Beta + Cancelled Others Video Games - Page 37 of 173

Wish is a cancelled MMORPG that was in development by Mutable Realms between 2002 and 2005, planned to be released on PC. Like many overly ambitious projects, Wish fell under the weight of its own concept. The game promised to be the world’s first “Ultra Massive” Online RPG: according to Mutable Realms the game would simultaneously support up to 10.000 players in a single world / server, with no divided zones nor shards.

More details about its gameplay and world-settings were shared by many websites, such as IGN:

“player guilds will be able to reclaim towns and become “Noble Houses”. These Noble Houses can declare war on each other, as part of the ongoing story where, as Rickey indicated, the “world has fallen to barbarism and petty warlords.” Thus, you have player vs. player combat in these house wars. Should someone not wish to be a part of this, they simply do not participate in a Noble House or strive to make their House a peaceful one. “
“Character advancement will follow a skill-based system. The selection of playable races named so far includes a half-dozen familiar archetypes ranging from Humans to Orcs, Elves, Halflings, Dwarves and Gnomes. There’s also one we don’t see as often – and when we do, it’s invariably in the role of a monster – the Cyclops. “
“Wish is providing that control in the form of the Houses. Being a House means conquering a monster-controlled town and becoming responsible for its well-being. You gain control of the town, its buildings, and the resources that surround it, and you get rewarded by being able to collect taxes on transactions within that territory.”

“The various towns successfully replicate the feeling of medieval villages, complete with fortified walls, domesticated animals and inhabitants that continuously go about their daily business. Player characters have a fair amount of weapons and armor to equip thus far, and the color of clothing can be altered through use of a dying tub. Spell effects, while currently sparse, show dazzling potential as in the case of the Necromancer’s Decay cantrip, which issues forth a large skeletal ghost and several gravestones around the caster. “
“At present, monster loot primarily consists of gold and resources such as hides, although a few creatures drop weapons. Since characters have no level indicators or experience to accumulate, it facilitates the ability for players of varying skill levels to aid each other in group combat. “
“Live Content is the primary defining feature of Wish. In the ongoing Beta 2.0 test we publish a daily newspaper, which contains clues to what may come to pass, as well as summaries of what happened on the previous day. The events described within the paper are actual in-game events and refer to real players. We now mirror this paper online in our newspaper section. You can read all five daily papers there. New papers will be added daily. “

In 2003 / 2004 closed beta testing was announced, but it seems the team did not properly estimate what was needed to keep the game alive and online: Wish was officially cancelled in January 2005, just before the planned Open Beta:

“Wish has been shut down because with the data we gathered during the first 10 days of our Beta 2.0 test, even with our best-case projections for player numbers, we could not have reached enough subscribers for Wish to sustain itself.”

Engadget and Escapist published a couple of articles with more details about what happened to the project:

“The beta lasted only nine days. On January 9, 2005, after careful consideration of the way the beta had played out, examination of our internal metrics and an honest appraisal of the MMOG landscape (WoW launched the previous November), we made the decision to shut things down.”
“Wish had no single cause of death, but overhype played a huge role. Our statistics didn’t lie. At every step of the way, from signing up for beta, to downloading and installing the client, to playing the game for more than an hour, we lost huge percentages of players. In case we didn’t trust the stats, tons of players told us about their departure on our forums, as well.”
“For small and mid-sized developers, this battle can never be fully won. Usually, simple economics means they’re going to produce mid-quality titles. What they need to recognize is what niche their game fills and try to attract a community that respects that. A decent game can be sunk if the community expects more than what’s delivered and simply doesn’t buy it on principal.”
“In the end, Wish’s assets were carved up and sold off, with some being used for Irth Online.”

Thanks to Josef for the contribution!

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Others, PC / MAC

Tribal Lore (Gremlin) [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

09-04-2021

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Tribal Lore is a cancelled “tribe-building resource management” strategy game that would have been published by Gremlin Interactive in the late ‘90s. The team used a sophisticated mix of polygons and sprites for the game’s graphics, which looked quite impressive for its time. Gameplay would have been similar to Command & Conquer and Age Of Empires, but with a Celtic mysticism twist.

