Beta + Cancelled Action Video Games

Others, PC / MAC

BattleCry is a cancelled Free-To-Play multiplayer Third Person Hero Shooter game developed only for PC by BattleCry Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks between 2012 and 2015. The game was set in an alternate 20th century universe where a cataclysmic world war forced powerful empires to ban gun powder under a treaty named “The Black Powder Treaty”. Following this, the world gave birth to the Pansophic Revolution – a golden age of industrial manufacturing and design. But as technology advanced, tensions reignited and the world faced a war once more. All battles are settled head-on by elite teams of chosen warriors from all over the world, with each member specializing in either high-tech ranged gadgetry or sophisticated melee weapons.

The art direction of the game was designed by the late Viktor Antonov.

The first information regarding BattleCry was hinted in October 2012 where Bethesda Softworks announced the creation of BattleCry Studios as one of its new subsidiaries:

Battlecry Studios is a new development house being built in Austin by Zenimax Media’s Bethesda Softworks. Battlecry will be under the direction of Rich Vogel, a former VP at BioWare Austin, who most recently was an Executive Producer on Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Actually, for the past ten years Vogel’s been working on MMOs, at both Electronic Arts and Sony Online Entertainment. Coincidentally, ZeniMax Online is working on The Elder Scrolls Online, but it would seem that’s not what Battlecry is up to, since it’s working on an “unannounced project.”

BattleCry was officially revealed in May 2014 as we can read on USA Today:

The Elder Scrolls publisher Bethesda Softworks is jumping into the free-to-play business.
The company unveiled Battlecry, a 32-person online multiplayer combat game that will launch on PCs in 2015.
Designer Viktor Antonov, best known for his work with Half-Life 2 and Dishonored, is working on the game, which takes place near the dawn of the 20th century. Gun powder has been banned following a world war, paving the way for a revolution in industrial manufacturing. As a new war bubbles up, elite squads of fighters engage in battle in a variety of WarZones.
Players choose warriors with their own unique weapons and skillsets. The game features three classes: the Enforcer, the ranged Tech Archer and the speedy Duelist. Weapons include swords that can turn into shields, high-powered bows and blades wielding electro-static energy.

Further details and gameplay videos were shared at E3 2014. Thus, PCWorld wrote:

There’s been quite a land-grab lately in the “multiplayer-only melee combat” genre. On the relatively realistic side of the spectrum we have Chivalry: Medieval Warfare and War of the Roses. Progressing more to the arcade end of things we have the recently released War of the Vikings.
And now Bethesda is making a play into the market with third-person action game BattleCry. If you’ll allow me to compare to a separate genre here—if Chivalry is Call of Duty and War of the Roses is Battlefield, BattleCry is straight-up Team Fortress 2.
BattleCry is fast, with little time for thought. It’s cartoony. It’s pure arcade silliness.
The game’s classes are all distinctive both in abilities and in silhouette. There’s the aforementioned Enforcer, a hulking figure replete with transforming sword, or the much more diminutive Duelist, who can cloak to escape combat situations.
You zip around the map at breakneck speeds, leap incredible distances, occasionally grapple through the air from point to point, and then arrive at the battle to swing your sword wildly with about ten other teammates. BattleCry falls prey to the same problem as Chivalry and War of the Roses/Vikings in that melee combat is inherently hard to replicate in games, especially in multiplayer. Instead you end up with a rough approximation of what sword fighting is like.
In our demo I’d say that skill and strategy mattered far less than which team brought a larger number of players to the fight. If you’re on your own, you’re probably doomed. If your group of three meets up with a group of five enemies, you’re probably doomed. If you’re evenly matched…well, then things get interesting. Then, the composition of your group can matter a whole lot.
I found the most fun playing the Duelist. Being able to uncloak and stab enemies in the back while they were busy fighting my comrades felt like a definite advantage, and it was more precise than spamming the attack button like the Enforcer class. The Tech Archer was also a lot of fun—here I was kitted out with a bow and throwing knives, which again felt more skill-based.
But it’s arcadey. These 32-player battles move fast, and there’s not a lot of reason to sit still and plan out attacks. You throw your units into the meat grinder and hope your faction comes out on top.
(…)
There’s not a lot to the game yet, but the game’s also at least six months from even entering a beta phase, which is slated for 2015. This was but a first taste of the game, and a short one at that. BattleCry will be free, though, so nothing’s stopping you from busting out your PC and giving it a shot whenever it releases. You’d better practice your snappiest salute—I’ll be looking for it, presumably sometime next year.

