To most of us, video games are a chance to move away from reality, to get immersed in a world that distracts us from our lives. They can take us on creative and exciting journeys like no other form of creativity can! However, this is to ignore that there are a lot of checks that need to be in place before that game gets to the store. Yes, we want to take a look at the reality, the side of gaming that so many of us attempt to push to the back of our brains while we’re playing!
What we’ve decided to do is pull together a list of a bunch of video games that were eventually canceled. As gamers, we’re unable to understand exactly why any game would ever be canceled. More games are surely more entertainment and more joy in this world! Sadly, this just isn’t true. That’s why we’re going to go through these video games and the ridiculous reasons they were eventually canceled.
So, we think it’s about time that we took a look at the video games that never were. It’s a shame that we’ll never get to play these games, as a lot of them really look promising. Maybe someday they’ll get released to the world and find their way out of the development void! We don’t think anybody will be able to guess all the reasons these video games have been canceled!
25 Silent Hills
While many of us will look at video games as a genuine art form, as something that should be regarded as a creative outlet, that doesn’t change the fact that it is still a business. This is why video games like this end up never being made.
Famous video games developer Hideo Kojima had been working with Konami for a very long time.
After a very public falling out with the developer, Konami decided that they wouldn’t be allowing him to continue work on Silent Hills, which left every single video game fan out there feeling very upset!
24 Mystical Seeds Of Courage
The Legend Of Zelda has so many games in its series at this point that it’s no surprise that some of them never made it to the store.
Two games that did make it to the store were Oracle Of Ages and Oracle Of Seasons, two Game Boy Color games that actually ended up connecting together while also being self-contained adventures as well.
However, Nintendo originally intended for it to be a trilogy. Oracle Of Ages and Oracle Of Seasons were originally named Mystical Seed Of Power and Mystical Seed Of Wisdom respectively. The third game in this series was supposed to be Mystical Seed Of Courage.
23 Dinosaur Planet
It takes a long time to create a video game, so a lot of the time people don’t want to just completely drop a product that has been worked on. Instead, what they choose to do is turn it into a new game.
Before it was Star Fox Adventures, this video game was named Dinosaur Planet.
Nintendo intended for the Rare-developed game to appear on N64, but they decided to axe it, throw in Fox McCloud and turn it into a GameCube game. The association with Star Fox ended up hurting the game, as it had nothing to do with the earlier games in the series.
22 Star Fox 2
Okay, so this game may have finally been released through the SNES Classic, but it was surprising that this thing got cancelled back in the day. Let’s not forget that the original Star Fox was a huge success for Nintendo.
The title was actually pretty much finished and ready for release when it was originally created.
However, Nintendo felt that the game would overshadow the release of the Nintendo 64, so they decided to pull it. Then the ROM was leaked online and gained an almost mythical status. Finally, Nintendo released the game officially, just as they should’ve done twenty years beforehand.
21 Donkey Kong Racing
Rare is a company that have had some real ups and downs, creating numerous video games that many fans consider to be some of the best ever made. One of those games was Diddy Kong Racing, which managed to genuinely face up to Mario Kart.
It was such a success that a sequel was planned, titled Donkey Kong Racing.
As many people remember, Rare then went on sale. They originally offered a stock majority to Nintendo, but they turned Rare down. Microsoft swooped in to buy the company, so Rare had to change the characters within the game as they no longer had the right to use them, before it was quickly canceled.
20 Super Mario RPG 2
A lot of people fell in love with the Super Mario RPG back in the day, so it’s a wonder why Nintendo and Squaresoft never decided to work on another game together. Well, believe it or not, but they actually did!
Super Mario RPG 2 was planned for the Nintendo 64.
However, Squaresoft decided to side with Sony for the next few years, putting games out on the PS1 instead. Nintendo went on to change various aspects of the game and changed the name, starting out the Paper Mario series!
19 Metroid Dread
It’s widely recognized by anyone with an interest in video games that the Metroid series has not been well looked after by Nintendo. It seems that every single video game world gets much more a chance to flourish on the Nintendo consoles.
Well, that changed with Metroid Fusion.
The GBA game brought the classic sensibilities of the old Metroid video games into the modern world. It was such a success that they planned on creating a direct sequel to Fusion, named Metroid Dread. Unsurprisingly, Metroid didn’t get the chance it deserved and Nintendo decided to cancel the project…
18 Banjo-Threeie
Another Rare favorite, Banjo-Kazooie, was a huge success on the Nintendo 64. This was quickly followed by a sequel which was well loved by the fans of the original game. It’s no surprise that the company wanted to capitalize on this success and put out a third game in the series.
Tentatively named Banjo-Threeie, the game was moved to the Xbox after Microsoft bought up Rare.
The game was eventually canceled and fans wouldn’t get another game until Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, which is widely regarded as being an unfitting end to the series…
17 Velvet Dark
Perfect Dark was a huge hit for Rare, showing that they were spearheading the modern FPS at the time. They started working on Velvet Dark, which would’ve changed up the main character and changed the camera as well…
Seeing how well Tomb Raider was doing for Sony, they wanted to turn this series into a third-person action game, allowing them to pick up some of the success.
