As we can read on Wikipedia, Vanguard Princess is a Japanese indie 2D fighting game for Windows PC, developed by a single programmer / illustrator called Tomoaki Sugeno and a supposedly ex-Capcom employee. As posted by Megalol in our U64 Forum, Tomoaki Sugeno has shared a lot of beta materials, canceled characters concepts, stages and old sprites in his blog!
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Masters Tournament Augusta was a golf game developed by T&E Soft and planned PC-FX. After witnessing the PC-FX failure in the japanese market T&E Soft decided to cancel the game. Only a single image was found in CD Consoles issue 5.
Thanks to Celine for the contribution!
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![The Witcher (1997 version) [PC – Cancelled]](https://www.unseen64.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/the-witcher-cancelled-670x300.jpg "The Witcher (1997 version) [PC – Cancelled]")
The Witcher is a book series by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. In 1997, a video game based on these books was in development for PC by Polish team, Metropolis Software, but this version of the game was never released for reasons unknown. In 2008, Metropolis were acquired by CD Projekt, a Polish company that in 2007 published the acclaimed The Witcher action RPG, which later became one of the most popular and successful RPG series in Europe and North America.
The Witcher 1997 by Metropolis Software was a completely different game from The 2007 Witcher project by CD Projekt RED. It was merely a coincidence that CD Projekt happened to purchase a studio that was working on a cancelled game of the same name. The Witcher 1997 would have been an ambitious action RPG with a big 3D world to explore filled with quests to complete and branching paths based upon decisions made during the story; aspects that also featured in the 2007 game.
We can speculate that Metropolis could possibly have encountered some issues in realising a large scale 3D open world RPG of this nature, as all their other games released from 1992 to 1998 were in 2D. It’s also possible that they simply were unable to find the backing of a publisher.
In 2009, CD Projekt closed Metropolis Software whilst they were working on a new FPS titled “They“.
An article about The Witcher by Metropolis Software was published in EDGE magazine issue #50.
Thanks to Celine and Roninakuma for the contribution!
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Wipeout is the first in a series of futuristic racing games developed and published by Psygnosis in 1995 for Sony PlayStation and PC, in 1996 for the Sega Saturn. Wipeout was designed in part by The Designers Republic, while the game’s vehicle designs were based on Matrix Marauders, a 3D grid-based strategy game whose concept was developed by Psygnosis employee Jim Bowers. Nick Burcombe, the game’s future designer, was inspired to create a racing game using the same types of vehicles from his experience with Powerdrome, F-Zero and Super Mario Kart. [Info from Wikipedia]
In the gallery below you can see a couple fo screens from a beta version and what is seems a FMV / target render.
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Final:
In an interview on Grumpy Old Gamers with Andy Satterthwaite we can read some memories from the early days of Wipeout:
As for the “Inspiration” the original game was very much “Mario Kart” to techno music. Nick Burcombe and Jim Bowers had designed the game from those beginnings; and an early concept video was made.
Wipeout Target Render / Concept Video:
Thanks to Rod_Wod and Celine for the scans! Thanks to Ross Sillifant for the interview!
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SWAT: Urban Justice is a cancelled strategy FPS that would have been the 4th title in the SWAT series of real-time tactical games. Urban Justice was in development by Sierra in 2001 / 2002, but something went wrong, the game was postponed and soon vanished without an explanation. In 2004 Vivendi Universal / Sierra announced a new SWAT project, the official SWAT 4 developed by Irrational Games and published in 2005. As we can read on Gamespot:
According to a carefully parsed statement from a VU spokesperson, work on Urban Justice has been “discontinued” in favor of SWAT 4’s development. However, the same spokesman stressed that SWAT 4 is both a different game and a true sequel, so it will retain the series’ gameplay elements, albeit in a refined form.
In the released SWAT 4, they did leave an ester egg that refers to the unreleased Urban Justice (Info from IMDB):
In the mission “Victory Imports Auto Garage”, there is an arcade game in the waiting room called “SWAT: Urban Justice”. This is a company in-joke; Urban Justice was supposed to be Sierra/Vivendi’s follow up to SWAT 3: Close Quarter Battle (1999), and they began advertising the game as “Coming Soon” in 2002 with a view to releasing later in the year. However, after a spending long time (to the order of years) in development purgatory, Urban Justice was cancelled by Vivendi
Thanks to discworld for the contribution!
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