News on Cancelled Video Games & Lost Media

Elveon is a cancelled action adventure, originally planned to be released for Xbox 360 and PC. The game was conceived in 2003 by 10Tacle studios in Bratislava (Slovakia) until their parent company (10Tacle group) had to close down for financial problems in 2008. The project was then acquired by Climax Group and development focused on console (Xbox 360 and PS3), but unfortunately even Climax fell into financial problems and Elveon was canned again.

As we can read on Elveon’s official website (now closed)

“The history of the Elveon project dates back into 2003 when a small team started working on an idea of a fantasy world and game that would bring to life a new perspective – a story set in the “early days” of a fantasy world – a time when the Elves were not yet the old, declining population, guarding the ancient ways, but still a young, emerging race, struggling to take their place in a world dominated by Gods and divine powers. During 2004 to 2007, the project grew and the team expanded up to a peak size of over 70 developers and – utilizing architects, painters and sculptors, managed to give the idea a stunning visual facade that – at its time – represented a benchmark in fantasy design and real-time graphical quality. In 2008, after a series of complications and before a serious attempt for a release could be made, the project had to be abandoned and the team has gradually dissolved. A long period of slumber resulted, with the Rights and Assets being held by different entities. The idea however, did not die with the original project…”

The original concept of Elveon by 10Tacle Studios Bratislava was for a somewhat linear action game with RPG elements, focused on story and complex combat mechanics. The team also planned an online multiplayer mode to let players fight against each other, something that reminds me of Ubisoft’s For Honor or the Versus multiplayer of Dark Souls. For sure Elveon was quite ambitious for its time. As we can read in an old preview by IGN:

“The action takes place in the third person and is centered on deliberate combat. We say deliberate because button mashing won’t get you anywhere. Controlled, precise actions will win the battles against your foes. […] Different moves and combos are conducted through a grouping of directional motions and button presses. Blocking must be done at the right moment to successfully deflect oncoming attacks.”
“All of the attack actions were motion captured using real weapons and it shows in the way spears are swung. They look like they actually have a weight to them. The weapons will also interact realistically with the environment. Blades will glance off of walls and other obstacles directly and it really looks like they’re colliding into something instead of bouncing off in the general vicinity of where it should hit. “
“Nothing is set in stone yet, but there may be some differences between the Xbox 360 and PC versions when they hit retail. After looking at some sales data, the developers are toying with the idea of including more RPG elements in the PC version and keeping the 360 build as a more streamlined action title. […] That’s because both the PC and 360 versions will have an online tournament mode where players can take their character from the game online to fight others one-on-one. “

When Climax acquired the game they changed its structure into something more similar to Zelda, with a main hub to freely explore to reach different dungeons. Probably Elveon’s multiplayer was cut at that time. Not much was ever shown from Climax’s version of the game, but from the few screenshots available (that you can see in the gallery below) it looked a lot like a mix between Dark Souls and Zelda.

After Elveon was cancelled again by Climax, in 2015 former members of 10Tacle studios Bratislava were able to re-acquire trademark, licenses and assets for their old game, to develop it again into something more similar to their original concept.

“Our main goal is to produce quality action RPG game, using newest technologies (UE4) and finish the Elveon dream, which was started 12 years ago with a small group of adventurous developers. Our focus is to use Elveon (book of elves) trademark and Elveon world with its specifics, to bring player whole new fantasy experience. We are taking the best from original game (duel fights, story, specific art style), we are polishing and tweaking it to the highest possible level, adding new features, graphics, using best actual technology available. We hope, to keep the Elveon trademark and world alive and bring the best game experience to players possible.”

Unfortunately this third version of the game seems dead too, with no updates since many years ago and with their official website that doesn’t work anymore.

Images (10Tacle Studios version):

Images (Climax version):

Videos:

PSP, Sony

Heartland (Homeland) [PSP – Cancelled]

monokoma

08-08-2017

1 Comment

Heartland (originally titled “Homeland” in its early stage) is a cancelled FPS in development by Incognito Entertainment / SCEA, planned to be released on the PSP. The project was conceived by David Jaffe as a mature shooter focused on making players thinking about their decisions and the consequences of war, with political themes related to George W. Bush’s administration and their “war on terror”.

Jaffe wanted to arouse players’ emotional reactions with a strong setting and series of dramatic events, which would have been directly affected by their choices during the game. A couple of examples of these difficult / morally ambiguous decisions would be to “blow up a bridge, stranding the townspeople, but preventing the ground assault” and “obey or disobey the order to douse an innocent family and their house with gasoline, and set them on fire”.

