third person shooter

Untitled Shooter [XBOX/PC – Prototype]

This cell-shaded shooter is a prototype that should have been  in development in 2004/2005  by 2015 Inc (?) for PC and Xbox. After working on Men of Valor, it seems that the studio tried to create this new shooter with a less realistic graphic style, but the project was later cancelled for unknown reasons.

Thanks to Han for the contribution!

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Crimson Skies [XBOX – Beta]

Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge is a flight-shooter game developed from 2001 to 2003 by FASA Studio (part of Microsoft Game Studios) for the original Xbox. Series creator Jordan Weisman noted that the game had a “difficult development,” and went through many different creative directions.

When development of Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge was first assumed by FASA Studio, it was conceived that the game be made into an “interactive movie,” a concept that would have involved an elaborate storyline and a large number of cutscenes. This process would have needed a linear mission design, potentially restricting gameplay.

Consequently, developers pushed back the game’s release date by a year in favor of increased development time. At this point, both playtest feedback and inspiration from games that offered more gameplay options helped shape the game’s development. The game’s “interactive movie” concept was scrapped, the storyline simplified, and the original linear mission design was reworked to promote more choice-driven gameplay.

When the game was first announced in 2002, features for the game included destructible environments which could be used to eliminate enemies, hidden areas containing bonus weapons, and “danger zones” similar in function to those featured in the previous Crimson Skies for the PC. Sadly many of these features were scrapped from the final version of the game. [Info from Wikipedia]

As noticed by Xenomrph on the Something Awful Forum, in the original Crimson Skies trailer (embedded below) we can see some removed levels:

Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge on the Xbox was going to have a bunch of other levels, and a completely different tutorial level that centered around robbing a flying casino over the ocean off the coast of Louisiana. You can see remnants of it (and other content) in the early trailer. It would have included destructible terrain, different cutscenes, and a bunch of other stuff…. but no online multiplayer.

Crimson Skies became a launch title for Xbox Live, and that involved totally overhauling the game to include Xbox Live multiplayer and cutting a lot of content to make room on the disc.

There’s still some remnants of the old content, though – the game’s dialogue includes references to the casino heist, the music from the above trailer was included on the game’s soundtrack CD (although the music never plays in the game itself), and the game’s tie-in novel ends at the casino heist (which, at the time of the book’s writing, wasn’t cut from the game yet).

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Project Dagger [PS2 XBOX – Prototype]

Project Dagger was an internal prototype for a new cooperative action game developed at Digital Illusions (DICE) during 2004/2005. When EA bought the studio, they did not greenlight the title for full production. From the look of the few videos preserved (that are probably target renders), the game was going to be about robbing bank and other criminal affairs, using 4 characters with different abilities. It seems that they wanted to have an online coop mode too.

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Fallout Extreme [XBOX – Cancelled]

Fallout Extreme is a cancelled squad-based RPG / tactical shooter that was in development by Interplay’s 14 Degrees East division for the original Xbox. The project was in development for several months in 2000, but it didn’t really have a concrete development team and never made it out of concept stage. After Extreme was cancelled, Interplay’s next attempt at making a console version of Fallout was Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel, released for both the Xbox and Playstation 2 in 2004. Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel 2 had the same fate of Extreme and was cancelled in early development.

On Fallout Wikia we can read all that is currently know about Fallout Extreme:

The game could be played in first and third person perspective. The player would control a 4-person team and would be able to switch the active character, all of which had various skills, at any moment. The team could consist of ordinary wastelanders, former Brotherhood of Steel members, super mutants, Native American shamant and even Mongol warriors. There were both single- and multiplayer modes.

Not much is known about the development team. Brian Christian, head of 14 Degrees East was the lead producer, while Todd J. Camasta was the art director, like with Fallout Tactics.

Sadly only few artworks remain from Fallout Extreme, preserved in the gallery below.

Thanks to Robert Seddon and Userdante for the contribution!

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Jet Force Gemini [GBC – Cancelled]

A GameBoy Color version of Jet Force Gemini was in development by Bit Studios (for Rare) in 2000, but it was cancelled in the end. The original JFG is a third-person shooter / action adventure published for the Nintendo 64 in October 1999, but the GBC version was never officially announced.

We were able to know about this cancelled project only thanks to Dano2k0 from the Assembler Forum, that found a playable prototype and shared some screens with the community. Rare released 2 other GameBoy Color games based on their Nintendo 64 titles, Perfect Dark and Conker’s Pocket Tales, that were received with low  interest by gamers: we could speculate that their third GameBoy Color “N64 port” was canned for this reason or for quality issues.

Jet Force Gemini GBC was going to have an isometric 2D view, while the gameplay was probably going to be “similar” to the N64 version, with lots of shooting and insects to kill.

As we can read in an interview with Martin Wakeley:

JFG on the Gameboy was the only occasion I can remember Rare outsourcing anything. It was being done by Bits Studios and was nearly done last time I saw it, I’m not sure what happened to it.

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