Mega Man Universe is a cancelled 2.5D platformer game that was being developed by Capcom for XBLA and PSN. It was officially announced on July 16, 2010 with a short video made by Iam8bit.
Its first gameplay video was unveiled at PAX 2010, showing three different levels and some of the available characters; the stand outs of which were “Bad Box Art Mega Man“, and a teaser for Ryu from Street Fighter. Arthur from Ghost n’ Goblins was planned to be playable too.
Six months later, Mega Man Universe was playable at TGS 2010, where its main features were introduced in more detail.
The same three stages from PAX, created only for demonstration purposes, appear here too; each one representing a different difficulty level (Easy, Normal and Hard). Read more
Heroes, as it was tentatively titled, was a cancelled video game based off the NBC TV show of the same name. It was being developed by High Voltage Software and would have been published by Ubisoft. The title was planned for releases on PS3, Xbox 360, PC and Wii.
Heroes: The Video Game
Shortly after the successful first season of the Heroes TV series concluded in May 2007, Ubisoft entered talks with NBC Studios to use the license for a video game adaptation. This was to be the second big TV property Ubisoft would adapt following the development of LOST: Via Domus, which had began earlier that year in February. While Ubisoft’s Montreal division was busy working on that game, the publisher reached out to external developers including High Voltage Software.
At the time, High Voltage already had experience with developing TV tie-in games, including the Family Guy video game, and was therefore “a natural choice for Ubi”, one developer recalled. Ubisoft successfully negotiated a deal with NBC, which they announced in June, but the final decision to secure High Voltage as its developer was made over the following few months without ever being revealed to the public.
High Voltage Software’s Vision For Heroes
Just as LOST: Via Domus introduced an original character, Elliot Maslow, as its protagonist, the Heroes video game would have centred around a new female character of High Voltage Software’s own invention. Given how short the project’s lifespan was, it appears as though this redheaded heroine had yet to be named, but you can see some concept art of her below.
In the vein of Ubisoft Montreal’s character, this new member of the Heroes mythos would have acted as the player’s vessel through which they could explore the world of the show and interact with its extensive cast of superhumans. She would have enabled High Voltage and Ubisoft a higher level of creative freedom as they attempted to delve into the Heroes universe without too greatly interfering with the pre-established lore. Read more
Note: this offer is ALWAYS valid, we keep searching for new people every month, every year, even NOW when you are reading this post!
There are some big projects coming up on Unseen64, so we really need to expand our staff for more help (currently, there are only a few people in the main staff). We are searching for new volunteer editors who are interested in writing and proofreading articles for this website.
We are searching for someone that is English native speaker (or that could write in English very well), who likes to write about video games (please, keep in mind: there will be A LOT to write, you cannot simply copy / paste info from Wikipedia) and who is capable of and passionate about digging up obscure info. He or she should be able to write at least 1 new article every 2 weeks or to proofread at least 1 article per week. Volunteer authors and editors will proofread and expand some of the descriptions for cancelled games that we already have in the Unseen64 archive and write new articles to remember even more lost titles. Are you interested?
In 1998, Nintendo of America’s internal team, Nintendo Software Technology developed a pitch to lock down exclusive access to the Harry Potter rights. Had it been successful, Nintendo would have secured the rights to produce all adaptations of the book series for the indefinite future in video game form; potentially preventing the eventual movie adaptations from being created altogether.
VIDEO:
According to one former artist of the studio, a sudden order from Nintendo’s management halted work on their three titles in development at the time (Ridge Racer 64, Bionic Commando and Crystalis) when news arrived that the license was to be auctioned off. This was a blanket license covering all formats of adaptation, including not only video games, but TV and film as well.
“The license went up for sale and all these major media companies were putting together pitches.”
The studio was then split into two: the primary group focused on devising on a pitch for a third person adventure title, whilst a smaller team worked on a potential game based around quidditch. The latter division reportedly included Marvel comic book artist, Adi Granov, who was responsible for character art.
Hogwarts Express concept art by Nintendo ST.
Nintendo ST aspired to develop the adaptations themselves, with versions planned to be released on Nintendo 64, Gameboy Advance and later Gamecube; as well as any of Nintendo’s future platforms further down the line. These releases would have coincided with the launch of each new book.
“All together it was only a week of insanely furious scribbling things to the digital artists to create animations for mock game demos”
The license holder, JK Rowling, agreed to view Nintendo’s presentation, but this was not without some trepidation among the members of Software Technology. Our source alleges that there was a disagreement at one point over which art style would be most appropriate for the franchise. Towards the start, there was a push for character designs inspired by those of the first book’s cover art by Thomas Taylor. However, it wasn’t long before the studio’s higher-ups took against this idea and forced it in a different direction:
“…it went against all my instincts based on what I had read quotes from JK about keeping it strictly British, and I had to revamp my initial designs and go more manga/Japanese – I had a big fight about that, but my boss insisted”
Hagrid’s Hut concept art.
We have unfortunately been unable to post images of these characters, since Nintendo would not allow its artists to share any of them publicly.
According to our source, the crew developing the quidditch game proposal had wanted to follow a similar route with regards to character design:
“[Name redacted] did get to do a more realistic take – I remember his Hermione being really nicely realized, but I doubt he saved anything from those days.”
Ultimately, Nintendo’s bid was declined by JK Rowling. Our source revealed that the writer turned it down in favor of several other proposals by media giants with greater resources, such as Disney and Universal. Whereas Nintendo was only able to offer forays into the realm of video games, these larger companies had the ability to spread out into TV and film; as well as gaming.
With January’s donations from our patrons and other awesome people, this month we have reached our $300 goal to pay the servers for 2015! We are super happy to be able to keep the site online for another year with the help of our readers and friends and would like to thank youall for the support!
We also reached our second goal on Patreon, meaning Tamaki will create more Unseen64 Podcasts for all our patrons as a big “thank you!” for their help. There are some more goals in our Patreon page, as the creation of better documentary videos for beta & cancelled videogames, and even if we are still far away from the $250 goal to fully work on the Unseen64 Book, we are already starting to do some early organization for its content. You can give us your feedback about what you would like to see in the U64 Book in our forum.
Donations will now be put aside to pay the server for the next year too ($300) and when we’ll be financially secure enough to keep Unseen64 online in 2016, we can then hopefully start to work more on the Unseen64 Book.
2015 Server: 100% funded, thank you!
17%
Current: $51
2016 Server Goal: $300
If you have suggestions and feedbacks, let us know in the comments below! :)
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.
