Beta + Cancelled Microsoft Video Games

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.

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

Article by Gil B.

Images:

Videos:

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

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

F.E.A.R. 2 (Day 1 Studios) [PC / PS3 / Xbox 360 – Cancelled Pitch]

U64 Staff & Contributors

25-01-2025

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F.E.A.R. is a Horror First-Person Shooter developed by Monolith Productions for Vivendi Universal Games, under its Sierra Entertainment brand, and released in 2005. Considered by many to be the crown jewel on the games list of Monolith, the first F.E.A.R. was critically acclaimed upon its release thanks in particular to the quality of its Artificial Intelligence, to its graphics engine which featured a highly detailed particle system and complex lighting effects, to its visceral gameplay whose fights were inspired by scenes from Hard Boiled and The Matrix and highlighted by a feature inspired by Bullet Time, and finally, its horrific atmosphere inspired by Asian Horror such as Ring, Ju-On: The Grudge, The Eye or even Akira.

Unsurprisingly, with so much quality for its time, beside being a critical success and earning numerous awards, F.E.A.R. was also a commercial success selling over two million units worldwide, across the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. It should therefore come as no surprise that a sequel was quickly put into development. This is where things get complicated. Officially revealed in May 2004 by Monolith, the first F.E.A.R., as mentioned above, was published by Vivendi whose contracts had already been signed. But in August of the same year, it was another publisher, Warner Bros. Games, which acquired Monolith. This will create for a few years a split regarding the ownership of the rights of the F.E.A.R. franchise. In broad terms, and as explained by 1UP back in 2007, Monolith and Warner owned the rights to the F.E.A.R. intellectual property and characters, and Vivendi owned the name “F.E.A.R.” As a result, any non-Vivendi game set in the F.E.A.R. universe could use the characters and events from the original game, but could not be called F.E.A.R. At the same time, any non-Warner game set in the F.E.A.R. universe could not use the characters and events from the original game, but could be called F.E.A.R.

In February 2006, Monolith began to work on a sequel of F.E.A.R. simply named Project Origin, in reference to a key plot element from the first game. It was not until September 2008, after 2 and a half years of development, that Vivendi made the decision to give back the F.E.A.R. brand to Warner. Subsequently, Project Origin was renamed F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin, as stated by IGN:

It’s a bit funny how the corporate world works. In 2005, Sierra and Monolith put out an acclaimed first-person shooter called F.E.A.R. that blended elements of Japanese-style horror with kinetic gunplay. But prior to that, in 2004, Monolith was acquired by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, which meant that things would get complicated for any follow-up. Sierra owned the name F.E.A.R., but Monolith was the company responsible for actually making it. So what happened next was a bit comical. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment announced Project Origin, a game that would effectively be the spiritual successor to F.E.A.R., while Sierra would make F.E.A.R. 2 with another developer.
And then came 2008. Vivendi Universal Games, the parent organization of Sierra, merged with Activision to become the largest third-party publisher in the world. VUG’s crown jewel, of course, is Blizzard, the studio responsible for World of Warcraft, StarCraft II, and Diablo. Sierra’s lineup was examined, and most of its games were recently dropped. Indeed, Sierra’s future is in doubt.
Senseing an opportunity, Warner Bros. and Monolith struck, and they are announcing today that they have acquired the F.E.A.R. name, meaning that the creator of F.E.A.R. once again has access to the name. To that effect, Project Origin is being renamed to F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin.

While a F.E.A.R. 2 was officially in development for Vivendi, it was, for many years, totally unknown what could it be and which company had the task to make the game.

It wasn’t until October 7th, 2021 that YouTuber Dead Domain uncovered and shared information about that F.E.A.R. 2. Through investigative work regarding initially a documentary about the troubled development of F.3.A.R., they were able to get in touch with Art Director Heinz Schuller and Narrative Designer Cory Lanham, both working at Day 1 Studios, the company chosen by Warner for the making of F.3.A.R., the final official game in the main series. Today, thanks to them, Unseen64 has the authorization to share the information collected by them regarding this F.E.A.R. 2 by Day 1, revealed in the documentary F.E.A.R. 3: Aftermath. We thank them very much and, mainly, keep in mind that all the credit goes to them.