Heartland was meant to be a metaphor of the real US invasion of Iraq in 2003, with North American being the invaded country by a foreign army. The game was to be set in “heartland” of the US in an alternate history in which China invaded America. The main protagonist was a soldier debating whether to stay in the army and fight for America or go AWOL to find his family. As revealed by Jaffe in a few articles on 1UP and Escapist:

“On one hand, it was supposed to be emotional, we wanted players who are sensitive types like myself – that cry at Hallmark commercials – we were hoping that those types would actually cry, and that other players would still feel something that came close to an emotional response.”
“We were trying to put in a lot of gameplay that would evoke emotion. You had sequences where you’d go into homes and your commanding officer would tell you to shoot innocent Chinese-Americans. It was very dark and was meant to cause players to consider what it’s like to live in America and be an American today.”
“It wasn’t supposed to make you hate the Bush Administration so much as, as a layperson political junkie, it was supposed to put into light – using games as a medium – all the things I didn’t like about the Bush Administration.”

The team planned to use many different and original ways to unfold Heartland’s story and its themes, for example by letting players to find a tape they could watch: initially one would see the execution of a Chinese soldier, but by rewinding the tape you could discover older footage with the soldier’s family during a vacation at Disneyland.

The Incognito team was full of talented developers and after their experience on the PSP with Twisted Metal: Head-On they were planning on making a full 1st person shooter experience to “create the definitive shooter for the PlayStation Portable.”

You can imagine Heartland’s gameplay as an open ended FPS, with several objectives in each area and many different ways to resolve them. It was meant to be more similar to a “Deus Ex” set in a contemporary american settings than another “Call of Duty” or “Battlefield”. As said by Jaffe “I was really excited about creating this almost homage to Deus Ex.” On his old blog Jaffe wrote:

“HEARTLAND: Was going to be a return to more old school, opened up single player (and co-op) Goldeneye/Doom II style level design. Plus a little Deus Ex thrown in, in terms of multiple solves, as much emergence as we could intentionally create (not the mention the happy surprises)”

Unfortunately Heartland would never seen the light of day: the team worked on the project for about 6 or 8 months, creating concept art, 3D models and an early engine running on the PSP, before most of them were moved to the Warhawk team to help finishing the game. As more and more people left the Heartland team, they thought to cut some parts (such as the planned multiplayer mode), but in the end with less than 10 people available it was clear they did not have enough resources to fulfill their original concept. For Sony Warhawk was a much more important project to complete and it had the priority over an ambitious PSP game.

With such a small team David Jaffe and Scott Campbell left Heartland behind and decided to start a most suitable project, which later became “Calling all Cars“, released for Playstation Store in May 2007. In mid 2007 Incognito was splitting to create two new studios: Eat Sleep Play lead by Scott Campbell and David Jaffe – which later created Twisted Metal (2012) – and Lightbox Interactive lead by Dylan Jobe – which later created Starhawk (2012).

Unfortunately we still did not save any image from Heartland (the ones you see in this article are from random videos related to the chinese army), we got in contact with a few former developers who worked on the game but they did not have any screenshot or concept art anymore. If you know someone else who worked on this lost game, please let us know!

Others, PC / MAC

LiZboa [Cancelled – PC]

Jump/Error

07-08-2017

No Comments

LiZboa is a cancelled game that was in developed between 2009 and 2011 by Portuguese team Vectrlab, who wanted to create the first portuguese horror FPS, taking place in a post-apocalyptic Lisbon filled with zombies.

Being developed for PC and Mac, LiZboa would place the player in the role of a survivor of a pandemic disease that would transform Lisbon in the Ground Zero of a worldwide zombie-apocalypse. All of the action would happen in the most famous places of the Portuguese capital, such as Alfama, Graça, Baixa, Avenida da Liberdade, among others. In order to raise money for development, the game was supposed to have in-game advertising, product placement and a crowdfunding campaign was also planned.

Vectrlab were inspired by movies like 28 Days Later, Evil Dead, I am Legend and Dawn of the Dead, other than games like Left 4 Dead and Resident Evil 1 and 2. LiZboa was shown to the public for the first time at Motelx 2009 (Lisbon International Horror Film Festival) and in December of the same year, it was also shown at the 3rd Ignite Portugal, where Tiago Loureiro (Vectrlab CEO and Executive Producer) did a presentation of the game, explaining the concept behind te project, their marketing and how they planned to raise funds for development.

