(video game music chimes) - [Narrator] Some great games and ideas just never quite make it to the market. Here are 20 ambitious games
that were never released. If you want to read up more
on them after the video, all of our sources will be linked in the description down below. Again, we got 20 games, so let's get started off with number 20. We're talking about "Project Apollo", also known as the Christopher
Nolanverse Batman game. Remember "Shadow of Mordor" and how everyone said that
that whole nemesis system where, you know, defeated
enemies come back for revenge would be perfect for a
superhero game or a Batman game? Well, here you go, because Monolith, the developers
behind the "Mordor" games, were actually apparently
working on a Batman game before reworking the entire thing into a "Middle-Earth" game. This is where the entire nemesis
system actually started out and was going to let
you drive the Batmobile around a fully open world city. The weird thing about it was that even though
this was being developed after the first "Arkham" game came out and was clearly heavily inspired by it, the game was going to
be set in the Nolanverse with Christian Bale Batman and a more grounded approach
to telling a Batman story. So why didn't it happen? Apparently, they had to get Christopher
Nolan's explicit approval to make any game set in his universe, and he just never signed off on it. So they had to pivot to something else that Warner Brother
owned, and in this case, it was the rights to making
a "Lord of the Rings" game. Now over at number 19, we have "Pirates of the
Caribbean: Armada of the Damned". This one kills me, dude. Like, this could have been
just like the pirate game. And there's tons of footage
out there like showing it. But Disney killed it when they basically gave
up on licensed games for a while back in 2011. From all the pre-release interviews, this game sounds like it could
have been like an action RPG with additional elements. You play as a specific character, but you decide whether you
wanted to be a legendary hero or a dreaded pirate. So you could be a
swashbuckling good guy pirate or a Black Beard-style
terror of the open seas. You could sail a ship, explore islands, and recruit new crew members. There would be recognizable locations from the movies like Port Royal and also supernatural places
like Davy Jones' locker. The pre-release footage for this stuff honestly
looked pretty great. This could have been a good one. But circumstances out
of the team's control led to the game getting canceled, denying us what could have
been a great pirate game. I always looked at this one almost kind of like "Fable:
Pirates of the Caribbean". There's a lot of ambition,
a lot of potential there, but, you know, it's another one that just ended up in the Disney Vault. Next over at number 18, we have
"Spider-Man: The Great Web". So take Marvel's "Spider-Man", make it a five player co-op game, and make it mission-based
instead of open world and you basically got
"Spider-Man: The Great Web". It looks like this game
would've been similar to like "Ghost of Tsushima Legends" but expanded into a full game. This did leak under
unfortunate circumstances. Sony and Insomniac were like the victims of a ransomware attack where
their data was held hostage, and they didn't give into the demands, so all this stuff leaked. And "Spider-Man: The Great Web", this video concept trailer for it really showed something
awesome that we could have had. How they would've gotten
Spider-Man combat to work with that many players I have no idea, but it's a potentially
really interesting idea 'cause like you would've been able to play as all the different Spider-Men from multiple alternate realities and go on like reality hopping adventures through different visual
styles and like map locations. It could have been a really
fun idea for Spider-Man fans, especially "Spider-Verse" fans, but was unfortunately
canceled for unknown reasons. Maybe they're going to
use some of these ideas for another Miles Morales spinoff, or maybe they just thought
the multiverse stuff was starting to get a little played out. I don't know. But this is where we're at. Next over at number 17,
we have "Marvel Chaos". Out of the many, many Marvel
games we've seen come and go, this one actually looked promising. It was developed by
Electronic Arts Chicago, the guys behind the "Def Jam" games. Yeah, remember those? I definitely do. This definitely looks like it could have been like
"Vendetta" on a massive scale with battles taking
place in these huge open and fully destructible environments, hence the code name "Chaos". That's the ambitious part. The destruction physics
looked really on point. And the game seemed like it would be able to depict some truly epic
superhero throwdowns. Crowd interaction was also
like a big part of the game with civilians who would cheer
you on from the sidelines, drive cars, and swerve out of the way. You know, it would've been kind
of like a more dynamic world than you normally see in a fighting game, but kind of reactive like
the later "Def Jam" games. A lot of the pre-release footage that's leaked doesn't look too great, but on paper there was