The Day 1 game began its development somewhere between the end of Winter and the beginning of Spring 2007, was loosely inspired by the Philadelphia Experiment, and was to depict a new phasing technology falling into the wrong hands and being used to open up a passage to and from a supernatural parallel universe called the World Behind the Walls. To close it, a F.E.A.R. squad is deployed. The concept arts showing characters, enemies and environments that you could see in the video, alongside our gallery below were mainly the work of Character & Concept Artist Grant Hillier. As Dead Domain pointed out on the environments of the World Behind the Walls:

The concepts for the World Behind the Walls show skeletal otherwordly structures and unreal geometry. There are even some that feature what appear to be ambient wildlife.

Another interesting piece of trivia about this F.E.A.R. 2 concerns the Phase Soldier, an enemy that would be able to shift between realities. The original concepts depict them as members of the US Navy, we could make an assumption that it was to emphasize the inspiration taken from the Philadelphia Experiment.

When the F.E.A.R. name was re-acquired by Monolith and Warner back in September 2008, the work done by Day 1 for F.E.A.R. 2 was cancelled by Warner as, mentionned above, Project Origin became the official sequel to the first F.E.A.R. They decided nevertheless to give the development of a third F.E.A.R. game to Day 1. Heinz Schuller explained:

(…) because of that, they decided ‘okay, we’re going to make Project Origin F.E.A.R. 2, and we’re going to make the game that you guys working on will become F.E.A.R. 3’. What our F.E.A.R. 3 started out as evolved quite a bit from when we started it until we ended it. Suddenly we had all the F.E.A.R. universe back: we could use all the characters from F.E.A.R. and F.E.A.R. 2.: Project Origin. So that was pretty much a total reboot of the narrative of our game. All of our sort of Phase Soldiers and sort of parallel universe stuff went away.

Still according to Heinz Schuller, the Phase Soldier is the only surviving element of their F.E.A.R. 2 that was transferred to the final version of F.3.A.R., although totally redesigned:

We did take along this idea of phasing and technology that would allow soldiers to essentially beam in and out of our world. So one of the enemies in F.3.A.R. is this heavy Phase Soldier. He can zap into a scene and create an energy field and spawn soldiers around him. I think that was the only element that really survived from our F.E.A.R. 2.

The rest of this documentary focuses on the entire development of F.3.A.R., based on various testimonials from former Day 1 developers. It is worth mentioning that the game still had some changes. Thus, we can learn that some levels never got past the concept art stage such as an underground level with the streets above viewable through holes in the ceilings, with hallways showing the Old City set up with mannequins for tourist attraction, or a ferry ride serving as the penultimate level of the campaign where the two protagonists were transported to the island where the Project Origin’s laboratory is located. According to the art style guide, this level should have been more oriented towards exploration and horror than action, with Point Man who would have been in spectral form just like Paxton Fettel. We can also add that the latter went through various design for his appearance, which was, in the beginning, more focused on a ghoulish aspect:

The narration was also modified on certain points, such as for example the opening sequence which, according to Cory Lanham, was to take place in the middle of the game, in what is the equivalent of Interval 05 – Tower in the final title, before returning the player back during subsequent missions to explain why we find ourselves in this situation. A narrative process called In Media Res, notably used in God of War: Ascension:

(…) I had written and pitched a whole idea for the opening of the game, I think it was originally supposed to open like somewhere towards the latter part of the game, it’s like a preview of what’s coming and then we take you and put you back 12 hours earlier or whatever. So I had written this whole sequence that bounced back and forth between that sort of high action huge moment like the one around the space needle, where it was supposed to open originally, and then it sort of goes back to the Favela at the beginning. It would go back and forth between a cinematic of Alma giving birth to the two brothers, and then cut, and then just keep coming back to the gameplay of lots of high action. And then, the whole idea was to carry the sound effect of the EKG through the transition between the cinematic with the giving birth stuff and the high action stuff, there would be always that sound effect in the background that sort of would be tied in. But it was too expensive basically. That was what it boiled down to, and I think also the guys from Monolith really had a vision that they wanted to execute on, so it really didn’t fit in what they were thinking about doing so.