In 2010 a new partnership with Blueshark Studios was announced: this Portuguese company with a long history of outsourcing work for videogames, would provide concept art for LiZboa. In May another partnership with “Bad Behavioud” (a studio focused on horror movies), to – quoting Ângelo Fernandes – “expand LiZboa’s universe so as to give it a [more] cinematographic experience”.

At Motelx 2010 a playable demo / vertical slice (created in about 1 year of development) was available for the first time. Vectrlab had finally some defined concepts for their game (such as the main story arch, characters and their motivation, settings, etc.) and they could finally show this playable section of the game set in Sao Jorge Castle.

Despite all their efforts and the promotion of their game, Tiago Loureiro now recognizes that at the time LiZboa was too ambitious for their small start-up company. The project ended up being cancelled, after failing to secure funds with their crowdfunding campaign, without any investors interested in their in-game advertising or product placement. It was not possible to continue the project with just their own money.

Article by Jump/Error, original version in Portuguese on the Videogame PT Blog!

Images:

Videos:

Microsoft, Others, PC / MAC, Xbox 360

Deprived (Diesel Games) [Cancelled – Xbox 360, PC]

monokoma

02-08-2017

1 Comment

Deprived is a cancelled first person horror game that was in development by Diesel Games in 2007 / 2009, planned to be released for PC and Xbox 360. The game was conceived as a collaboration with GenAudio to showcase their “4D sound technology” known as AstoundSound.

As far as the settings and gameplay promised, Deprived could have been similar to Condemned: Criminal Origins – another first-person horror game developed by Monolith Productions and released in November 2005 on the Xbox 360.

Audio would have been a key element in the game, taking advantage of the AstoundSound technology to “models how the brain perceives sound from all directions (including above and below the listener)”. As Deprived was conceived as an horror game we can assume that this kind of high-level audio would have highly improved players’ immersion in its fearful world.

“AstoundSound uses enhanced 3D sound technology software, we call 4D, built on over a decade of research and development into how the human brain perceives sound. “

In the end – even if Deprived was never released as a full game – an audio demo with the same name and settings was released by GenAudio on their official website:

“We’re thrilled to present Deprived, a special technology demo from Astound Holdings. Set in a creepy, abandoned prison building, the demo provides the perfect setting for you to experience a rich soundscape powered by AstoundSound 3D RTI spatial audio technology. You’ll hear game audio like never before!”

Before to close down without any official statement, Diesel Games were also working on another cancelled game only known as “Project Tesla”. If you worked on these lost games and could help to preserve more details and media, please let us know!

Images:

Video (watch it using headphones!)

Leaked, Nintendo, SNES + Super Famicom

Super Shadow of the Beast (IGS/ Psychnosis) – [SNES – Cancelled]

Lesur

01-08-2017

1 Comment

Super Shadow of the Beast would have been the Super Nintendo port of an old Amiga side-scrolling action game which was originally developed in 1989 by Reflections Interactive and published by Psygnosis. The game since then has been ported to almost every known platform at that time, so why not a Super Nintendo version?

The SNES version was developed by a company called IGS (Information Global Service) and was first reported seen at the summer edition of the 1992 Consumer Electronics Show (CES): in an article on Nintendo Power it was mentioned as a promising upcoming title for the SNES.

The original Shadow of the Beast game and most of its ports to other systems contain many grim, dark looking and bloody details such as bloody spikes, bouncing bloody eyeballs, flying skulls and decapitated enemies. To get approval from Nintendo and thus a license to publish the game on the SNES platform this port of the game had to undergo some serious censoring, mostly graphical adaptions like removal of blood, redesigned levels and removing or redrawing of enemies.

Some screenshots of this censored SNES port were found at a site called Schnittberichte.com: they did an excellent job in showing the differences between the SNES version VS the Mega Drive one. Apparently all the efforts from IGS to change the game weren’t good enough for Nintendo USA and thus Super Shadow of the Beast was not approved.

Other rumors however state that the mature content cannot have been the only reason why Nintendo dropped the game. It’s possible that Super Shadow of the Beast was just not good enough to be released, with its poor graphics and colorful style it became something too much different from the original game and its dark atmosphere.

However the SNES version of the game is not entirely lost: a rom of the game was leaked a while ago and it appears to be fully playable (segameplay videos below). I even came across some reproductions of actual SNES cartridges of the game if you prefer to play it directly with your original Super Nintendo console (if you still own one in working condition of course)

Censored SNES version vs SEGA Mega Drive version (Thanks to Schnittberichte.com):