a lot of potential here. Next over at number 16,
we have "Star Wars 1313". Now all right, this would've
been "Star Wars"'s answer to "Uncharted". We all probably know this by now. It looked incredible back when
it was revealed at E3 2012. I know the gameplay didn't like appear to be anything revolutionary. It looked like "Uncharted" with third person shooting and brawling. We've seen it before, but
the visuals and the action and just the "Star Wars" immersion and the concept looked fantastic. It was the AAA action game that "Star Wars" had never really had up to that point at least. The game was being developed
internally by LucasArts, and George Lucas actually
apparently had direct involvement in the project, rewriting the
story, tweaking some things, mandating changes that some
people working on the game apparently found frustrating. But believe it or not, down the line, it wasn't George Lucas
who killed the game. It was Disney. This game was a victim
of the Disney buyout, the merger, like the whole
corporate acquisition thing. They all but shut down LucasArts and development on the game ended. This probably isn't the
only "Star Wars" project that was on the chopping block as the whole corporate thing shifted, but it's a damn shame because
this one could have been cool, and later leaks suggested that like it was like
maybe a Boba Fett game. There's a lot of lore and a
lot of history to this one that we don't have time to cover. But yeah, "Star Wars 1313", man. We're still thinking about this one. Now over at number 15, we
have "Tomb Raider Ascension". The original version of "Tomb Raider 2013" was actually a lot more ambitious and would've been even more of a departure for the series than the reboot was. Some of the elements remained, like a more realistic looking Lara Croft and a spooky kind of Japanese island, but that's where the comparisons end. Instead of being like this cinematic, "Uncharted" style action game, "Ascension" would've
been a fully open world, survival horror game where
Lara would ride a horse and sometimes fight off
gigantic bizarre monsters, partially inspired by
"Shadow of the Colossus". There were multiple different
versions of this game, like one where Lara mostly
engaged in melee combat, and another where she was
like protecting a little girl that she found. It was all very different from
the game we eventually got. We don't know if it
would've worked at all, but it would've been
interesting to see at least. Now next over at number
14, we have "Prey 2". This is another one I've harped on a lot, either on my channel or here on Gameranx. Man, this one still hurts. The announcement trailer for
this game looked amazing. It was like a kind of open
world first person shooter set in an alien city, and you play as a bounty
hunter from Earth. It was kind of like a first
person Cyberpunky Boba Fett game and it looked so cool. It is a really unique
setting for a game like this. It could have been really
interesting if it ever came out. There is some gameplay
floating around out there, and I'm still thinking
about it to this day. We don't really know why
development ceased on this one. It always looked like
it was pretty far along. But from interviews it's pretty clear that there is a lot of bitterness from developer Human Head
Studios towards Bethesda over it, with one former employee
calling the decision to cancel the game "political and petty". Of course, that's only one
person's side of the story, but still maybe something happened there. Either way, the "Prey" follow up that we did eventually
get from Arkane was great and is considered by many very underrated, but I just can't help
but look back at this one and think what could have been. This is like a "Star Wars"
game that I really want. Next over at number 13, stop
me if you've heard this one, it's "Silent Hills". This is another cancellation that we're all really bitter about. After years of the "Silent
Hill" series floundering, Konami reveals that they're
making a new "Silent Hill" game directed by Hideo Kojima
of "Metal Gear Solid" fame and his buddy Guillermo del Toro, famous horror movie director. And they formally announce it with one of the most
interesting things done in the "Silent Hill" franchise ever. The free download teaser you know as "PT", which stands for playable teaser. So yes, like "Silent Hills" wouldn't have been a full length "PT", and even if it was a mess, it would still be the
most interesting thing to come out of the "Silent
Hill" series in years. Of course after "Metal Gear
Solid 5"'s troubled development, the relationship between
Kojima and Konami soured. And when he left the company,
the game got canceled. We eventually got "Death Stranding", which apparently reused a few ideas that would've appeared in "Silent Hills", but it's not enough. This thing could have been amazing or at the very least, amazingly insane. Next over at number 12, we
have "Star Wars Battlefront 3". The original "Battlefront"
games were great. And from the pre-release footage that's leaked from the third one, it looks like this could