Another idea that didn’t make the final cut was also to base the entire campaign in South America, especially in the favelas, but as Warner became more and more implicated in the development of F.3.A.R., that idea was dropped in favor of locations inspired by cities from the Washington state, such as Seattle. Heinz Schuller recollected:

Originally, we wanted to base the whole narrative in South America. At the end of F.E.A.R. the idea was Point Man went and holed up in South America for the entire duration of F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. (…) We thought we were all really smart by coming up with this really cool original premise, and then Modern Warfare 2 came out and was based in favelas and then the Hulk movie came out which was also based there. But then, Warner had started to get, with T.J. Wagner, working out the locations and they wanted to move the game narrative up to Pacific Northwest, in a post-apocalyptic version of Seattle, where the original nuke went off at the end of F.E.A.R. We fought a lot of battles to try to keep as much of the favelas stuff in, but it ended up just being the first level of the game, so if you remember, you spawn in a prison in South America and you have to break your way out. Even though a lot of that was reworked, that was kind of still the anchor to our first draft of F.3.A.R.

As we can read on the old blog of Art Manager Stephen Langmead, it seems the art direction made by Day 1 was also reworked, this time by Exis Interactive:

(…) We weren’t happy with the quality so we were having them redone by our outsourcer Exis Interactive, who we incredible to work with.

In the screenshots in the last gallery below, we can see some redesigns here and there such as the HUD, the weapons or the airport level which would have made us move in a plane full of dead bodies and potentially what could be appears as an NPC.

F.3.A.R. was finally released in June 2011 after being delayed numerous times and received “mixed or average” reviews from the press. It seems the game’s sales were disappointing, and the F.E.A.R. franchise has been on hiatus since then.

Although considered as the black sheep of the franchise today, it is difficult not to feel a certain sympathy for the developers at Day 1 Studios who had to endure years of reboots in addition to crunches and burnouts. We may not like F.3.A.R. for what it is, but we can’t really blame the members of Day 1 who tried their best despite numerous setbacks hence the final result.

From then on, Unseen64 would like to thank through this article Heinz Schuller, Cory Lanham, Stephen Dinehart, Matt Mason, Chris Julian, Greg Ruddick, Matthew Singer as well as all the other members of Day 1 who were directly or indirectly involved in the development of F.3.A.R., and above all, a very special thanks to Dead Domain for having kindly accepted that we could transcribe certain parts of their documentary for this article.

Day 1’s F.E.A.R. 2 images:

F.3.A.R. Concept arts from cut levels:

F.3.A.R. screenshots’ version by Day 1 Studios showing cut or modified levels:

Videos:

Gameplay prototype before the art reboot made by Exis Interactive. Both videos provided by Art Director Heinz Schuller.

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

Enemy Front [PC / Playstation 3 / Xbox 360 – Cancelled]

U64 Staff & Contributors

21-09-2024

1 Comment

Enemy Front is a World War II First-Person Shooter released in 2014 for the PC, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 by CI Games (formerly City Interactive). The game put you in the shoes of Robert Hawkins, an American war correspondent, caught up across Europe with various Resistance fighters, fighting during real World War II historical events that were largely never transposed in video games, particularly First-Person Shooters, such as the Warsaw Uprising. It features open-ended levels allowing for the players to have their own playing style, similar to the Crysis serie.