However, they realized that it wouldn’t be ready to appear on the N64 before its end, so they moved resources onto Perfect Dark Zero for the GameCube. This was then purchased by Microsoft after they took over Rare.
16 Yoshi Racing
While Mario Kart continues to be one of the most successful and popular series’ out there, it’s not the only racing game that Nintendo could’ve released. In the past, a company called Argonaut Software decided to create a demo to show Nintendo, after their work on Star Fox proved to be so popular. This demo was a racing game that put Yoshi right in the middle. When Nintendo refused to let a third party company play around with their intellectual property, it soured the relationship between the two companies. Miyamoto even later apologized for not taking the company on and paying them to create the game!
15 Twelve Tales
After Super Mario 64 proved that a 3D platformer doesn’t have to be a complete mess, Rare decided they wanted to get in on this success. For years they were showing off a cute platformer named Twelve Tales: Conker’s Adventure, in which the player would attempt to collect everything in the game. However, Banjo-Kazooie came out and overshadowed what the game could’ve been, so Rare decided to go in a completely different direction. They took their cute character and made him vulgar, creating a video game that is remembered to this day for being unlike anything else anyone had seen in mainstream games up to that point.
14 Zero Racers
Mario Kart continues to be one of the best franchises out there, a series of games that people will always buy and enjoy, both on their own and with friends. That being said, they’re certainly not the most challenging games.
For a challenging racing game from Nintendo, people have to turn to the F-Zero series.
This is why many were happy to see that F-Zero would be getting an installment on the Virtual Boy. Like most of the video games that were slated for release on Virtual Boy, it was canceled when it clear how much of a mess the handheld was…
13 Resident Evil Color
As people can probably tell from this image, the Game Boy Color port of Resident Evil wasn’t going to look anywhere near as good as its original release on PS1. Despite the limitations of the hardware, Capcom took on the challenge!
Believe it or not, but this game actually managed to get around 90% completed.
Unsurprisingly, Capcom ended up canceling the game once they realized that it wasn’t going to look very good on the Game Boy Color. The first Resident Evil game was later ported onto a Nintendo system once it appeared on the DS.
12 Super Mario Spikers
Super Mario Strikers was a huge hit, created by Next Level Games who had proven that they had what it took to create interesting and exciting sports games for Nintendo consoles.
Afterwards, they wanted to create another game, aptly named Super Mario Spikers.
It would’ve combined both Volleyball and Wrestling. It may sound like an odd combination, but anyone who saw the demo said they were looking forward to the game. However, Nintendo ended up cancelling the game after they claimed it broke their “code of honor.”
11 Scalebound
Of all the video game companies out there, Platinum Games are one of the most consistently amazing, and yet they rarely get the respect they deserve from the mainstream video game fans. This is why so many gamers out there were upset to find out that the company had decided to cancel Scalebound. Their big mistake was choosing to create the game as an exclusive for Xbox One, as Microsoft ended up cancelling the game along with a whole bucket of Xbox One exclusives. They should’ve made it for Sony and we’d all be playing a Platinum Games title that looked amazing!
10 Star Wars Battlefront III
Star Wars Battlefront is a series that numerous gamers have fond memories of, playing them throughout their childhood. It’s no surprise that this success lead to the development of a third game in the series.
However, due to problems between LucasArts and Free Radical Design, it never got finished and released.
Both companies claim that the other wasn’t willing to compromise on the finer details to get the video game out on the shelves and keep the fans happy with another game!
9 Prey 2
Despite the fact that the first game in the Prey series was far from impressive for both fans and critics, it managed to sell a lot as it was released as an Xbox 360 launch title. Due to this, development was started on a sequel in 2006.
However, Bethesda went on to buy the right for the game five years later, allowing the developers to keep working on it.
As the time since the original’s release continued to build up, Bethesda put the game into the hands of one of their internal studios, who changed pretty much everything about it. This is why it’s called Prey instead of Prey 2, considered a spiritual reboot more than anything else!
8 The Avengers
The world of video games has used to be a pretty unpleasant place for superheroes, with no developers managing to properly create an immersive video game that did the spectacular movies and comic books justice. While we have now had the Batman trilogy and more recently the fantastic Spider-Man, there was a time when superhero games were just rushed out in an attempt to promote a movie rather than to create a proper video game. A game based on The Avengers wasn’t officially announced, but when THQ went under, numerous assets were leaked to the public.
7 Star Wars 1313
For many, a Star Wars video game written by the main writer from the Uncharted series was a dream come true. It was a chance to finally enjoy a swashbuckling adventure in space that no other Star Wars video game had managed to provide up until that point.
What a surprise then that the game was eventually canceled and the company developing it was shut down.
This was essentially the final nail in the coffin for EA, along with the dud that was Star Wars Battlefront II. Now even mainstream gamers know not to buy from this video game company if they can help it!
6 Starcraft: Ghost
Anybody who likes strategy games knows about Starcraft, but Starcraft: Ghost was going to be something altogether different. Set in the same universe as Starcraft, players would actually take on a character in a third-person shooter game!
Despite being announced in 2002 and being updated every year until 2006, it was eventually canceled…
The game was nearly finished by the looks of things, or at the very least a lot of content had been created. Much of it can be seen on the internet and we suggest everyone takes a look if they’re even slightly interested.