There were a total of 5 playable classes within 3 factions in BattleCry. Here are the factions with some information:

The Imperial Marines:
With the creation of the Black Powder Treaty, the Royal Marines were chosen to represent the United Kingdom in the WarZones. Devasted by the aftermath of global war, the British saw the fragility of their far flung Empire. They see the Black Powder Treaty and WarZones as way to legitimize their Empire as is and hold onto it without the high costs of all-out war. Descended from the famous red coated soldiers of the Napoleanic and Crimean Wars, these hardened Commandos meld their 18th century traditions to the needs of the modern WarZones. By staunchly supporting the creation of the WarZones they have earned an image as world leaders, which they will defend no matter what it takes.
The Cossack Empire:
Terribly headstrong and fearless, the Cossacks transformed villages and outposts into special military estates similar to the knights of medieval Europe. The Black Powder treaty gave the Cossacks a tremendous military advantage over their foes and their former lords. They declared complete independence, rebelled simultaneously against the Polish and Russian kings, won and ceased to be a vassal nation. After creating an independent Cossack Kingdom they decided to fight the Imperial Marines in the WarZones as they vied for control over the Bosphorus and the Black Sea.

The last known faction was the Han Republic which was announced later without information regarding their lore.

Regarding the 5 playable classes, here is what we could read about them:

There are five classes within the game—Enforcer, Gadgeteer, Brawler, Infiltrator and Ranger. The Enforcers are the basic tanks, Gadgeteers are supports with guns, Brawlers are the melee dps, Infiltrators are the game’s take assassins and the Rangers are the bow-wielding ranged dps.

After going silent for a whole year, the game was showcased again at E3 2015 where signing for a closed beta was also announced. IGN wrote:

(…) For example, the Infiltrator class moves faster than, say, the brutish Enforcer class and can briefly turn invisible to deliver sweet stealthy death. Unfortunately, they also seem to have less health and deal slightly less damage per blow than other classes, so if you ever find yourself outnumbered, you’ll maybe get one kill in before the other team literally tears you apart. This means you have to play strategically – stalking lone players for quick, easy kills or relying on your teammates to run cover as you slip in and out of combat.
By contrast, Enforcers are slow-moving meat shields. They can stand and defend a capture point all day, but if you try to rush an enemy base, you have chosen poorly and will probably be very dead very soon. Pair an Enforcer with the strictly ranged attack power of the Ranger class, however, and suddenly your opponents have no escape. During my hands-on time, Battlecry consistently surprised me with level of nuance contained within each class. Running around mashing the melee button rarely worked for me, but studying and utilizing each character’s specific abilities generally produced positive results.
Interestingly, the developer I spoke with actually likened Battlecry’s combat to DmC: Devil May Cry. In theory it’s designed to require skill, practice, and patience rather than reward mindless sword-waving, and while I’m not sure DmC would have been my go-to comparison, my experience supported at least the spirit of his analogy. According to that same developer, the final version of Battlecry will likely be even more sophisticated than the alpha I played. My playtime featured just five character classes and a single map and mode, whereas the finished product will offer more of all three (though the finally tally for each remains unconfirmed).
In addition, the shipping game will apparently include a full leveling and character customization system that deepens each class’s ability set by presenting players with some risk/reward choices when equipping unlockable loadout options. We may also see other combat mechanics like an “adrenaline” system that rewards players for stringing moves into combos – a feature that was previously announced but, as far as I could tell, not available in the demo I played. And finally, you’ll find some light story elements framing the action, but for now, don’t expect a narrative-driven single-player component.
Most importantly, though, the developer I spoke with during my demo stated adamantly that any real-world money you spend on the game will go towards cosmetic options and not gameplay options. In other words, all progression must be earned, period, and players who are fine with stock costumes will likely be able to enjoy the full experience for free. While there’s clearly a lot more of Battlecry that remains to be seen, this fall’s closed beta should help the team finalize the game’s features and (hopefully) balance all those moving parts.