But before being available as such, Enemy Front had a slightly different approach that was eventually ditched following a small chaotic development leading to redundancies, restructuration and cancellation of some CI Games projects.

Everything began in November 2011 with the announcement of the project by City Interactive, with Stuart Black, mostly known for Black, as Creative Director, as we could read on Engadget:

Stuart Black’s “exciting new story-driven WWII shooter” will be called Enemy Front, publisher City Interactive announced today. The game will be powered by CryEngine 3 and will launch on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC with an expected 2012 release date.

The title got more coverage in the beginning of spring 2012, debuting with an interview of Black by Digital Spy where we could learn that he took inspiration of 60’s and 70’s World War II movies for the tone of the story, especially Where Eagles Dare, but also The Dirty Dozen:

We talk to Black about why he chose to work on this project, how Enemy Front takes its influences from classic war movies like Where Eagles Dare and its back-to-basics approach to multiplayer.
DS: Why choose this project and why choose City Interactive?
S.B.: “Well, City Interactive in particular, I was just really impressed with their attitude. When I left Codemasters and I was looking for another project to be attached to, I certainly didn’t want to do another modern-day shooter having worked on two. I was kind of, ‘I haven’t got any ideas to bring to the table for a modern-day thing’, so I was instantly attracted by the idea of a World War II game.
“As I said earlier, one of the first questions I always ask myself is: ‘Right, if I want to play this style of game, could I go out and buy it tomorrow?’ And when it comes to a quality World War II shooter, no I can’t.
“I’d have to go back to Brothers in Arms or World at War, but then World at War is very different because it’s a Pacific campaign and the Japanese fighting was very different, with the Banzai rushing and surprise ambush attacks, it’s not your typical Nazis in Europe.
DS: Is it the case that these games are a bit old now? Will you be introducing more modern elements?
S.B.: “We hopefully want to modernise it and take like a modern blockbuster kind of approach to it. And get out of that [Saving] Private Ryan rut. That being a front line grunt, with some sergeant constantly barking orders at you, saying, ‘Go here, take that machine gun, up that hill!’ You almost feel like a bit player in your own game.
“It’s like, ‘I ain’t the star’, this other guy, the guy that I’m following, he’s the f**king lead and I’m some secondary character. So we wanted to get you back to being the hero again in that way and to get out of that Normandy to Berlin run.
“Which you can understand why lots of games do it, because until then, most of the big battles, the Allies lost! Researching this and looking at all the historical battles it’s like, ‘OK, I can see why everybody starts at Dunkirk because until then there were no victories’, and who wants to take part in a game where you’re always on the losing side?
“So that combined with the idea, OK we want you to be the hero, we want to look back at the old ’70s war movies, that kind of man-on-a-mission flavour. Dirty Dozen, and in particular, Where Eagles Dare, that was a big influence. I was really surprised when I saw that movie at how well it stands up.
(…) So that kind of became our template. Getting back to that more action-orientated thing instead of that reverential approach to the war.
“Keep it authentic, authentic weapons, authentic locations, but get a bit more adventure spirit into the action, particularly in the story.”
DS: Was it a challenge having a realistic historic setting and having those adventure elements?
S.B.: ” We’ve taken some historical events, in Saint-Nazaire, France, there was a famous Commando raid on a naval base so we have that happening, you take part in that. But you’ve got your own objectives off to the side, leap-frogging or piggy-backing on this commando raid to do your own thing. There’s plenty of flexibility in that.”
DS: In the presentation, I believe a slide said it was ‘beat-based arcade action’; what do you mean by that?
S.B.: “What we mean that it is fairly linear, and it is split down into moments of specific action. What you played here was effectively the first beat of this game, with the beat being the action around the old house, right? There’s significant moments of action, a tank coming rolling in, bursting into a wall or whatever, that would be a particular beat of action.
“That’s what we mean by beats by that, it’s the pacing of the action. The peaks and troughs of it. As I said, it’s a demo we’ve got right now, it’s about keeping the intensity going. When we do our final there’ll be much more peaks and troughs.”
DS: And there will be opportunities for stealth?
S.B.: “You should always have the opportunity, in any given situation – well, not say any, but in the majority of given situations – it should be up to you how you approach that. If you want to take that quietly or want to lock and load and go in all guns blazing.
“Or say, ‘I’ve got a huge sack of smoke grenades here, I’ll just start tossing these around and get the planes in blowing the s**t out of this stuff’, and mix and match them, right?
DS: How are you approaching multiplayer?
S.B.: “We wanted to take a focussed approach to it, a team-based game. The closest equivalent would be Day of Defeat, that would be the shorthand way of describing it.
“It’s territory-based, the levels are sort of corridors. You’ve got the range territories up these corridors, two teams, eight a side we’re hoping. Each territory that you take has different equipment associated with it.
“What I can’t really do is go into a team-based game that doesn’t have that kind of stuff on it anymore, and just have this kind of pure skill-based game. So there will be different classes, your heavy guys, your scout guys, your typical grunt guy, engineery type guy and then different equipment.
“You all have starting equipment based on your class and there will be different movement speeds and characteristics of your classes. And then depending on which control point or territories you’ve taken over will unlock different equipment for you to use during that play session.”