have been a lot of fun too. Rather than being developed by Pandemic like the first two games, this was being made by Free Radical, the folks behind the
"Time Splitters" games. It had some impressively
ambitious features, like being able to
seamlessly fly from a planet up into space on a single map, which still looks impressive even now, but apparently the project
had a lot of problems. Now apparently, LucasArts
accused Free Radical of pulling "Battlefront"
developers to work on "Haze", another project. They also kept missing deadlines, which led LucasArts to assume
that the developer had bigger and more systematic issues going on. According to the reports though, LucasArts like wasn't exactly
in the right here either, with Free Radical accusing
them of withholding payments and failing to acknowledge milestones. The relationship soured,
and the game was canceled, even though by some devs' estimations, the game was 99% done at the time. A lot of this can be boiled
down to he said, she said, you know, like maybe both
of them are to blame, but with everything that we've seen, it looked like a really cool project. There were some really creative kind of what if alternate
universe "Star Wars" ideas that leaked out from the concept art. There's a lot of stuff
here for a "Star Wars" fan to dig into, and I'm gonna
just like stop myself here. But this had so much potential. It really hurts. Oh, man, now at number 11,
I'm gonna start showing my age with "StarCraft Ghost", one of the all time classic cancellations. It's easy to forget just how
ambitious "StarCraft Ghost" was going to be. From everything we know, it sounds like the game
would've been a cross between "Splinter Cell" and "Halo" with complex stealth systems
and also in-depth combat and massive levels with
vehicles you could pilot. There was also going to be a
fully featured multiplayer mode with huge battles. They were planning a lot for this game. But for whatever reason
it never quite worked out. Development had changed
hands multiple times. First with Nihilistic
Software working on the game. Then they switched over
to Swingin' Ape Studios before finally getting shelved. Internally, there was still a
lot of interest in the game. It's clearly something that
Blizzard wanted to make, but it was probably too ambitious and too different from the
games that they normally made, so it was never able to reach
that quality level expected for a Blizzard game, I
mean, at least at the time. But the potential was there for this to really expand
the "StarCraft" universe, and I remember a lot of "StarCraft"
fans chomping at the bit for this one. You were able to pre-order it. People held onto their
pre-order slips for years, almost until they turned to dust. "StarCraft Ghost" for many was just like a brutal cancellation. Next over at number 10, we have "Warhammer 40K
Dark Millennium Online". A "Warhammer 40K" MMO sounds
like an insane undertaking. The world of "40K" is so
absurdly massive and complex that it's hard to imagine
where someone would even start trying to make an MMO out of it. At least one developer tried. They actually put some real effort into it because there's a decent amount of footage that's leaked out there. "Ambitious" almost feels
like too small of a word for what they were trying to do here. Look at this. They wanted to create
multiple playable alien races, set on multiple planets with
unique cities to explore and different worlds to conquer. And from what we've seen, it seems like they were trying
to make the "Warhammer" MMO, but with "40K", which grounds
what's going on a little bit, but it all sounds like they
were basically planning on making "Planet Side 2"
combined with "World of Warcraft" and "Eve Online" into a single game. The ambition was out of
control here, obviously. And realistically, there
was no way this game was ever actually going to get finished. But there's a lot of footage out there, like more than you would expect. They gave it a shot,
but let's be real here, I don't think this one
was ever gonna happen. It was crazy. Now over at number nine, "LMNO". This extremely unusual game had a lot of interesting
ideas going into it. It was worked on as part of a
three game collaboration deal between EA and Steven Spielberg with Arkane Studios brought in
to do additional work on it. So the story had your
character transporting an alien from the east coast to the west coast, avoiding government forces along the way. Between the action and sneaking parts, you would actually develop a relationship with your alien companion who had like these complex AI systems that would affect their mood and change their reactions on the fly depending on how you treated
them and how you played. It was meant to be this
full AI character simulation inside of kind of a cinematic
action adventure game, and it was highly ambitious for the time. It's a good idea on paper, but I don't think they ever quite managed to figure out what would actually be fun about this whole thing, so the project was eventually scrapped. But if you want to hear about it, there's a lot of info out there. Noclip did a really cool documentary on it with some footage, so check that out. Now over at number
