucasArts, planned to be released for PC and with a rumored Playstation 2 port. As we can read in Wikipedia, the game would have been an official sequel to continue the storyline of the original Full Throttle. Since Tim Schafer had already left the company at the time, Larry Ahern, who was involved in the original game’s development, was appointed the project lead and Bill Tiller, the art director.

At the early stages, the project received positive feedback from other LucasArts employees but according to Tiller, it eventually fell apart because of disagreements on the game style between the productive team and “a particularly influential person” within the management, which lead to a series of “mistakes”. The production ceased in November 2000, when 25% of the levels and about 40% of the preproduction art were complete. Both Ahern and Tiller left LucasArts in 2001, after Payback was canceled.

From Retro Gamer #62 we can read some more info of Payback from Larry Ahern, who designed ‘a version of it that never got off the drawing board before [he] quit, and the bloody remains of it were handed over to another team’. Some of it we already knew from the Classic Adventure Gaming article.

The villain was a Senator with an anti-biker agenda, pushing to replace the worn-out highways with new, biker-unfriendly hover lanes. The game also featured Ben’s estranged weasel-of-a-brother, who was mixed up in one of the Senator’s shady operations, and a more central lead for Father Torque. Maureen had a cameo, but the female lead was a reporter who covers Ben after his subsequent fame for the alleged murder of Malcolm Corley. We had some fun new biker gangs also, like the Dragons, who sported flamethrowers on the handlebars of their bikes, and the Leeches, a gang in rocket-powered side-cars that cruise the highways jumping from vehicle to vehicle and attaching to them to syphon fuel.

Some time later LucasArts decided to start the development on the even more action-heavy Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels, that was also cancelled in the end.

Thanks to Robert Seddon and lorenzo55 for the contributions!

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Deep Rift [PS3 – Prototype]

Deep Rift was a prototype for an action adventure based in a flooded city, that was in development by Union Entertainment. Due to a lack of publishers’ interest, it seems that Union’s PlayStation 3 title did not go into full production. It’s currently unknown if this could have been related to their new Zero G project, a game that should be adapted as a film soon.

20th Century Fox has picked up the rights to Union Entertainment’s sci-fi thriller video game concept “Zero-G” says The Hollywood Reporter. The game, which is still in production and created by Daniel Jevons, revolves around a major U.S. city being attacked by a devastating, never-before-seen weapon.

Another game concept, titled Backlight,  should also be in development at Union (as reported by Variety) but it looks much different from Deep Rift.

Thanks to Mox for the contribution!

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Spyral Saga [Playstation – Cancelled]

Spyral Saga was a large, ambitious adventure game, created by Software Creations, planned for the PlayStation, and a sequel to the Super Nintendo game Equinox. However, only the isometric perspective and style of gameplay were kept the same; the story did not continue from this game.

Work initially started on the 1st of January, 1995, under the leadership of Ste Pickford (the game’s designer, producer and lead artist). The programming team included Andy Miah, David Gill and Pete Scott, while the graphics and concept designs were created by Justin Eagleton, Lyndon Brooke, Dave Mac and Weston Samuels, among others.

Although published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, the game had a planned worldwide release. Progress on the game slowed due to multiple development complications, and the project was eventually cut after Pickford left Software Creations to found a new company, Zed Two.

While not much more information on this game is available, it is likely that its gameplay would have been very similar to that of its prequel, Equinox (which is in turn a sequel to the Nintendo game Solstice). This game combines puzzle-solving and adventure elements, presented from an isometric perspective, and the player must traverse rooms searching for tokens to unlock boss fights and new areas.

The only available screenshot from Spyral Saga  (shared by the Pickford bros in their site) appears to show a significant improvement to the graphics engine (as expected on the PlayStation) and a more open environment than in Equinox.

Thanks to Scatman and Vegard we were able to preserve two more images!

Article by Franklint

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Recoil: Retrograd [X360 PS3 PC – Cancelled?]

Recoil: Retrograd is an action adventure based on time travels, that was in development by ZeitGuyz in 2006 / 2008 for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. The studio was searching for a publisher interested in their project in 2008, but as the game is still unreleased, we can assume that they did not have any luck and Recoil had to be cancelled. In an interview by IGN, we can read some more info on the gameplay:

Now, gameplay — the player travels back in time, changes the past, returns to the future and experiences the consequences of his actions and sees the world change, dynamically and realtime. How the world evolves, is very much dependent on choices and actions in the past — so we rely on a lot of replay value for this game. What if I go back and do it differently — what then…? Beyond that, there’s a lot of interaction with machines, vehicles, crowds– and big, powerful steamy guns!

We can still hope that they could be able to find a publisher in the future.

Thanks to Userdante for the contribution!

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