The following month, numerous video previews were shared showing gameplay and the game was also present at E3 2012. Thus, Game Informer wrote a preview about the singleplayer and the multiplayer components:

(…) There are going to be 10 different enemy class types, with jobs spanning from typical armed opposition and medics running around the battlefield healing enemies you merely maimed, to enemies whose job it is to run off and call for back-up by blowing whistles or shooting off flares.
Another way Enemy Front focuses on gunplay is by offering three unique play styles that correspond to different types of shooters. You choose your style at the beginning of your game. Hope mode offers rechargeable health. Honor mode takes away rechargeable health but lets the player pick up and use health packs. Players also scavenge for health packs in Glory mode, which offers the purest cinematic experience by taking away your crosshairs and HUD.
In what is a surprising revelation for a first-person shooter with online multiplayer gameplay, the team at City Interactive is focusing one mode, and it’s not your standard deathmatch. The mode is called Conquest, and it’s a team based multiplayer mode where two teams work against one another to capture points in a corridor like level, as Black describes it. The corridor design of the stages, as opposed to the open environments typically seen in other online shooters, plays into the overall design of Enemy Front. Players are being fed into team versus team shootouts, as opposed to multiple miniature skirmishes happening all over the map. It’s all about playing tug-of-war with the front line of battle along the level.

With its presentation at E3, other websites wrote various previews. For instance, Gamerant wrote:

While still pre-alpha in construction, the demo shown at E3 followed the main character – referred to as ‘Alders’ – battling his way through a French village occupied by German forces. As an OSS Ranger dropped behind enemy lines, the players is not simply required to complete a straightforward objective as part of a larger offensive, but stumbles upon a conspiracy that will send him hurtling across Europe.
The game’s stages set within France, Poland and Germany may not exactly be untapped wells, but the studio’s commitment to CryENGINE 3 means that there will be some new features to experiment with. Enemy Front, like Black, will be placing an emphasis on the destructible environments and construction that the new engine makes possible. Enemy gunfire was shown to result in everything from splintered wood to pulverized masonry, so the moment-to-moment instances of spraying-and-praying do offer a satisfying amount of visual and audio feedback.
While the implausibility of the plot – sending a single soldier across Europe to do what an army cannot – may imply a suspension of disbelief in terms of danger and overwhelming odds, players won’t have to indulge themselves in invincibility. Occasionally the number of approaching enemies will mean that avoiding a skirmish is the best course of action. But, this being a game designed by Stuart Black, the game’s mechanics aren’t exactly beholden to a sense of realism.
A pistol with infinite ammo is set to keep the action moving forward, just one of many tropes of the genre set to appear. A proper English Commando and an alluring female French resistance fighter will be aiding Alders in his investigation, and those capable of dispatching German soldiers will be treated with a smart remark from Alders worthy of a wink to the camera.
The developers promise a wide range of period weaponry including lesser-known models of machine-guns and throwing knives, the use of vehicles in combat, and the ability to work with friendly forces as their missions align with that of Alders. Among the locations teased was the ‘Wolf’s Lair,’ Hitler’s base of operations on the Eastern Front, so expect the game’s campaign to depict a seriously grueling trek.
The basic gameplay of Enemy Front is not attempting to reinvent the shooter genre in any way, and while the footage shown was far from finished, the foundation seems strong. Artificial Intelligence behavior and hit detection all seemed to be well-tuned, and the design team’s decision to work all ammo and directional indicators into a single widget in the corner of the screen, thus leaving the rest of the screen free from obstruction, was a particularly nice touch.