However, in September 2015, BattleCry Studios was hit by layoffs:

In a recent, and very quiet move, BattleCry Studios has laid off an unnamed number of staff, with one source telling us it’s a “substantial portion” of the Austin team. The game studio is known for their primary game, BattleCry (…)
There is no word as to whether or not the game is in trouble, and whether or not it will be moving forward. BattleCry Studios is a sub-studio of ZeniMax Media Inc., which is published by Bethesda Softworks, who has not returned our requests for comment.
Why are the layoffs shrouded in such mystery? We are told that employees, both past and present, are restricted by tight Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) that come with heavy lawsuits. It is said that the company hopes to keep the news quiet. It remains unknown how many people lost their jobs last week, whether they’ve been offered roles elsewhere, but it is rumored that many were able to stay with ZeniMax and will begin working at BattleCry Studio’s sister company, Arkane Studios.

The next month, Bethesda announced putting the project on-hold following concerns about the success of the game, as we can read on PCGamer:

BattleCry hasn’t managed to wow audiences quite like other Bethesda-published titles, and Bethesda seems to have noticed. At least, an official statement from the company has acknowledged that it has concerns about the third-person free-to-play action game.
“We have concerns about the Battlecry game and whether it is meeting the objectives we have for it,” the company’s statement reads. “We are evaluating what improvements the game needs to meet our quality standards. The studio remains busy during this process on multiple projects.”
Progress Bar was the original recipient of the statement, but I received it separately after contacting Bethesda’s Sydney office.
The last we heard from Battlecry was Bethesda’s E3 announcement that beta sign-ups were open – but the beta never happened. Our hands-on with the game wasn’t exactly awe-inspiring, though Evan did see some promise, writing that “uninspiring as this first hands-on was, I ended the demo with some appreciation for how agile characters are in Battlecry.”

In August 2016, it was revealed tha BattleCry Studios was helping id Software on the multiplayer mode of DOOM (2016), as we can read on GameReactor:

Doom’s multiplayer is now back under the guidance of id Software, and MP specialists Certain Affinity have been moved on. The studio, which has in the past worked on online titles including games in the Halo series, is no longer supporting Doom’s PvP element; that is now being handled directly by id, with assistance from the BattleCry team.
The news emerged during our interview with id’s Marty Stratton during Quakecon this week, at which point we were told about the studio’s ongoing plans to support and develop the online side of the demonic shooter.
What is unclear is the level of support being offered by the BattleCry team, and what, if any, impact that involvement is having on the development of their own title, BattleCry.
Late last year IGN reported that Bethesda weren’t happy with the direction that the game was taking and that the BattleCry team were also working on other projects, but it still begs the question of whether the online title is even still in development. It has, after all, been very quiet on that front in the last few months.

It was made official that BattleCry was cancelled in January 2017 as we can read on Twinfinite:

It seems like BattleCry Studios’ first and titular game, BattleCry, has been cancelled.
According to the LinkedIn profile of one Embedded QA Designer at BattleCry Studios, the free-to-play multiplayer game is officially no more.
David Dobert’s profile states that he started working for the studio as a senior embedded QA analyst for “the now cancelled game Battlecry” before moving onto DOOM’s Unto the Evil DLC. This news would come as no surprise to most, as we’ve heard nothing about the game since mid-2015.

