New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Mass Effect Team Assault (FPS) [Cancelled – Xbox 360]

Mass Effect Team Assault is a cancelled multiplayer FPS set in the Mass Effect universe, that was in development in 2010 by BioWare’s Montreal studio. The project was meant to be a downloadable game to be released on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN, with a gameplay that would have been similar to a mix between Unreal Tournament and Battlefield 1943. After 4 months of prototype development, the idea was canned and somehow evolved into a possible coop mode for Mass Effect 3 and later into the third-person multiplayer mode available with the released game. Info and videos from Mass Effect Team Assault were shared from “The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3” iPad app.

Thanks to Juan for the contribution!

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1906: An Antarctic Odyssey [PS2 – Cancelled]

1906: An Antarctic Odyssey is a cancelled PlayStation 2 game in pre-production at Darkworks during 1999/2000, but it was put on hold when development on Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare started. Some concepts of the game may have been taken over into the later also cancelled USS Antarctica/Lost Mantis.

Eventually, IGN previewed the game:

The scope of 1906 is a vast action adventure voyage as a team of scientists make their way deep into the world’s uncharted South Pole. Elements of the survival horror pioneered by Alone In The Dark will be part of the play, as the explorers will have to brave uncharted worlds and unknowable dangers. What lies in the frozen arctic is a mystery ready to be discovered, and you are part of the team that will heroically take on that task.

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The Crossing [X360 PC – Cancelled]

The Crossing is a cancelled FPS that was in development by Arkane Studios, planned to fuse singleplayer and multiplayer by allowing human players to take the place of enemies in the single player campaign. The game was officially put “on hold” in May 2009 after the company ran into “an unexpected financial challenge” and decided to focus on smaller projects. [Info from Wikipedia]

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You Are Empty [Beta / Unused Stuff / Removed Content – PC]

You Are Empty is a FPS for PC with excellent level design and atmosphere, there are various beautiful locations, memorable enemies and great music. The action takes place in the Soviet Union. The scientists ran an experiment which was aimed to create perfect people, builders of the communism. Something went wrong, and the city became infected with monsters and zombies. The player is not affected by the scientists’ field, and has to find a way out of the situation. The game uses DS2 Engine, which was created by Digital Spray Studios. The game was developed by Mandel ArtPlains.

The game contains unused beta weapons (Maxim chaingun, grenades, unfinished flamethrower), features (ability to run, ability to pick up things and throw them at enemies, health regeneration), skies, scenes (uncut Kolhoz intro, scene where the player wakes up on a bed), NPC (bumper, pig, exploding pig, butcher, sniper, statue of woman with an oar which came to life), unused part of the Kolhoz level. Also, at one point what’s reflected in the water is different from what’s on the shore, so the reflection may be a glimpse into the earlier version of the level.

The unused beta NPC can be accessed by editing the entities on the levels (.ds2edf files), the quickest way is to change the classname of existing NPC. Unused skies can be seen by replacing used ones, weapons can be taken with “give” console command, features can be accessed through console commands or editing game scripts. Thankfully, the game’s files contain all data from the early uncut version of the Kolhoz level intro, so it’s possible to restore and watch it.

Below you can find videos which demonstrate the unused content. If you want to find out more, check the video descriptions (click the YouTube logo when the video is playing) for thorough information, including the process of getting it to work in the game. Read more

Treasure Hunt [GBA – Cancelled]

Treasure Hunt is a cancelled action adventure game that was in development by Orbital Media Inc for the GameBoy Advance. As we can read from Richard Knight‘s website moogle.net:

Treasure Hunt was a prototype overhead adventure game for the Game Boy Advance. The concept itself was meant to be a blend of classical click-adventure mechanics with some new features and a Link’s Awakening style presentation. Suffice to say, we wanted the bar-none best looking game on the hardware.

Treasure Hunt was a sister-project to the studio’s main focus, Racing Gears Advance. As such, it didn’t have much programming support, and ended up being more of an artist test bed. Outside of some E3 showings it has rarely ever been seen.

Treasure Hunt was never meant to be the actual name; it was just the one that happened to stick. It was also trademarked, sparking an internal hunt to find a new name. The process was pretty drawn out, and basically in fatigue we settled on “Jukka’s Treasure”.

After years without consistent programming support, a changing design and a changing budget, I moved on to start Pirate Battle. The art style was thrown out and the game design was redone from the ground up to become Juka and the Monophonic Menace. Very little of the game described above was used; apart from a few character similarities they are entirely different in visuals and gameplay.

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