On the other hand, French website Jeuxvideopc.com was far less impressed:

To be completely honest, we wonder why City Interactive unveiled its new title to the press. Not only does Enemy Front seriously smack of deja vu by offering us the role of an American hero whose goal is to sabotage the German lines all over Europe, but what we were able to see was perhaps one of the ugliest things seen at E3. When the developers told us that it was the Cry Engine 3 that was running their game, we had a hard time believing them. Not only are the environments absolutely sad, with a crying lack of life and vegetation, but the game also lag like a Doom 3 on a Pentium II. We were promised that the AI will be ultra-worked (it rushed at the player without thinking), that the environments will be destructible (it was only scripts) or that immersion will be the heart of the title (the player could withstand the bullets equivalent of the Battle of Stalingrad without dying), it was hard to believe them. Finally, only the explosions made in Cry Engine 3 and the correct modeling – nothing more – of the enemies were the only good points noted during this presentation. For the rest, it is a question of shooting stupid Germans with imprecise weapons and without punch and of taking cover while waiting to see heads sticking out. The maps may well be of a large size (to be honest, I did not understand the layout of the level) and the weapons (25 in number, all from the period) varied, we do not really see what City Interactive wants to accomplish.

However, after those presentations, Enemy Front went silent for months. City Interactive announced that they wouldn’t be present at Gamescom 2012, and during August 2012, the company went to a major restructuration that led the studio to rebrand as CI Games, cancel projects that wasn’t targeting the AAA market such as a Sniper: Ghost Warrior iOS game, delay numerous times Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2, and, finally, reboot Enemy Front. It was made official only in October of the same year, thanks to VG247:

According to Polish website Miastogier, citing an interview with City Interactive Chief Executive Officer Marek Tyminski, Black and the firm parted ways after his vision for Enemy Front was found to be “different from” the firm’s expectations.
As a result, the vision for Enemy Front, announced in November 2011 as a World War II first-person action-shooter, has changed direction.
“Following the first game shows, press releases, we decided to take into account the media attention and now we have made a number of quite significant changes in the game storyline and assumptions, including the main character,” Tyminski said.
“We’re currently working on these elements, among others, a very experienced person in the industry in the United States, Mark Bristol. Recently, [we] also decided to create an extensive multiplayer mode, in which our team in Romania is responsible for”.
A representative from City Interactive confirmed the changes made to Enemy Front with VG247, as well as Mark Bristol’s appointment and Black’s departure – which occured in August.
“We can confirm that Stuart Black is no longer working with City Interactive on the Enemy Front project,” Marshall Zwicker, the firms North American Vice President of sales and marketing told to VG247.
“Based on on early builds of the game and various internal and external feedback that we received, we decided to take a different approach to the gameplay, and the story and characters in the game than originally envisioned. We are now working with Mark Bristol, a very experienced cinematic director from the US and together with him we have been implementing what we feel are some really compelling changes.”