In March 2018, BattleCry Studios became Bethesda Game Studios Austin:

BattleCry Studios has become Bethesda Game Studios Austin.
BattleCry Studios was formed in 2012 to create a free-to-play project called BattleCry, but it was shelved in 2015 after parent company Bethesda Softworks became concerned about the project.
Rather than close the studio, BattleCry has supported work for other teams and assisted the expansions for id Software’s Doom.
Now the firm has become part of Bethesda Softwork’s primary internal development unit, Bethesda Game Studios. (…)
The new Austin studio will be managed by industry veteran Doug Mellencamp as studio director.
“We’re excited to join Bethesda Game Studios and look forward to working together on some of the industry’s most exciting new games,” said Mellencamp. “Austin’s incredible game development scene and talent will also allow us to push our games further than fans have imagined.”
Game Director and Executive Producer Todd Howard added: “As the vision, scale and ambitions for our games continue to grow, so does Bethesda Game Studios. We’ve had the pleasure to know the talented developers at BattleCry, and knew we could do great things together.”

Following the rebranding, BattleCry Studios, now Bethesda Game Studios Austin, mostly worked on the infamous Fallout 76.

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PC / MAC, Playstation 3 (PS3), Xbox 360

Paladin (Midway Studios Austin) [PC/PS3/Xbox 360 – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

11-04-2026

No Comments

Paladin is a cancelled open world Action medieval game developed around 2007-2008 by Midway Studios Austin (formerly Inevitable Entertainment) and published by Midway Games for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 platforms. The game was using the Unreal Engine 3.

For years, few information were available regarding Paladin as it was cancelled before being announced. On his personal website, Richie Romero, who was Art Director at Midway until the closure of the company, shared screenshots and videos to what appears to be an action game set in the medieval times with open world elements. During that period, Midway Studios Austin was split in two teams, both working on different projects: Paladin, and Career Criminal, which was cancelled in August 2008, following publisher’s huge financial loss.

While no official announcement has been made during its development, we can speculate that Paladin was cancelled back in December 2008, when the studio was closed by Midway which still faced financial difficulties:

Facing possible bankruptcy, Midway games will close its Austin studio entirely, suspend development on several unspecified titles, and reduce its workforce by 25 percent. (…) Midway did not list which projects it plans to cancel or suspend, but calls them “non-core” projects slated for 2010 and 2011 that had not yet been announced. (…)

Alongside Paladin and Career Criminal, Midway’s bankruptcy also led to the cancellations of various projects such as Stranglehold 2: Gun Runner, This is Vegas, Hero or even a new take on Mortal Kombat.

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Microsoft, Playstation 2 (PS2), Sony, Xbox

Dead to Rights 2: Hell to Pay [PS2 / XBOX / PC – Cancelled]

Yassine Bakrim

09-02-2025

5 Comments

Dead to Rights 2: Hell to Pay was originally planned as the direct sequel to Dead to Rights, continuing Jack Slate’s relentless fight against crime. However, Namco Japan’s abrupt shift toward outsourcing first-party titles to external developers led to its unfortunate cancellation. In its place, Namco Hometek brought in WideScreen Games to develop a completely different version of Dead to Rights 2, one that bore little resemblance to the ambitious sequel that was once in the works.

The impact was severe. Gameplay had to be scaled back, the story was rewritten—twice—and core mechanics that were meant to elevate Dead to Rights 2 were heavily downgraded to meet tight deadlines.

Initially, Hell to Pay was meant to follow Jack Slate and his loyal companion, Shadow, as they dove headfirst into a dangerous conspiracy to save Jack’s friend, Preacher Man Jones. As revealed in Game Informer’s November 2003 issue, this version promised a darker, more intense experience. But by the time Dead to Rights 2 resurfaced at E3 2004, something had changed. Jack was no longer on a mission to save his friend. Instead, the narrative mysteriously shifted to protecting a mysterious—possibly blonde—girl. His overall look was also altered.

Then, as the game neared completion, Dead to Rights 2 was no longer planned as a sequel. Instead, the game was rebranded as a prequel. Evidence of its troubled development was everywhere—unfinished combat animations, stripped-down mechanics, and missing environmental effects, all signs that Dead to Rights 2 had suffered from a troubled development cycle.