eight, we have "Tiberium" because these RTS spinoff games
really can't catch a break. First there was "StarCraft
Ghost", now this. This was meant to be EA's follow up to "Command and Conquer 3", which like would've been a first
person tactical combat game with your standard first
person shooter action, but you can also command
squads and call in airstrikes among like a bunch of other things. It's the tactical part that
makes this game stand out. Being able to command squads of soldiers, call in reinforcements, and capture command points
from a first person perspective was a novel idea at the time, especially coming from a major studio that could actually make the
experience pretty polished and cinematic. There's a lot of footage
floating around out there with this one, but it got canceled back
in 2008 for quote, unquote, "not meeting the standards
of Electronic Arts." So either the game was
really bad, like really bad, or there was something else going on because come on, we've
played enough EA games to know that sometimes
they don't have standards. This could have been cool. This could have been like
"C and C 3" first person, and that to me just
sounds like cool on paper. Now over at number seven, a remake of a Nintendo 64 platformer doesn't sound all that ambitious, but Rare had some
surprises up their sleeves, the developers. So before disappointing the world with "Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts", Rare was actually working on
something called "Banjo X", an Xbox 360 remake of
the first "Banjo" game. Sounds pretty standard, at
least that's how it would seem. At first, the game would present itself as just being a straight remake. But as the game went on, the characters would start
breaking the fourth wall, talking about how they were in a remake and do things differently. Different things would start
happening in the levels. Characters from later games would show up. Apparently by the end, the game would be almost
entirely different. It's a creative idea for a remake that's never quite been
done, I don't think. Like, definitely not on the scale that they're describing here. Maybe it would've been
too meta and annoying. Maybe they were afraid all these changes would scare away people who
just wanted a straight remake. Who knows? It's just disappointing
that we never got this one because it sounds like a clever twist on your usual boring remake. Now at number six, we
have a game called "Raw", an open world "Grand Theft
Auto" role play inspired game. It sounds like a great idea, but this one seems like
it was never gonna happen. There was a whole world of Kickstarters and Indiegogo projects out there that promised the moon, get their money, and then things never work out. And for the most part we're ignoring them, but this one sounded
legitimately interesting. Basically, you take the freeform nature of "GTA Online" role playing, which people have managed to
do some amazing things with, it's a crazy community, but you would make a
whole game out of it here, specifically designed to cater
to those types of players. It's a novel idea. Something like that will cost
tens of millions of dollars to make easily. But how much was "Raw" actually asking for their Kickstarter? Apparently only 75,000. They managed to exceed their goal, but this thing just never worked out. I would say just from speculation that there was no way they
were making this type of game for just that amount of money. So it seems like it wasn't gonna happen. But the thing that really
shut this project down was when Kickstarter
suspended the project entirely and refunded all backers. They tried pitching the
game on other platforms, but the ship had sailed at that point. It'd be cool to see someone
make a game like this someday, but for now it's just not the case. Now next over at number
five, "EverQuest Next". This free to play sandbox game was meant to be the next
evolution of the MMO RPG and had some big ideas behind it. "EverQuest" was the original 3D MMO and is a formational
game for a lot of people. It set in stone so many of the things that players have really
come to expect from MMOs. But "EverQuest Next" was going to be something
completely different. Rather than a curated experience
built by the dev team, "Next" was going to be a voxel based MMO with a fully destructible world. Players could build
structures, dig in the ground, and completely remake the world. It would have been like a
persistent "Minecraft" world, but one that wasn't randomly generated, and it was going to be completely massive with secrets hidden all over the place. There were going to be dynamic events, large scale public quests that apparently would have
world altering choices in them. Enemies would have complex AI systems with their own likes and dislikes. It's a hell of a lot,
especially for an MMO. I have no idea if any of
this all could actually work, but it doesn't matter because the studio was
unfortunately sold off from Sony. And in a cost cutting measure, the new owners canceled "EverQuest Next". I seriously doubt the