For his part, Black was rather hurt by this decision as we could read on Gamesindustry:

(…) Black was made redundant from his last project, WW2 shooter Enemy Front for City Interactive, just a few months ago.
“And I kind of felt, regardless of how they framed it as ‘we’re making you redundant because of strategic and financial reasons’ it’s inevitable, I would do the same, that people are going to think ‘he f***ed that up.’ The only reason you get rid of your Creative Director halfway through is because they f***ed up in some significant way,” he explained.
“So I kind of felt I looked really bad, my credibility is really going to take a hit from this when people start hearing about this and I just felt like I’ve got everything to prove. And it just comes down to making a game, so let’s just make a f***ing game.”
Last time anyone saw Black on the industry circuit was a press tour in May, where he was showing off his work on the City Interactive WW2 shooter Enemy Front. A game he thought was going well, and a game, he says, he was determined to finish. But just weeks after the press circuit he found himself suddenly and unexpectedly redundant.
“I don’t really have an answer for why, nobody ever really talked to me about any problems either with how I work, the quality of the work that was being done. It was kind of the opposite, everybody was really happy with the work.”
“The only thing that I can think is that when I was off doing my thing in the States telling people there’s going to be a Dirty Dozen, Where Eagles Dare kind of vibe to the game rather than the Saving Private Ryan reverential vibe, and actually they were going ‘no, we actually want Private Ryan.’
It’s clear that the redundancy hurt Black. He explained that he felt it was blow to his credibility and his reputation.

Despite announcing two different projects back then, it seems Stuart Black didn’t really work in the video game industry anymore after this.

Enemy Front was re-announced during the Gamescom 2013 with, alongside Mark Bristol, Raphael Van Lierop as Freelance Creative Director. The final game retained some design ideas from Stuart Black’s version, but some weapons and levels were cut, with also a different tone in the story, a different main character, a different art style and features like the different enemy types, the vehicles driving, the partially destructible environments and the customizable difficulty levels were dropped. Enemy Front was finally released in June 2014 and was met with mixed to negative reviews by the press.

Enemy Front wasn’t the only victim of City Interactive’s 2012 August restructuration. Alongside the Sniper: Ghost Warrior iOS project by Vivid Games, the company had to axe their multiplayer Free to Play First-Person Shooter World of Mercenaries, and rebooted for the second time the game Alien Fear, which became Alien Rage.

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Microsoft, PC / MAC, Sony

Allison Road [Cancelled – PC/PS4/Xbox One]

FreeckyCake

21-07-2024

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After the tragic cancellation of Kojima Productions’ Silent Hills, many were taken aback by the sudden announcement. The concept felt new and fresh. Horror enthusiasts were ready to savour it as soon as it launched, but in the end, it didn’t. Only a playable teaser was made and a couple of trailers here and there.

The community wasn’t content to let go of the idea of a first-person Silent Hill iteration. Thus, a fan-made spiritual successor in the name of Alison Road was born. Developed by Lilith Ltd, Alison Road was originally shown as a tech demo on July 1st, 2015 via YouTube. After the positive reception from the audience, development began shortly after. To help fund the project, Lilith Ltd launched a Kickstarter campaign around September 2015. The goal was to reach its $322,974 target before the October 21st deadline. While the Kickstarter campaign did receive funds from 4482 backers, earning Lilith over $188,564, the Kickstarter campaign was later cancelled on October 12, 2015. Just a few days before the original deadline.

The campaign was cancelled after Lilith Ltd signed a deal with Team17 to publish the game. At this point, with Lilith Ltd having the support of a publisher, things were proceeding smoothly, and a release for the quarter of 2016 was on the cards. However, on June 4th, 2016, the game’s development came to an ultimate halt when Alison Road’s official Twitter account announced the news.

