Awesome games which never were.

[Muty]

Blizzard intended to make a point & click adventure set in the Warcraft universe after Warcraft 2. I think it was supposed to be from the orcs' perspective. Can't remember the title though.

Lord of the Clans

Only blizzard game I was marginally interested in and they canceled it

 

[Sceptic]

Oh yes, Wasteland 2. There is an advertisement in-game about it (you only see it if you choose to side with Fat Freddy and hunt down Faran Brygo).

There was a "spiritual successor" to Wasteland called Fountain of Dreams. Have fun

(it's really, really bad)

Third Ultima 6 spinoff set in King Arthur's time (was to be released after Martian Dreams).

Arthurian Legend IIRC, and it was going to use the Ultima 7 engine instead. This had SO much promise, especially since MD had already shown they could do great thing with the Worlds of Ultima.

Lost Vale is such a fucking shame because the game was READY. All done. All EA had to do was duplicate. It was going to nicely fill in some of the loose ends from U8. Shame about that.

The original U9 I can live without, as apparently it was going to be an action game. But the isometric U9 from around 1997 looked fucking awesome, with full party support and some great stuff. Even the Bob White plot applied to the final 3D engine would've been massively good, though the game would've still suffered from many of the technical flaws.

 

[RaXz]

Imperium Galactica III, but at least Nexus: The Jupiter Incident spawned from it.

And, of course, Elite 4. Don't know if it will ever see the daylight, I highly doubt it.

 

[mondblut]

A proper sequel to 7.62. Even if it could have been not quite awesome, at least it would have kept me on a payroll for a couple of years

Also: Knights of Legend left much to be desired from the expansion campaigns that never were; MegaTraveller 3 design doc was fairly promising reading.

Also: Tribunal and Oblivion the way the were announced back in 1997, to be released shortly using Daggerfall engine.

And the biggest of them all: Jagged Alliance 3. Although, given the many iterations of its history, it more properly belongs to "the abysmal, ruinous sequels that never were".

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Thief 2 Gold, Ultima 8 Lost Vale, Crusader No Mercy, Van Buren, Leisure Suit Larry 8 (anyone remember the full title for that one?) and Space Quest 7.

Anachronox 2.

Actually it was to be called Anachronox Prime. It's also on my list.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

the chaos expansion for final liberation

edit: wait, i forgot that was a mod, not an official expansion .... and i guess if we start naming promising mods that never were .....

More like a Tyranind, Eldar and Chaos expansions judging by the in-game encyclopedia.

 

[Lyesmith]

I remember Warcraft 3, in its first previews, being more of tactical/RPG, with heroes leading squads; probably character progress, units customization etc. if memory serves well.

Always wondered, if Warcraft 3 would be better that way.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

X-COM: Genesis. Still butthurt that it was never released

Was that the squad based tactical shooter one?

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

I remember Warcraft 3, in its first previews, being more of tactical/RPG, with heroes leading squads; probably character progress, units customization etc. if memory serves well.

Always wondered, if Warcraft 3 would be better that way.

I think it was meant to be in full 3D as well (there are old screenies). Who can say. I think Blizz said something like they had a lot of cool ideas but eventually just scrapped most of it.

The Orc bonus campaign in The Frozen Throne is what War3 would've been like had they stuck to the original design. Fun, but ultimately pretty shallow compared to what eventually developed.

 

[Alex]

You know, people, I may be a little masochist for requesting this, but does anyone have more details about the isometric Ultima 9 Sceptic mentioned? And mondblut, could you provide a link to those design docs from MegaTraveller 3?

By the way, wasn't the 3rd installment of the TES series always called Morrowind? I thought it was, but my memory from that time is fickle... Anyway, you wouldn't happen to have any information about its early design, would you? I would love to know what Julian Le Fay was really going to do with the series.

 

[Sceptic]

Leisure Suit Larry 8 (anyone remember the full title for that one?)

Working title was Lust in Space but that would've probably been the final one too. I still don't understand why Sierra killed it after 7 sold so well.

Oh yeah just remembered Sam & Max Freelance Police. I was SO looking forward to that one. When Full Throttle 2 got cancelled I dreaded what would happen to S&M.