final game would've been as revolutionary as
they initially promised, but even with only a few of the features that they were promising, this could have been
something really cool. Next over at number four, we
have "Whore of the Orient". Now okay, crazy title aside, this game was actually going
to be a follow up to "LA Noir" but set in 1936 Shanghai. It was going to be a narrative
driven adventure game using the same face mapping
technology used in that game. Now what makes this
ambitious is the setting. Shanghai in the 1930s
is a fantastic location. And if they managed to make something as meticulously researched as "LA Noir", this could have been something. But with no deal in place and the studio getting
a ton of negative press around their allegedly
abusive work conditions, they didn't get the funding or the publisher needed
to get the game made. Only a single screenshot
of the game exists, and it's really unclear if
it's meant to be in game or if it's just like a
piece of concept art. Now coming down to
number three, "Darkborn". This game developed by the Outsiders and published by Private Division was an action RPG with a twist. Rather than playing as a
human slaughtering monsters, you get to play as the monster. Set in this dark low fantasy setting, and the game would start
off with you playing as one of the titular Darkborn. You start off extremely vulnerable, forced to rely on just like
stealth to avoid enemies before eventually working your way up and getting more powerful and cooler. One especially intriguing
aspect of the game was that you would apparently play as multiple generations of Darkborn. It was kind of like this
multi-generational RPG concept. And we're curious to see how
that actually would've worked, 'cause from developer interviews, it sounds like the game's
scope just got out of control. It became open world, and then the amount of extra
work required for all that and their ideas changing just
killed the project entirely. Now down at number two, "Agent". Rockstar plus James Bond. It would've been incredibly ambitious and probably pretty great, but it never happened for
one reason or another. The game got hyped up huge by Rockstar. It did get announced. Like, it was gonna be like
a PlayStation 3 thing. It was considered to be like
the next big pillar franchise for the studio up there
with "Grand Theft Auto", but they never actually
showed anything from the game, and then eventually it
disappeared without a trace. Not much is actually known about this one, but the name speaks for itself, an open world spy game from
the masters of the genre. Like, it just sounds like
a license to print money. But for some reason Rockstar just never managed to make it work. One insider, which we'll link below, said that the pressure to get GTA finished was what eventually killed "Agent". They had to reprioritize. But we'll never know. For now, "Agent" remains one
of the great industry what ifs. We still don't have like a
definitive open world spy game. And at this point, maybe we never will. I don't know. I mean, at least we have "Alpha Protocol". That's something. That's like kind of a weird spy game. But hey. Now finally at number
one, we have "Backspace". It sounds like the dream game, sci-fi "Skyrim" with time
travel developed by Obsidian. This one wasn't in development long and was never officially announced, but there are a few things
we do know about it. Shout out to Unseen 64
for documenting this one. The game was to use the Creation Engine and was apparently going to
be a mix of "Mass Effect", "Borderlands", and "System Shock 2". There were going to be
multiple planets to explore, as well as a giant space station. That's already a lot, but there was going to
be a time travel gimmick where you'd travel 10
years into the future, and then travel back and forth
between the two timelines, and not only see the world change, but also there were gonna be
RPG ramifications to that. Like, it would in the past
show humanity thriving, while the future would be
almost post-apocalyptic with aliens having taken over. All this stuff sounds great, but also extremely ambitious for Obsidian, especially back when they
were currently working on "Dungeon Siege 3". This was not quite yet
the Obsidian of today. It seems like after years
of financial difficulties, the studio suffered
multiple rounds of layoffs, and most of the people working
on "Backspace" were fired, ending the project for good. That's an unfortunate way to
end, but on the bright side, like just think of the amount
of ideas on display here. These are 20 games that were canceled, that were ambitious and
potentially really cool. All we can really do is hope
that a fraction of these ideas make it out to other games, right? I don't know. Let's talk about this
stuff down in the comments. I'd love to hear your opinions. And if you like talking
games with us every day, clicking the like button does help us out. Thank you. But if you're new, consider
subscribing as well because we put out
videos every single day. But either way, thanks for watching, and we will see you guys next time.
