The world of game development is volatile, stressful, and fraught with difficulty. Poor management or lack of funding can ruin a game before it even hits store shelves. This can be a death knell for developers, and it’s sadly, surprisingly common. In fact, the list of game developers that are now defunct goes on and on.
The good news here is that for every developer that shuts down, another gets a shot at life. At the very least, canceled games are opportunities to learn, and to do things differently next time. These are cautionary stories: PS4 games that got the axe before they were ever released.
10/10 Rainbow 6 Patriots
Rainbow 6 Patriots was going to be an FPS in the Rainbow 6 series. The announcement of the game’s cancellation came alongside the announcement of the now quite popular Rainbow 6 Siege.
Patriots would’ve been focused on single-player storytelling, featuring domestic terrorists as enemies and posing interesting moral questions along the way. From the look of it, the heavy-handed style of storytelling was creatively difficult. Maybe Ubisoft thought it would be too controversial. Whatever the case, creative team members on Patriots were cycled in and out repeatedly. Its technology grew outdated as development dragged on, and the game was finally canceled in 2014.
9/10 Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun
Dead Sun was to be the sixth entry in the acclaimed Legacy of Kain series. These action-adventure games center around the eponymous vampire and his adventures in a gothic fantasy world. They’re mostly known for their top-notch storytelling.
Dead Sun was canceled before it even got an announcement. To this day it remains a mysterious game known mostly through unofficial leaks. Eidos originally published the LoK games, but they were purchased by Square Enix in 2009. Square found a developer to work on Dead Sun, which was slated as a PS4 launch title. As for why they canceled it, we can only speculate. George Kelion, a publicist for Square Enix Europe, shared some information on NeoGAF, saying “in the end LoK: Dead Sun just wasn’t the right game, at the right time”.
8/10 Whore of the Orient
This shockingly-titled game was being developed by KMM Interactive. KMM was largely comprised of former employees of Team Bondi, who developed the acclaimed game L.A. Noire. Their second game would’ve used the same facial-scan technology used in L.A. Noire.
Plenty of people were interested in the game, which was supposed to be set in Shanghai in 1936. However, there was some definite backlash around its title, which is antiquated and offensive. Also, Team Bondi was surrounded by rumors of unethical overworking and crunch time during the development of L.A. Noire. As for the fate of their follow-up game, it was canceled for uncertain reasons in 2016, four long years after its initial announcement.
7/10 Gnomageddon
Gnomageddon was going to be a free-to-play multiplayer game starring squads of sentient garden gnomes. It’s sad that the game was canceled; it’s a very fun concept that looked cute and promising.
Gnomageddon was under development by one of two teams at Sony San Diego (or Sony SD). Having previously pumped out sports games, the studio eventually got the chance to work on more original projects. The larger team began working on a game called Killstrain, the other Gnomageddon. Killstrain was released, it flopped, and Sony made the brutal decision to shut down the smaller branch of Sony SD before they could release Gnomageddon. And that’s a shame, because, unlike Killstrain, it looks like it could’ve been successful.
6/10 Tekken X Street Fighter
In 2012, Capcom released Street Fighter X Tekken, a fighting game using the Street Fighter engine and bringing together characters from both franchises. At the time, Bandai Namco announced they were developing the opposite game, bringing Street Fighter characters into the more technical Tekken engine. Sadly, it now seems their game Tekken X Street Fighter will never see the light of day.
For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, the development of Tekken X Street Fighter just stopped. In the time since its announcement, Street Fighter V and Tekken 7 both came out. As Tekken 7 has been rather successful and the development cycle of Tekken X Street Fighter has dragged on so long, most agree that the game is in a state of limbo.
5/10 Ghost Recon Frontline
The Ghost Recon games are known for their tactical stealth gameplay. That’s why when Ubisoft announced a new Ghost Recon battle royale game, it didn’t go over well. To put it simply, it just wasn’t what Ghost Recon fans wanted to see.
The initial announcement of Ghost Recon: Frontline on Youtube was bombarded with dislikes. Now the game seems to be on indefinite hold. No official reason was given for Frontline’s delay, but it seems directly related to the backlash. In fact, Youtube has since removed viewable dislikes from all of its videos. As some commenters have humorously pointed out, “without dislikes we are led to believe that this game will be a hit”.
4/10 EverQuest Next
EverQuest Next was initially promoted as “the largest sandbox-style MMO ever designed”. It was announced by Sony Online Entertainment, which later became Daybreak Game Company. Though Daybreak seemed excited about their ambitious follow-up to an old-school MMO, it wouldn’t be long before the project came to a halt.
The game was officially canceled in 2016 out of fear that it wouldn’t live up to the standards of the series. EverQuest Next toted big, ambitious features like fully destructible environments and radiant AI, which likely added to the frustration of the design process. Developers often fall into the trap of adding more to their games without thinking of how the new features will fit into the overall experience.
3/10 Project Rap Rabbit
Project Rap Rabbit could’ve been great were it not for its poorly conceptualized Kickstarter campaign. The campaign was launched with a lofty goal of more than $1 million. It had a short trailer with a (very) early concept for a new “rhythm-action” game. The small development team was even headed up by some of the original creators of PaRappa the Rapper.
The Kickstarter failed for a few reasons. The team presented, essentially, a storyboard. There was no real gameplay, and everything was subject to change. Fans were left uncertain as to what the game would actually look like. Basically, the team was asking for $1 million for a game that didn’t exist yet, just on the promise that it would be good someday.
2/10 Project Ragtag
Project Ragtag was the codename for a well-known Star Wars game that never got released. It had a troubled development cycle overseen by EA Games. It was also worked on by Amy Hennig, the writer for the first three Uncharted games. It’s now been announced that a game development team owned by Skydance Media is working with Amy Hennig and Lucasfilms to create a new game, likely inspired by Project Ragtag.
EA and Disney had a strong vision for what Ragtag should be. EA reportedly wanted recognizable faces from the series, whereas the development team (Visceral Games) wanted something more original. Also, EA’s focus on the multiplayer game Star Wars: Battlefront II meant Visceral were often left without much-needed assistance. In 2017, EA made the unfortunate decision to shut down Visceral and retool the project.
1/10 Silent Hills
The notorious P.T. demo was released in 2014 and eventually removed from the PlayStation store by Konami. It was set to become Silent Hills, a revival of the beloved horror franchise. Notably, it was also supposed to be directed by Hideo Kojima.
The fallout between Hideo Kojima and Konami is well documented. Konami was supposedly frustrated with Kojima consistently going over budget, and besides, they were shifting their focus to mobile games and pachinko machines. As a result, Silent Hills was canceled and its demo, P.T., is now lost media. We can only imagine what direction Silent Hills would’ve gone in if it had been developed into a full game. Only one thing is certain: fans were excited about it, and now it’s gone. The future of Silent Hill is up in the air.
The post 10 PS4 Games That Were Cancelled In The Middle Of Production by James Austin appeared first on DualShockers.
