A new game in the Road Rash series was in development by EA Warrington in 2006, but the project was soon cancelled and the studio was closed. The game was probably in early development when it was canned and only an animation pre-viz was found to preserve its existance. As Tiffany Steckler of EA explained to GamesIndustry.biz:
The UK Studio has decided to reinforce its development base by bringing the creative teams from disparate locations into one place. […] The idea is to have those people who are working in the North West Studio in Warrington closer geographically to Guildford and Chertsey, to help build a more cohesive entity, to have better synergy across teams, better career opportunities and better sharing of tools and libraries
It’s still possible that the Road Rash concept created at EA Warrington could be resurrected sometime in the future in the “bigger” EA UK studio.
I-8 is the codename for the game that became Resistance: Fall of Man. The project was first shown at E3 2005, but the game shown in that video is almost nothing like the game that we have today.
The only thing in this video that really resembles the final game is 35 seconds into the video you can see a early looking Chimera. The video shows large scale battles fought with hundreds of black op soldiers which is much different then the final games humanity’s losing the war feel. It also appears that you’re fighting other humans along with the Chimera, where in the final game you’re only fighting the Chimera.
In the “Resistance Alpha Video” it’s not known whether or not the game was called Resistance, or I-8 at this point in development you can see that the game now has the look of the final game, but it still has you playing as a black ops soldier, and still has the all out war feel of the first I-8 video. Some noticeable changes are, there are large amounts of enemies onscreen at once, the Chimeras are much more aggressive, and the animations are much better.
The Black Ops soldiers can still be found in the final game, but only as dead bodies that contain hidden messages.
An interesting article about the technical development of the game can be found at Cybergooch.
Aliens: Crucible (also know as Project Connecticut) is an RPG based on the Aliens films franchise that was in development by Obsidian Entertainment for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. The game was going to be published by SEGA, but after some economic problems, it seems that they decided to cancel all their Aliens games. Probably Aliens: Crucible gameplay could have been similar to KOTOR II and NeverWinter Nights 2, two other RPGs developed by Obsidian.
Thanks to Dominus Elf for the contribution!
Here are some more info about Aliens Crucible by a former developer, that were shared in the RPG Codex Forum:
I’ve talked about this game before…
There is a lot of could-ofs, should-ofs, and all that.
The problem with making successful horror games with the Aliens franchise is that the Aliens have been revealed… a lot. There is no mystery with them anymore. After 4 movies, countless comics and novels, countless video games – where the Alien and Alien variants have been killed multiple times, you have to tread new ground if you want to do something original. The horror with the Aliens no longer lies in the unknown, so we were going for the environment.
For example, the second or third time you watch Alien, it is no longer scary. My second playthrough of Amnesia was easy and scare-free.
NOT COUNTING JUMP SCARES! Jump scares are not true horror, though they can be used to effectively alter the tension temporarily.
Josh did have some ideas though on how to add horror and tension, and we had several scenarios into the game. Most of us were or had played SS2, Amnesia, and Call of Cthulu, but horror was not the goal of the game, survival was.
This was a game of limited resources and perma-death. If a party member got face-hugged, your choices were to mercy kill them, put them in a sleeper and wake them sparingly if you need them, or let them pop – but the bottom line was that once they got impregnated they had an expiration date.
As for the Alien variations, there are things that are simply expected by publishers and the fan base. The xenomporph variations also have a history in the aliens universe anyway. The first thing Josh and the concept artists did was to create the lifeforms the xenos would impregnate first. We also used some insect themes for the various xeno roles, from drones and scouts, to soldiers and queens. As covered in countless comics, novels, and films, the xenos take traits from their host, the idea being it would better enable them to survive in a dangerous habitat. One of the big mysteries Josh and the writers were exploring was what the caldera and how were the engineers (space jockeys) doing with the xenos.
The goal was not to kill all the bugs, but to simply escape from the caldera where you were trapped. Don’t get me wrong, there was still a lot of killing of both xenos and humans in the game. Combat was real time – but we had a companion wheel to context system so that you could issue commands to your squadmates. For example, you could highlight a door with your reticule, and then based on what your squard could do, it would show you your options, like weld door, open door, or if you had a bomb, plant bomb on door.
As far as tech goes, we were using an earlier version of Onyx – which would later be used to create DS3. Our tech was stable, but we had pipeline issues to resolve but by milestone 25 or so were in pretty good shape.
Necessary Force is a cancelled action game that was in development at Midway Newcastle. The game was supposed to be open-ended, with the player that would have been able to choose how to approach the mission. Unfortunately, Midway Newcastle shut down in august 2009 and the project had to be shelved. A preview of an early playable demo can be found on the EDGE website and, as we can read, the game sounded promising:
[…] the developer’s demo room is the result of only three months’ work, yet there is plenty to see, and in remarkably stable, consistent form. […]
As a police officer assigned to this beat, you’re looking at a clean-up operation, which due to the game’s construction will play out literally. As you eliminate criminal activity to make these streets safer, we’re told, they will transform. The ubiquitous graffiti will be scrubbed away. Boards will be removed from windows. Entire buildings will be replaced with shiny new constructions, putting a shop, say, were once there was a tumbling-down tenement.
Thanks a lot to Sam Chester for the help in preserving some screens of the models that he created for the game!
Cyber Knights was a prototype created to develope a new 3D engine for the Playstation 3. It’s currently unknown if this proto was going to be a full game that was later cancelled or if it was just a tech demo.
This website uses cookies to improve your experience, by continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to the use of cookies. Find out more about cookies.Hide
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Privacy Overview
This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