We can read some more details from the original Tribal Lore PR, preserved by the Gremlin Archive among some concept renders:

“Tribal Lore is a 3D magic ‘n’ combat strategy game, with a mind-blowing AI, set in a mystical pseudo-Celtic environment. Set in the mythical ‘Land’, Tribal Lore explores the relationships, alliances and frequent squabbles among four arcane races: the Cruithná, the Shamanka, the Bruann and the Nammad.
Players can choose to take control of any one of the four tribes, each with its own distinct graphic and gameplay nuances. The careful management of the environment will allow growth of wealth & technological resources, allowing the construction of an array of temples, armouries, strongholds and fortresses.
Exploration will give access to magical sites allowing accumulation of major power. In Tribal Lore, magical power comes from your surroundings, and can be ‘tapped’ via dolmen, menhirs and other standing stones. Your druids can channel this energy in a variety of ways: morphing the terrain, affecting weather conditions, devastating foes or empowering heroes.
Further options including a scenario game (with missions & a slowly unfolding plot experienced from four perspectives) and full four-player network capabilities put Tribal Lore in a league of its own.”

Fantasy novel authors Jay Northearn worked on the game’s story, and shared some memories on the game’s cancellation:

“All seemed well, then wham – out of nowhere the publisher pulled the plug and the project, and all my work, was forever consigned to the slush pile. I was later told it was a financial decision made by people far removed from studio development. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

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Others, PC / MAC, Playstation 3 (PS3), Sony

The Wall (Burut) [Cancelled – PS3, PC]

monokoma

24-03-2021

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The Wall is a cancelled immersive sim that was in development between 2005 and 2008 by Burut Creative Team and Play Ten, planned to be released on Playstation 3 and PC. Gameplay would have been similar to Deus Ex, with players helping one of three major factions in a dystopian future: The Government, The Environmentalists, and The Church. NPCs would react dynamically to your actions in sand-box levels you could freely explore to choose how to resolve missions, using customizable weapons, vehicles and special powers.

We can read some details about the game in interviews published at the time by PS3Land and FiringSquad:

“I believe the concept of “The Wall” world is a grotesque reflection of the modern world. We want to show all the avarice and ambition of transnational corporations, who pursue their business targets regardless of the consequences. In their quest for profit often the great treasures of the past, the cultural heritage of Humanity is sacrificed. Trying to improve the world, some greedy corporate giants are destroying it in fact, without paying any attention to this sad truth and firmly believing in the righteousness of their ways. They continue to push the deadly balance wheel, which is poised to crush them in the end. Also we want to show religious fanaticism with it’s terrible bigotry and superstition. Often the fundamentalist zealots are ready to devastate the existing world, just to create an ideal one they imagine in its place.”
“The game’s concept went through many iterations. Our efforts finally bore fruit, and we’ve invented around a dozen of features that are unique to the genre, and should be very interesting to the gamers. Among them are the totally destructible environment, intense development of the character’s relations with the outside world, the team and rankings which change during the course of events.”

The Wall was previewed by some gaming websites, such as CheatCC, Ixbt, and IGN:

“Various super-human abilities will be revealed throughout the course of the game, no doubt proving useful for overcoming certain obstacles and defeating enemies. Developers claim that personality points and actions will affect the plot and how characters react to the player, ala Deus Ex. Which side you choose also affects the game content, including weapons. For example the Government rifles are very industrial, while the Environmentalist firearms are handcrafted with leather and groovy characters etched into them. Weapons are customizable and there are vehicles to drive”
“Players will become Adam – a young man genetically modified by the scientists of the Church. Waking up after suspended animation, Adam must go to fulfill the mission entrusted to him, but the deep freeze slightly affected his brain. As a result of amnesia, Adam remains on his own, and is free to choose his own destiny.”
“The Wall will offer non-linear gameplay and it is up to you to choose whether to strengthen the power of the Government by eradicating the dissatisfied, help an environmentalist or become the God of a New religion. Not only the style of the game depends on the choices you make, but also its endings.”