In the comments, Vincent was right to spot that Dead to Rights: Reckoning was, in essence, the remnants of Dead to Rights 2: Hell to Pay. It was Namco Hometek’s final attempt to salvage the original sequel’s concept and give players a glimpse of what could have been. Unfortunately, the effort fell short. Only fragments of the original vision made it into the game, while the rest was lost to time.

Below, you’ll find full images from the original Dead to Rights 2: Hell to Pay alongside those from the E3 2004 version shown separately, allowing you to see firsthand how the game evolved—and how much it changed—throughout development. A documentary video was also made to show you what went behind the scenes of the game’s development.

Thanks to Vicente and Evan Hanley for the contribution!

Edit: 9/2/2025

Images of the original Dead to Rights 2: Hell to Pay:

Dead to Rights 2: Hell to Pay (E3 2004):

Bonus – Dead to Rights 2: Beta footage

Differences:

Different HUD design
Cut music (mostly generic from pre-beta)
Some different gun sfx (in early Xbox build)

Videos:

Fan-documentary with never-before-heard insights from producer and lead artist Pierre Roux:

Note: Extra research by Evan Hanley

Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 2 (PS2), Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony, Xbox 360

Highlander [PC / PS3 / Xbox 360 – Cancelled]

yota

08-02-2025

3 Comments

Highlander is a canceled action-adventure game published by Eidos Interactive and developed by Widescreen Games, for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360, from 2006 to 2008, based on the eponymous film franchise.

Initially, the attempt to develop a new Highlander game dated back well before this one. In September 2004, the company SCi Games managed to conclude an agreement with Davis-Panzer Productions, holder of the rights of the franchise. It was then Climax Studios which was responsible for developing a prototype for the Playstation 2. However, after the takeover of SCi by Eidos Interactive in May 2005, the project was, according to former Senior Programmer Marc Fascia, given to Widescreen Games before being put on-hold in August of the same year. The development was relaunched around the end of 2006, aiming for next generation’s hardwares, and officially announced in August 2007 during the Game Convention, although already in February of the same year, the preparation of a new Highlander game was leaked. During its official revelation, several details were disclosed:

“It will be a third-person action adventure that spans over 2000 years, giving you a chance to explore feudal Japan, medieval Scotland, a futuristic vision of New York and Pompeii before the historical volcanic eruption.
Similarly to the film, the aim will be to journey around the world and meet other immortal warriors in battle, lopping off their heads to win. You’ll have the choice of Katana, Claymore or Double to use, and be able to use various techniques to overpower your foe – like Resurrection, Chi Balance, Fireblade, Wind Fury, Stone Armour and other powered-up special attacks.
You’ll be the newcommer Owen Macleod, but come face to face with 77 other characters along the way – some familiar from the television series or films.
Widescreen is promising around 18 missions to tackle in general, and lots of ways to get around your environment: zip wires, dagger and traverse climbing, swan dives, free falls, cannonballs and beams.”

More information were shared in January 2008 alongside what was, for a long time, the only official video of the game:

“Publisher Eidos has officially announced that it will be bringing an Unreal Engine 3 game based on the popular movie and TV series Highlander to Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC later this year. Eidos notes that the title, to be developed by Widescreen Games, will be written by TV series writer David Abramowitz, and will take series star Owen MacLeod “on a journey across multiple lands from first century fiery Pompeii, to futuristic New York to discover his destiny and explore the powers of immortality.” By nature of that immortality, Eidos says players will be able to exploit the unique powers it brings and “manipulate situations that death would normally prevent” such as channeling electricity and fire, impaling himself on enemy weapons to disarm them and falling from buildings to escape. The game will also feature “an advanced combat system, gamers will master a variety of Highlander swords including the Claymore, Katana, and Twin Gladius” which will “combine exciting swordplay with the Quickening powers of an Immortal.” MacLeod’s knowledge and strength will be enhanced with each other Immortal he beheads throughout the game.”