Shortly after the game’s cancellation, Lilith wrote this statement on Facebook:

After a long consideration between Team17 and ourselves, we have reached a mutual agreement to end our collaboration on publishing Allison Road under Team17’s Games label. Sometime things pan out differently than expected as game development and publishing have so many layers of complexity… We’d like to especially thank everyone for their support through-out, it has and will always be appreciated!

Then Team17 followed with another statement after speaking to VG24/7:

After a long consideration between Lilith owner Chris Kesler and ourselves, we have reached a mutual agreement to end our collaboration on publishing Allison Road under Team17’s Games label. We love the concept and value Chris’ talent highly, but sometime things pan out differently than expected as game development and publishing have so many layers of complexity. The whole team here wish all the best to Chris on his current and future projects for which, before being a business partner, we are also a fan.

Neither Lilith Ltd nor Team 17 explained the circumstances that led to the cancellation of the game. However, on 22 August 2016, the game’s creator Christian Kesler, told IGN that he would resume development on the game, alone. This time around, Lilith Ltd was disbanded and development would be transitioned to the auspices of Far From Home, a new studio he had co-founded with his wife.

At this point, there was still a glimmer of hope that Alison Road would come to fruition. However, that hope was shattered when no new announcements about the project were forthcoming. Eventually, both the Facebook and Twitter accounts of Alison Road were silently shut down around September 2019. Time has passed, and Alison Road was forgotten. The game now lives in the spirit of Supernormal, a spiritual successor to Alison Road.

Prototype Gameplay:

Official Gameplay Trailer:

Images:

More images can be found on the Kickstarter link and Chris Kesler’s official ArtStation profile.

Playstation 3 (PS3), Xbox 360

Salient (Propaganda Games) [Playstation 3/Xbox 360 – Cancelled Pitch]

U64 Staff & Contributors

06-04-2024

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Salient is a cancelled action-adventure game that was published by Disney Interactive and developed by Propaganda Games for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, around 2005-2006.

Few details are known about Salient, as it seems to this day that this project never reached the prototype phase, let alone playable state. The existence of this title was shared on the personal website of Nathan Cheever, who served as a Level Designer at Propaganda Games from 2005 to 2007, although it is indicated that he never worked on Salient:

When Propaganda Games’ formed in 2005, the project after Turok was going to be Salient, a futuristic game that deals with humanity and injustice. The owners of the studio (Disney) put the project on hold indefinitely a year later, despite the team’s seasoned experience, passion, and talent.

Salient was set in the far future after humanity suffered for centuries of conflicts and global warming. The action take place in a futuristic metropolis that housed surviving masses from around the world, created by a big corporation that also created the Salients, a robotic workforce exhibiting personality traits, emotions and human features, initially designed to serve humanity. But over the years, the Salients integrated throughout the society and become more and more powerful to a point where they took over the corporation and see the humanity as “obsolete”, seizing operations by placing human beings in ghettos. Gamers would have played the role of a hybrid between a human and a Salient, hunted by the corporation and rejected by humans. In his quest, he would eventually flee the metropolis and joined a group of other rejected Salients in the wasteland, before saving humanity.

The art and visual direction was inspired by futuristic science-fiction movies and space opera such as Star Wars, Matrix, Equilibrium and I, Robot, while the gameplay had some platformer elements mainly inspired by the Prince of Persia series and Role-Playing Game mechanics retained from games such as Mass Effect. It also seems that combats would have been similar to the Devil May Cry franchise.

In the end, Disney didn’t take the pitch, and the small team dedicated to Salient joined the one behind Turok as stated by Nathan Cheever:

It was the big main project they wanted to do. There was a small team working on it when they were folded into Turok to help production. Disney didn’t really want to do mature titles like Turok which probably contributed to some of the results.

During their existence, Propaganda Games had more cancelled projects that released ones. Alongside Salient, we can add the well known Turok 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned, but also a mysterious prototype based on Marvel‘s Secret Wars, using the Unreal Engine and let’s not forget that even their Turok game released in 2008 had contents that were cut in the end.

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