Project ACLAND is a cancelled horror game that was in development by Krome Studios around 2006 / 2009, planned to be released on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. The team spent 3 years prototyping the project, with huge focus on its violent and gory aspects: there are no details about its gameplay but we know players would fight a huge monster while trying to survive its fury.
As far as we know Acland was never officially announced by Krome Studios before its cancellation, but former Krome’s Creative Director Steve Stamatiadis talked about it in an old article published by Games ON:
“We also had this monster game that we’d been wanting to do for a long time, called Project ACLAND”. The game was at least three years worth of work according to Steve, but it was something that publishers had shown definite interest in. “The lack of R18+ rating was a problem, as it was going to be really gory,” he says, “like a monster movie. But there was no way you can sell a game like that in Australia. At times I was thinking ‘Why would I want to make a game that I can’t even play here?’”
The ACLAND monster, named after Acland Lane behind Krome’s Brisbane offices, would later go on to star in Blade Kitten. ”I’d really love to come back do Project ACLAND right,” Steve says, thinking of the future. “It’s been three years, and nobody’s done anything like it, or even close.”
Unfortunately there’s only 1 tiny image showing the monster 3D model in Project Acland: if you know someone who worked on this lost game who may help us preserve more images, please let us know!
If It Happen is a cancelled horror adventure game that was in development by Fujicom around 2001 – 2002, planned to be released on Dreamcast. As reported by IGN the game was officially announced in Japan in June 2001, and it was mentioned in a few Japanese magazines such as Dorimaga, but soon it vanished with not much ever being shown. In 2021 The Dreamcast Junkyard found a trailer for “If It Happen” hidden as an unlockable video in another Fujicom game titled “Bokomu no Tatsujin”:
“[…] there is a shop in this game that lets you purchase appliances for your home such as a computer, an air conditioner and – most importantly here – a television. Once you eventually pony up the cash for this TV you can view both the Bomber Hehhe and this horror game trailer on it.”
The style of characters and the hotel / mansion shown in this trailer looks similar to other japanese horror adventures such as Clock Tower or D. Unfortunately there are no details about how it would have been played, but we can assume players would have explored the mansion, escaping from evil mannequins (?). Dice covered in blood were somehow part of the story.
If you find something else about If It Happen in other japanese magazines, please let us know!
Cult County is a cancelled psychological horror game that was in development by Renegade Kid around 2013, originally announced for Nintendo 3DS at PAX 2013 and later also planned for PS4, PS3, PSVita, Wii U, PC, and Xbox One when they unsuccessfully tried to fund the game on Kickstarter. Their plan for the project was to create an episodic horror tale, something like “The Walking Dead meets Silent Hill 2 from a first-person perspective”.
The team is mostly known for cult-classic Nintendo DS horror titles such as Dementium: The Ward and Moon, plus fun platforming adventures such as Mutant Mudds and Xeodrifter. While they always showed skills and love for Nintendo consoles, their games never sold much unfortunately.
“Cult County is an all-new first-person survival horror game that blends the episodic story-telling of The Walking Dead with the classic tension-filled exploration and action of Silent Hill and Resident Evil, presenting an opportunity for fans to help a veteran team produce a new experience that is fresh, exciting, and scary!
Rebirth of the survival horror FPS genre, crafted with fan input. Story-driven gameplay, featuring memorable character interactions. Small West Texas town filled with tension, mystery, and scares. Vulnerable and personalized melee and firearm combat. Varied cast of creepy enemy encounters and devious boss battles.
You assume the role of Gavin Mellick, whose mother has fallen deathly ill. Unable to reach your older sister, Alissa, by phone you drive the 6 hours across Texas to visit her in person and share the sad news. You return to the small town where you spent your summers as a child with Alissa, at your late aunt’s house. There is a particularly savage dust storm rolling in when you arrive.
Unable to locate your sister, you ask some of the locals for help. You quickly learn about their suspicions of a cultish group that recently moved into town, and the unexpected suicide of Father Pearce. The locals offer very little help finding your sister, and it isn’t long before your search takes an unexpected dark turn, leading you down a road of no return.
You are alone. You are unarmed. You see strange “people” linger on the edge of the dust storm, who seem to be watching your every move. But, as soon as you turn your head to face them, they disappear. Who are they? Where do they go? What do they want?