In March of the same year, it was an interview with Producer Gilles Baril, which explained in detail new points about the game, including its story, that appeared online:

Could you please reveal the beginning of the game’s plot, just a glimpse of the story?
G.B.: “The game starts in New York – large parts of the city are being evacuated but nobody knows why. The hero, Owen McLeod, is about to leave the city when several heavily armed men burst into his loft apartment. As the story unfolds, Owen finds out that a powerful immortal is the leader behind the attacks, searching for a mysterious artefact which was broken many years before into three fragments. Owen sets off after the fragments, sensing that his destiny is closely linked to this ancient artefact, he racks his memories for clues, memories which will plunge him into three different key periods of his past.”
Can you describe the different environments on the game and where it all takes place historically?
G.B.: “The game takes place in modern day New York where Owen must sift through his memories in order to unfold the story. These memory flashbacks take place in: Pompeii in the 1st Century AD, where, as a young gladiator, Owen meets his mentor who teaches him of his true nature and of the rules to the Game; The Highlands in the 9th Century where, in search of his origins, he befriends a fellow Immortal named Ryan, with whom he fights side by side against the Viking ravagers allied to the powerful Pict sorcerer Barak; and finally, Japan in the 14th Century, where, with his ally Methos, he protects the sanctuary of Kusanagi-no-tsurugi, a legendary blade, and fights Shinu, Lord of the Tengus, who seeks to make off with this sacred artefact.”
In the game will you leap between different time periods in history? Will the game also include an RPG element as you progress?
G.B.: “The game moves between New York to Owen’s memories in past time periods so you’ll be moving between different time periods as Owen tries to discover the key to what is happening to him in New York. We’ve kept to a good balance of navigation, combat and story. Each environment varies in terms of balance of these three elements. This is a tricky balance to get right but we’re happy with the outcome. There will also be an element of RPG to the game as you will be able to upgrade Owen’s combat and Quickening techniques as you play through the game, depending on the choices you make as you play.”
Can you explain how you will be able to upgrade your character?
G.B.: “The player can upgrade their player character, weapons and immortal Quickening techniques in two ways – by spending experience points earned in the game and by finding secret bonuses hidden in the levels. The player can earn extra experience points by using more skilled combat moves to finish off their opponents and by completing secondary objectives in the levels (for example, saving all the innocent Scottish villagers from being slaughtered by the Vikings in the Highlands). Upgrades enhance the strength of the weapons, the power and scope of the Quickening effects and increase the abilities of the player character.”
We understand that you can move both on rooftops and on the ground in the New York part of the game. Can you explain how this happens?
G.B.: “The game features levels where navigating deadly heights is crucial. One of these levels features a wind effect which will blow the character off unless the player is careful. The New York levels are pretty vast and do feature gameplay on the ground and higher levels/roofs, however we also have to take care to ensure the player doesn’t get lost, so there are some limits.”
How does the combat system work?
G.B.: “Each weapon has its own set of attacks and the player can create their own combos. This evolves further when Owen is in Fury mode which gives him much stronger attacks. Using the Weapon Mastery Quickening technique each weapon can also become even more destructive. We’re very confident that the combat experience will be easy for players to pick up and play and will also provide a real unique Highlander flavor.”
Will you fight other Immortals?
G.B.: “There are boss fights with other Immortals but we wanted to keep the Immortal fights special so in many parts of the game Owen will be fighting mortals. Some of the mortals are aware that Owen is an Immortal and have been hired to kill him, like the men invading his apartment in New York at the start of the game, whereas others are just generally up to no good like the Vikings invading the Scottish highlands in later levels.”

However, the game, initially planned for the summer of 2008, disappeared again from the radar and was no longer mentioned. We can see that several Widescreen employees stopped working on it around the time when it was supposed to be released. In February 2009, following the economic crisis, Eidos was bought by Square Enix to become Square Enix Europe. In April of the same year, some sources declared that David Abramowitz, during a convention dedicated to Highlander told that the game was postponed indefinitely following disagreements between Eidos and Davis-Panzer. In parallel, Widescreen was already working on a new project, The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf, before filing for bankruptcy in July 2009. Oddly enough, it was not until December 2010 that Square Enix confirmed the cancellation of the game, which could imply that after the shutdown of Widescreen, the publisher planned to relaunch the development of the game with a new developer.

