Justice Unlimited is a cancelled superhero action RPG with gameplay similar to Diablo, that was pitched by LucasArts around 1997. We would imagine it as a top-down 2D adventure, exploring modern-day cities and the suburbs taking the role of different superheroes to hunt down criminals, level-up and collect rare loot. While the game was never officially announced, some details and artwork were shared in the book “Rogue Leaders – The Story Of Lucasarts”:
“From 1997 to 1998, LucasArts worked on a game concept meant to challenge Blizzards’s popular Diablo RPG game. The entire concept was essentially “Diablo, except with superheroes” recalls LucasArts designer John Stafford. Lots of concept art and story were generated for the game, but no work was completed on a game engine, and the idea was shelved.”
Pumpkin Man is a cancelled third person shooter that was in development by Metro3d and Red-Purple Game Technology, planned to be released on the original Xbox and PC. Players would take the role of a dead guy named Joshua, trying to open the gates of hell to let demons celebrate Halloween on earth.
The game was shown at E3 2003 and some websites such as Psillustrated and Gaming Nexus wrote about it:
“In Pumpkin Man, Halloween is the most important night for the forces of evil where Hell spirits are allowed to use the Crystal Seal and visit Earth for a single day. To Hell’s misfortune, the path to Earth was suddenly sealed with the All Saints Crystal, and the Gates of Hell officially became the path of no return.
It’s up to the Clown, a legendary leader known throughout every corner of Hell, to begin organizing a secret fight to reopen the Gates of Hell on Halloween. Meanwhile, Joshua, a small-town boy is accidentally killed and becomes a peddler in Hell. Even in his afterlife, he could not forget what a girl once said, “Joshua will definitely become a hero. I want to be his bride on that day.” As Joshua ends up accused of revolting against the leadership of Hell and imprisoned in the Slave Ground, the Clown can’t fight alone and Joshua is his only hope!”
“A large emphasis has been placed on the four-player support although there will be an entirely unique experience on the single-player side of things. Currently there are plans to have 40 multiplayer levels, 20 single-player levels, 25 different enemies and 13 different weapons.”
Unfortunately Metro3d filed for bankruptcy in 2004 and Pumpkin Man was canned and forgotten by everyone, until July 2021 when u/2dmee shared on Reddit a playable demothey found in a Taiwanese online forum (uploaded on Archive):
“A couple of years ago I started buying new & sealed retro games from China/Taiwan and reselling them on Ebay UK. One day I came across a big box PC game and the artwork looked really good and it caught my attention, but I couldn’t find any info about the game anywhere, despite being quite well versed in the art of advanced google search syntax.
“The seller that offered the game for sale also had some other titles that were produced by Red-Purple Game Technology so I can only presume he had the deadstock from their offices after they ceased development/trading in 2004. He had 1 boxed, sealed copy and 1 open copy in a jewel case so I bought them both.”
“I have the complete game files on 3 discs, but I don’t have them ripped to my PC atm so I thought I would upload the demo first.”
OutSider is a cancelled “open city” motorbike racing game that was planned in 1996 for the Nintendo 64. Players would be able to freely ride around the city, escaping from chases and resolving different missions. As far as we know the project was never officially announced, but in June 2021 a former developer shared some images on Twitter. The name of the company is blurred out in the document, but it seems the developer worked for Hudson Soft in the ‘90s, so this could have been one of their strange but fascinating N64 projects.
When it was conceived OutSider was quite an original racing game, but it seems after Climax Entertainment released Felony 11-79 / Runabout in 1997 the team decided to cancel the project, possibly because it was too similar to it or not as fun to play.
Dark Hermetic Order is a cancelled first person action adventure game that was in development around 1996 by Intelligent Games as a sequel to Azrael’s Tear, planned to be published on PC by Williams Interactive. The team was mostly known for such titles as Imperium and Dune 2000, but unfortunately many more of their projects never saw the light of day (Bloodline, Flying Circus, Conjure, King of Wall Street, Deadline News, Cops & Robbers). In Dark Hermetic Order players would take the role of a secret agent with magic powers, who infiltrates a strange cult to eliminate their leaders.
Some details about the development and cancellation of DHO were shared online by former IG’s employee Jason Redway:
“After the release of PGA European Tour Golf and the subsequent course discs Jason moved on to a project that was already in progress with Intelligent Games. This project was called Dark Hermetic Order (DHO) and was underway for Williams Interactive. It was a follow-up to the recently released Azrael’s Tear and would be Jason’s first commercial product utilising his 3D skills. Using 3D Studio, Jason created several rooms and became a senior member of the team over the year that followed. Unfortunately during a management re-shuffle at Williams Interactive DHO was cancelled and work stopped. During the next year Jason worked on several prototype projects and some cancelled demos including Subbuteo, Need For Speed 2 and Flying Circus.”
“Previously we had a 3D adventure game (Azreal’s Tear), a golf game (PGA European Tour) and the recently completed Waterworld – this one was the closest that we had experience of combat strategy gaming. Initial ideas were that we would use the 3D engine we had produced Azreal’s Tear and the recently cancelled Dark Hermetic Order to create the first realtime 3D RTS. With this brief I was tasked to create a short atmosphere setting video that we would present to Westwood.”
A single screenshot from Dark Hermetic Order was published in a few gaming magazines such as PC Player Germany, but we hope one day someone could find footage or even an early prototype.
Project ACLAND is a cancelled horror game that was in development by Krome Studios around 2006 / 2009, planned to be released on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. The team spent 3 years prototyping the project, with huge focus on its violent and gory aspects: there are no details about its gameplay but we know players would fight a huge monster while trying to survive its fury.
As far as we know Acland was never officially announced by Krome Studios before its cancellation, but former Krome’s Creative Director Steve Stamatiadis talked about it in an old article published by Games ON:
“We also had this monster game that we’d been wanting to do for a long time, called Project ACLAND”. The game was at least three years worth of work according to Steve, but it was something that publishers had shown definite interest in. “The lack of R18+ rating was a problem, as it was going to be really gory,” he says, “like a monster movie. But there was no way you can sell a game like that in Australia. At times I was thinking ‘Why would I want to make a game that I can’t even play here?’”
The ACLAND monster, named after Acland Lane behind Krome’s Brisbane offices, would later go on to star in Blade Kitten. ”I’d really love to come back do Project ACLAND right,” Steve says, thinking of the future. “It’s been three years, and nobody’s done anything like it, or even close.”
Unfortunately there’s only 1 tiny image showing the monster 3D model in Project Acland: if you know someone who worked on this lost game who may help us preserve more images, please let us know!
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