As you explore deeper into the town, searching for any clues that might lead to your sister, you meet various town folk who offer their own anecdotes on what the “people” might be. Some claim they are just your imagination, and some say they are part of the new cultish group who recently moved into town. One person even goes as far to name them “Dust Devils“!”
With no support on Kickstarter, Renegade Kid possibly tried to find a publisher for Cult County, but without success. After releasing Moon Chronicles and Dementium Remastered on Nintendo 3DS, in August 2016 Renegade Kid announced that it was shutting down. It’s currently unknown if Cult County could be resurrected in the future, but if so we could see it from Infitizmo, the new team created by former Renegade Kid cofounder Gregg Hargrove.
Between 2008 and 2010 Sony Computer Entertainment Japan were working on a new “Russian retro Sci-Fi Horror” video game for their Playstation 3, but in the end the project was cancelled. While this new PS3 game was never officially announced by Sony, a single concept art was revealed by Masahiro Ito (of Silent Hill fame) on Twitter in 2017, before he removed its own tweet.
“it would appear that conceptualization of the Russian sci-fi horror project began somewhere close to 2006 based on images from his official website. If you start from the top of the paintings section (while being mindful of some sensual imagery), the entire third row along with parts of the fourth seem dedicated to the production. I wasn’t aware these works actually belonged to an unfortunately scrapped game until fairly recently. I was actually under the impression they were simply a “subject matter” study that he explored in his art book, The 2nd Wild Pig, which was released at Comiket 74; however, it has been difficult to obtain exact details about its content despite remarks from the artist about making his work available in the West in some form or another. Ultimately, it appears a multi-media project called Acid Bufferzone has cannibalized remnants of the material shared between figurines and seemingly a manga series from Ito-san as well.”
Unfortunately at the moment this concept art is the only remaining document from the game. It would be interesting to see screenshots from the probable prototype they were able to create during the early development.
Update: as wrote by Edrox Interactive in the comments below, the game is still planned to be released on WiiU in the following months, so it’s not cancelled:
Bizerta: Silent Evil is a cancelled survival horror heavily inspired by Resident Evil & Silent Hill, that was in development by Edrox Interactive, initially for Sony PSVita and later for Nintendo WiiU. The game was announced around 2015 and in mid 2017 the project was still planned to be released for WiiU, but in the end it just quietly vanished.
“Bizerta: Silent Evil sets the stage inside a disheveled World, softly lit by the moonlight overrunning its foliage and blanketing corridors with darkness.
“Bizerta : SILENT Evil” for Wii U is the story of Ash Lightheart drawn by the mystical power of the City called Bizerta. Ash was 15-years-old but one day, he woke up in a dark world as a 30-year-old man. You have to explore this world, slinking through a large creepy, and seemingly empty, building to find out what happened. The title will use extensively the Wii U GamePad’s touch screen for puzzle solving, unlocking doors, and other mini games and mechanism interactions.”
In 2015 Cubed3 also published an interview with Edrox Interactive, unveiling their hopes for the project:
“Randy: Can be tough, at times, the way the market swings, it’s completely unpredictable. Can you go into any details about the disruption you were faced with before coming over to Nintendo?
Ouissem: The biggest issue on Vita is that I have a PSM license so I can only publish a game with limited size on their store, which is 1 GB. That’s simply not enough for my game. Actually, many people asked them for more but Sony kept ignoring them, so I feel that the PSM program is more suited for mini games or something casual, not for a horror adventure.
Randy: Earlier you hinted that you missed puzzles specifically in the horror genre, can Nintendo gamers expect to challenge puzzle based obstacles in Silent Evil or is it more geared to providing action oriented elements?
Ouissem: That’s my goal actually – to try and combine these two elements. I won’t make it easier for people to get out of this nightmare!
Randy Freer: Are there additional playable characters in the cast or does Silent Evil focus on a single protagonist?
Ouissem: Only one playable Character.”
As far as we can understand, the game was in development by one single developer, so it’s safe to say that it became a project too ambitious for his small resources. As of April 2020 Edrox Interactive website is still online: could we see Bizerta released on other consoles or PC one day?
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