It was never officially revealed why Highlander was canceled. In this comment section, an anonymous source claiming to have worked on the game indicate that it was finished but was of poor quality and would justify the delay announced by Abramowitz in April 2009, but this remains to this day only pure speculation. On the other hand, Alexis Madinier, one of the former developer on the game wrote on his LinkedIn profile that it was:

“canceled due to clash between publisher and IP Owner. At 2 months of the release…“

Which could confirm the words of David Abramowitz during the convention. No further attempts to develop a new game based on the Highlander franchise have materialized after that one for now.

In March 2026, a complete, although unfinished and buggy, playable prototype, dated from April 2008, leaked onto the internet and made available on Hidden Palace.

Special thanks to Wavy Mavis for providing all soundtracks initially composed by Richard Jacques for the game!

Images:

Videos:

Official Highlander’ soundtrack by Richard Jacques. Thanks to Wavy Mavis and the timestamps, we can learn a bit more about the game.

Others, PC / MAC

Damnation: Hell Breaks Loose [PC – Prototype]

monokoma

07-10-2023

2 Comments

Damnation is a Far West steampunk Third-Person Shooter/Platformer action game developed by Blue Omega Entertainment, Liquid Development and Point of View, Inc., and published by Codemasters in May 2009, for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game originally started as an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod, sometimes named Damnation: Hell Breaks Loose, and was entered into Epic Games first Make Something Unreal contest:

Return to the West that never was in this genre-blending total conversion for Unreal Tournament 2004. Equipped with an array of steam-powered weaponry, acrobatic skills, and mystic Spirit Powers only you stand against a ruthless, mechanized foe. A self-styled “steampunk fantasy-western,” Damnation stands apart, providing the gaming community with not only fresh, new gameplay, but an untapped world to explore as well. Damnation is a new breed of gaming experience. As a first/3rd person action/adventure title, Damnation’s gameplay is unprecedented. Combining the immersion and precision-gunplay of a traditional first-person shooter like Call of Duty with the navigational puzzle design of 3rd-person adventure titles like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, Damnation is a new paradigm in genre-blending gameplay.

In September 2005, the team wrote a postmortem on BeyondUnreal about what was going to be their next plan about the project:

We sit here, now, in the newly formed office of Blue Omega Entertainment and look forward to starting full production of the retail version of Damnation in just over a month. The lessons we learned from the prototype have strongly shaped the structure of this new development studio. Since our Grand Finals submission, we have completely stopped development of the mod. We have spent the last four months doing nothing but preproduction. We have meticulously planned out our design docs, production pipelines, and schedule. Everything that went wrong with the prototype has been addressed and reworked from the ground up.
Most prototypes aren’t as fully realized as Damnation: Hell Breaks Loose. We didn’t necessarily need to put as much effort and time as we did into creating polished art assets just to test out the game design. Given the chance to do it over, I don’t think we would change that though. Taking the art production pipeline as far as we did on the prototype showed us where all the holes were. It taught us what we could outsource and what absolutely had to stay in-house. We were able to make mistakes that on the full game could have cost us millions, but on the mod were only annoyances.
In the end, even though we didn’t win the license, we feel that the prototype was a success. We were able to test out our game design and get tons of great feedback from the mod community. We now know that we are more than capable of taking the Damnation concept to completion and we feel confident that it will be a great game. In fact, the lessons we learned about valuing quality over quantity ensure that whether the final game matches our current vision or not, it will be fun. We believe that that focus alone is enough to make it a success.

Blue Omega tried to pitch their Unreal Mod to develop it into a commercial game and when they found a publisher interested in the project, the team worked hard to expand Damnation into a full title for the then next gen consoles. But the development of this new version didn’t go as planned: officially revealed in March 2008 for a release planned in December of the same year, the title was pushed back in 2009 for a release in May. Damnation received unfavorable reviews by the press.