“About 25 missions are planned, taking place in a wide variety of places – from the skyscrapers of the Government to the underwater levels of poor neighborhoods.”
“One of the more noticeable elements includes highly-destructible environments with numerous break points. Objects, parts of buildings, entire buildings, and other sections of the play area can be gradually and fully destroyed. The amount of destruction is entirely dependent on the type of weapon being used to create it too. An example that Play Ten uses to illustrate this is that a tree won’t be seriously damaged by a pistol, but a rocket launcher will take care of it quite nicely. This sort of destruction isn’t just for looks, though — use can do things like destroy catwalk supports to knock enemies down from snipe points as well. “
“The addition of squad members with specific personalities is one such inclusion, as its RPG-like ranking system affects how people react to the hero. Missions are nonlinear too and like other open-ended games before it, The Wall will give users the option to take on primary and bonus missions that affect the ultimate outcome of the story.”

As far as we know the game was last seen at the Leipzig Convention 2008, then quietly vanished, forgotten by everyone. Play Ten was bought by Bestway Group in October 2008 and merged alongside two other big Russian publishers: Russobit-M and Game Factory Interactive. We assume the new company was not interested in publishing the game, and without a publisher Burut switched their resources to other projects (such as Cannon Fodder 3).

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Arcade, Others

World Heroes 64 [Cancelled – Hyper Neo Geo 64]

monokoma

24-03-2021

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World Heroes is a cult-classic series of fighting games developed by Alpha Denshi (ADK) and released in the early / mid ‘90s for the Neo Geo MVS arcade cabinet. In 1997 SNK released the Hyper Neo Geo 64 arcade system as the successor of the MVS, a new 3D arcade board to play such games as Road’s Edge, Samurai Shodown 64 and Buriki One. It seems Alpha Denshi was planning a 3D “World Heroes 64” for the Hyper Neo Geo 64, but after some time it became clear the HNG64 would have not been able to compete with the more powerful Capcom, Namco and Sega 3D arcade boards so the project was canned.

As far as we know this “World Heroes 64” was never officially announced by the company, but it seems Japanese Neo Geo fans were able to get in contact with a former Alpha Denshi developer (?) who shared an early 3D model of Hanzo that he made for the game. If you know something else about this cancelled game, please let us know!

“I dared to make it so that the (Alpha Denshi) president would give up (this project).”

Others, PC / MAC

Chrome 2 (Techland) [PC – Cancelled]

monokoma

22-03-2021

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Chrome 2 is the cancelled sequel to Techland’s 2003 FPS, announced in 2006 by the company. This second chapter would have featured the same vast open areas and non-linear gameplay that made the first game quite impressive for its time, adding multiplayer squad-based play for up to 64 players, new vehicles, weapons and items to use. Early screenshots show a huge, mechanical spider roaming the area, with players moving between thick trees and grass killing off enemies.

As we can read on GamePressure:

“As in the first part, the main advantage of Chrome 2 is the vast expanses of space, and the authors have filled them with a living world like those known from MMOs. The gameplay is non-linear, so the player has much more freedom than in the original. With the ability to take over different bodies, Chrome 2 requires a slightly more tactical approach to solving the problems encountered. For example, in order to neutralize the giant walking machine, we have to enter the engineer’s body, which has a deactivator installed to protect the moss of the power field.
The authors were tempted to introduce to the game powerful mosses, the size of which exceeds even those known from the game Shadow of the Colossus. On our way we will meet many such moss. However, not all of them need to be eliminated. Some will turn out to be much more useful in combat when we sit behind their control cockpit.
There was no shortage of the well known from the previous part of the system of implants and implants increasing the coefficients, our body is stuffed with the latest achievements of genetics, cybernetics and bionics (e.g. exoskeletons). Hundreds of different types of weapons and a wide range of vehicles, gliders, ships and combat machines are at the player’s disposal. All of this will be used to fight against the cunning opponent who reacts to our previous actions in the game.”

Unfortunately the game was put on hold soon after its announcement, when Techland had to focus their efforts and resources on Dead Island. As we can read in an old interview by OnPause:

“Lastly – please tell us one thing for each of your three upcoming games, Dead Island, Warhound and Chrome 2 that you’d want your community to know.
Regarding Chrome 2 and Warhound I can only repeat our official statement we issued a while ago: those games are on hold for the time being. We may revisit them in the future but for now we’re focusing on other titles including Dead Island which is doing great! Stay tuned for more announcements from Techland and our partners.”

Thanks to Piotr for the contribution!

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