New Cancelled Games & Their Lost Media Added to the Archive

Virtually Board Snowboarding 2 [N-Gage – Cancelled]

Virtually Board Snowboarding 2 is a cancelled snow-racing game that seems to have been in development by Fathammer for Nokia’s N-Gage. The title was listed among some of the early games announced for the console-phone hybrid, but it quietly vanished. Thanks to derSlammer we found out this was indeed a sequel of the original game released on Club Nokia.

Players would have been able to choose between 3 game modes (big air, half pipe and snowboard cross) with local multiplayer via Bluetooth. As far as we know SSX Out of Bounds remains the only snowboard game released for N-Gage.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

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Kaiju (DigiFX Interactive) [Cancelled – PC, Mac]

Kaiju is a cancelled real-time strategy game that was in development by DigiFX Interactive around 1996 / 1997, planned to be released on PC and Mac. Players could choose between 2 factions: kaijus (those giant monsters from classic Japanese movies) and humans. Depending on which faction you would play as your objective would be to protect or destroy cities.

As we can read from their official press-release:

“The city is under attack! Giant monsters breathing fire are leveling every building in sight. It is up to you to mobilize your forces and develop new technologies in order to stop these giant creatures, or choose to command a cadre’ of crazed dinosaurs, giant lizards, sea monsters, radioactive space monsters, “King Congo” (the biggest ape you ever saw) and other huge destructive creatures whose sole purpose is to obliterate mankind! No this isn’t just a “kill the bad guy” strategy game…it’s total destruction!

KAIJU is a Windows 95 and Macintosh “real time” strategy game with an entirely new twist! KAIJU contains one of the most unique and highly playable battle and economic systems in existence. Players can choose either the humans or the monsters! As the humans, the player must defend the cities from the creatures by using all the resources available. As monsters, the player must crush, stomp and obliterate every human (and everything) in sight! We’re not kidding, this game allows total destruction of everything!”

Game features:

  • Over 40 new units unique to KAIJU, including aircraft carriers, super attack planes, phase cannons, plasma mines, and artificial lightning generators, and “special” characters such as the “PSI”, the “Hero”, the “Brainy guy”, and the “Military guy”,
  • Create special characters that affect ‘normal’ units and structures. Just one example includes a unique character called a “PSI” that uses a sixth sense to battle the monsters. If the “PSI” enters a Radar Station, it becomes a “Monster Control Tower”, with the ability to ‘take control’ of any monster for a period of time.

Unfortunately DigiFX Interactive closed down in late 1997 due to financial issues. When the team was disbanded they were also working on other canned titles such as DigiFX Mission to Nexus Prime and Mythos.

Thanks to Celine for the contribution!

Warrz (Shouei System) [Saturn, Dreamcast – Cancelled]

Warrz (ワーズ) is a cancelled MMORPG that was in development around 1996 – 1999 by Shouei System and directed by Kensuke Mitsuru, initially planned for Sega Saturn and later moved to the Dreamcast. The team conceived Warrz as the harbinger of “next generation” online RPGs on consoles, allowing 5.000 people to connect and play together:

“When the company showed the game at Tokyo Game Show 1997, the game was playable with 16 simultaneous players from three different booths (Shouei, Sega, and Sieg) connected via a telephone line. The game was polygon based, set on a medieval-like world (with the usual magic and swordplay), where players tried to beat an evil lord. Players could choose to be a merchant or to be married to another player, with a kid.”

As in every other online RPGs in Warrz players would level-up their character and collaborate with other players to defeat enemies. The behavior and choices of each player would affect the progress of the game, and the main storyline would change from moment to moment.

It seems Shouei System invested 200 million yen (about 1.800.000 $) to develop the game and set-up 100 servers for its online world. When it was clear the majority of the market was losing interest in the Sega Saturn, the company decided to move the project to the Dreamcast, but without any luck. Shouei System was already in economic difficulties in 1999 and without being able to paid-off their debts they went bankrupt, cancelling Warrz and all of their other projects.

Previews and interviews about the game were published at the time in a few gaming magazines, preserved below.

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Blade Land [PC Engine – Cancelled]

Blade Land is a cancelled RPG that was in development by Nihon Soft Hanbai / Manjuydo for the PC Engine around 1990. For its time it looked quite original: with quirky characters and enemies moving around a modern-day city setting it reminds us of Shigesato Itoi’s Mother / Earthbound series. The game was shown in a few gaming magazines at the time, such as Famitsu and PC-Engine magazine: if you are able to translate these japanese scans let us know if there is some interesting information in there!

 

LandFall (Paragon Studios) [PC – Cancelled]

LandFall is a cancelled MMORPG that was in development by Paragon Studios between 2011 and 2012, planned to become their “Next-Gen MMO” after their classic games City of Heroes and City of Villains. The game was quite ambitious for its time, taking inspiration from the “new wave” of survival / crafting indies such as Minecraft and Terraria, while letting thousands (?) of players explore procedurally generated islands to gather materials and craft new tools, weapons and buildings.

LandFall would have been played on savage islands full of dinosaurs and other kinds of weird monsters: possibly their idea was somehow similar to what Ark: Survival Evolved would offer some years later, but with a graphic style more similar to something like Fortnite.

Unfortunately in August 2012 Paragon Studios was closed down by their parent company, and every game they were working on had to be halted. While LandFall was never officially announced, many former Paragon developers and artists shared online artwork, screenshots and details on their lost project. Some of these images are preserved below, to remember the existence of this cancelled game.

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