Terminal Reality and Midway Games once attempted to revive the vehicular combat genre through their open-world experiment, Roadkill. The game ultimately failed to make an impact, but its original pitch turned out to be far more ambitious. Much of the planned content never made it into the final version, and in fact, the early concept looked almost nothing like what Roadkill became.
The project originally began under the name Highway Hunter. The initial vision included destructible environments, shifting terrain, and an advanced weather system with tornadoes, dust storms, and even natural disasters like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Anomalies such as radiation zones and toxic waters were also considered. The tone was intended to be much darker than the final game. In the end, only tornadoes carried over into Roadkill. This article takes a closer look at that early pitch. Let’s begin:
The Highway Hunter Pitch
The roots of Highway Hunter can be traced back to 2001, when Terminal Reality set out to push the vehicular combat genre in a new direction with fresh mechanics and a more mature story. According to the design document, the team drew inspiration from a range of sources: films like The Warriors for a planned gang management system, Mad Max for the overall tone, and even reference books such as The Eyewitness series.
One of the first big ideas was to create a combat game in a world that constantly changed. Set in a post-apocalyptic landscape, the setting was meant to feel unstable and dangerous, shaped by ongoing disasters. That’s where the advanced weather system came in, though most of it was eventually cut.
Other early features included a vehicle hijacking system, allowing players to take over cars on the road. Terminal Reality envisioned something closer to the mechanics later seen in Vin Diesel’s Wheelman game, but this never materialised.
Destruction physics were also part of the plan. The team wanted more than just car battles; buildings could collapse under fire, and the environment itself would change over time. The idea was for players to gradually feel the world deteriorating as they played—a concept that was ultimately left on the cutting room floor.
The Planned Story for Highway Hunter
Both Roadkill and Highway Hunter’s story were about revenge, but the way the events started are different. For Roadkill, the main plot was the following:
“In Roadkill, you play as Mason Strong, a survivor of a plague known as “The Rot” that wiped out much of society and left the world in the hands of violent gangs. Mason’s goal is to hunt down Axl and his gang, the Sentinels, who betrayed him. To do this, he takes on jobs for different gangs across the three cities of Hell County—Lava Falls, Blister Canyon, and Paradise City—while engaging in vehicular combat. Along the way, Mason collects vehicle and weapon blueprints, allowing him to upgrade his arsenal and grow stronger.”
However, Highway Hunter’s story was the following:
“Gunn and his crew work as mercenaries in a post-apocalyptic world, forming a working relationship with Major Anspaugh, the city guard chief of New Canaan. They’re paid to escort mysterious pilgrims, who carry strange mechanical parts marked with a winged logo.
While raiding an old military base, Gunn finds another part with the same symbol and gives it to his close friend Low-Prow for safekeeping. But when they deliver more pilgrims, New Canaan’s guards suddenly turn on them, killing Low-Prow, most of the crew, and the pilgrims. Anspaugh steals the winged part and vanishes behind the city gates.Enraged,
Gunn teams up with a vengeful pilgrim girl and the few surviving members of his crew. They set out to infiltrate New Canaan, uncovering that the city is run by insane, tyrannical rulers who enslave outsiders and seek to collect all the winged parts. Their goal? To gain control of deadly war satellites in orbit and rule the post-apocalyptic world.
Now, Gunn is out for revenge and total destruction, ready to bring the city down — one villain at a time.”
Different Main Characters, Same Objective (kinda)
Mason Strong was the main character of Roadkill. Whereas Highway Hunter’s character was called Carson Gunn. Both characters were very different from one another. Look below:
Mason Strong
Carson Gunn
Even the wingmen for both Roadkill and Highway Hunter were slightly different. Let’s check below:
The Cars
The initial cars planned for Highway Hunter were also different from Roadkill, but it is possible that some of these were remade for the final product.
It is unknown why this pitch was cancelled. It is also unknown how far the game progressed in development or if a prototype build still exists or not. All that is known is that Highway Hunter was far too ambitious. Perhaps Midway Games saw it as a risky project and decided to scale it back heavily. We’ll never know. Below, you can also find various concept images of characters that didn’t make it from Highway Hunter
Images
A fan-documentary video covering the making of Roadkill and other information from producer Jeremy Airey