In January 2013, VentureBeat investigated with former Lead Game Designer Jacob Minkoff what went wrong during the development:

Damnation was intended to be something very special. The game germinated from a hybrid first/third-person action game entered into the first Make Something Unreal competition in 2004. While it didn’t win, production continued with a full retail release as the ultimate goal. Aspirations were high among the team, and its plans for the game were lofty.
Blue Omega was aiming high with Damnation. It wanted to create huge battlefields that player and adversary alike could traverse any way they saw fit. It was seeking to create both organic locations and enemies, throw the player into the mix, and watch the emergent gameplay spiral out of control in the most fantastic of ways. Things eventually did spiral, though no one, especially the player, benefited in the least.
“Damnation was a product of a green team that didn’t really know what they were doing. It was my first professional game development project; the same was true of many members of the core team.”
The eagerness of the team also led them to overlook the huge challenge set by the new console hardware they were developing for. “We were on the cusp of a new generation, and we learned lessons that have since become common knowledge in game development,” said Minkoff.
In trying to expand upon Damnation so dramatically while working with new hardware, Blue Omega tried to accomplish too much too soon. “Making a sprawling — theoretically — triple-A game on console and PC was simply too much for us to handle,” said Minkoff.
This problem was only exacerbated by the decision to outsource large portions of the game and maintain an uncommonly small in-house team. The strategy was originally intended to afford this core team the greatest level of flexibility and allow it to adapt throughout development. As Minkoff revealed, this simply was not the case in practice.
“Outsourcing was a problem,” he said. “You need the time, experience, and budget to turn on a dime — to throw out what you’ve made and try something else quickly, and within constraints. We did not have the resources or knowledge to do that at Blue Omega.”
This inflexibility, caused by inexperience and outsourcing, led to the game’s woefully protracted development cycle. Few games command four years to make, and when they do finally see release, it’s usually justified with high levels of polish and production value. This was the opposite for Damnation. The longer it stayed in development, the more out of touch and less impressive it became. Level architecture, A.I., textures, animations, movement, physics, audio mixing, sound effects, dialogue, cutscenes, acting, weapons, and general common sense all had their merits eroded over the years it took Damnation to gestate.
“In the end, you usually run out of time or money,” said Minkoff. “With Damnation, we ran out of both. One of the primary reasons why you see so much architectural reuse is because it was cheaper to pay for a retexture than all new geometry. It also took less time to do so, giving us more hope of us meeting our release date.”
It could have been a great game had the team been more experienced, focused, and time-efficient. Minkoff sees the silver lining: “Many games never ship at all because the investment to make the game simply pass console certification would be prohibitive. That it shipped at all is a triumph for Damnation’s team.”
His positivity likely emanates from where Damnation took him next and where he was able to take its fundamental concepts. After the game’s completion, Minkoff moved to Naughty Dog and designed some of the most memorable sections of the Uncharted sequels. There, he was finally able to realize his ambitions for Damnation thanks to an experienced team and appropriate resources.
That the similar yet vastly superior first Uncharted game was in development at the same time as Damnation and saw release two years earlier to critical acclaim is an irony that is not lost on Minkoff. Instead of wallowing in the past, however, he is looking toward the future and building upon his first game’s auspicious past.
“Everyone has to learn somewhere,” he said. “I learned on Damnation.”

More recently, someone claiming to be a close source from the developers wrote under a video by Youtuber Matt McMuscles:

I work for the guys who came up with and had it made. They hired a company to do the coding and worked with a publisher to get it out on the various platforms. It was coming along with issues, as the developer wasn’t listening to my boss, and then the publisher decided that they were tired of waiting and forced them to release it when it was half done. The original concept of the game was awesome, and would have been amazing if they actually made what he paid for. An alternate history of the US where the South won the Civil War, with the tension and conflicts that arise from having an enemy directly border you. With steampunk elements. It sounded really cool.

The retail version retains some of the mod’s gameplay such as the acrobatic moves and spirit vision.

The original Damnation 2004 mod can still be downloaded here.

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