 

[SCO]

The Darklands sequel/expansion setting on the whole of europe.

I still cry bitter tears of fanboi rage whenever i think if it.

 

[Tails]

Hired Guns 2 by Scott Johnston for Amiga.

 

[mondblut]

And mondblut, could you provide a link to those design docs from MegaTraveller 3?

I downloaded them a while ago among 8 gigs of all iterations of Traveller pnp pdfs. From my research, Far Future Enterprises (Traveller rights holder) recently pressed it along with concept/design docs of the first two computer games as a bonus on Megatraveller cdrom ebooks collection.

I don't think you can find them online the common way, look for Megatraveller pdf collections on torrents (demonoid has some) or DC++ RPG hubs such as Fifth Heaven, that's where I got it from. Didn't keep though, deleted after reading.

ninja edit: a demonoid torrent doesn't have it, so you'll have to use dc.

 

[Luzur]

goddammit i got the Ultima 8 addon name wrong.

must be a first time for me.

 

[Alex]

Thanks, mondblut. I think I will just buy the MegaTraveller CD from them. I bought the T5 cd recently and I figure came across that site. While I don't usually mind downloading out of print games, I really liked that FFE allows for the buying and printing of its old material, including some material never printed before.

 

[Ruprekt]

Third Ultima 6 spinoff set in King Arthur's time (was to be released after Martian Dreams).

The original Ultima 9 (though from the strength of Ultima 8, it wouldn't probably have been rubbish anyway).

I've actually had dreams where I played these... and then I woke up

 

[Burning Bridges]

I believe shortly before the end Looking Glass had begun a spy game based on the Dark Engine, can someone remember?

there is some information in this thread
http://www.ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=46265

 

[Achilles]

X-COM: Genesis. Still butthurt that it was never released

Was that the squad based tactical shooter one?

No, that was X-COM: Alliance. Genesis was supposed to be a proper strategy sequel.

 

[circ]

Anachronox 2.

FUCKING ANACHRONOX 2.



Van Buren gets a very honorable mention.

This.

Anachronox's essentially ended with an abrupt cliffhanger around the middle of the story. I was disappoint.

Also TES IV (to a lesser degree 2 and 3, but I wasn't interested in a series enough to know what Beth failed to implement back then).

Anachronox sucked. "HEY DUDE CAN YOU TAKE THIS DILDO TO BETTY? OH THANKS FOR THE DILDO. CAN YOU GO BACK TO BOB AND ASK HIM FOR SOME LUBE TOO?" "HEY DUDE, CAN YOU TAKE A PICTURE OF THE JIGGABOO? A PICTURE OF A JIGGABOO. JIGGABOO. JIGGABOO. JIGGABOO. NO A JIGGABOO. THAT'S THE WRONG ANGLE. JIGGABOO. JIGGABOO."

 

[gromit]

There was so little information about Jefferson but every bit made me drool, excepting RTWP which I would gladly put up with if that's what it cost. Exotic setting and NPCs for a CRPG, wrapped in a decent premise for a moral play before those were raped into the ground by careless and insincere overuse in games? From BIS, on one of the rare occasions that those poor fuckers have had, in their professional careers, a chance to really square up and swing?

BIS, and more often than given credit, Obsidian, really have a knack for building on rulesets, too. Maybe not rules always in the interest of PvE balance *cough* but they certainly know how to make rules that are fun to game and the occasional new and intriguing mechanic (or attempt to resurrect one.)

If more had gone right for them - back when they were the money-making division of a grossly mismanaged company, they could be there now to neatly fill the gaps between the narrativist Bioware and the simulationist Bethesda - although I'm not always sure exactly what Bethesda is simulating. Instead they're adrift between publisher and market expectations, pulling weird compromises to stick social systems into plot- (not "story") driven games, and abstracted resolutions into ones with direct control.

Whoever said they're glad it's cancelled is a sick, sick person and I hope when JE Sawyer dies, he finishes becoming the crow comes and gets you. That said, I'm open to enlightenment or debate so please fill me in on what you meant by "Dragon Age"-y design? Maybe if I can hate it, too, I can let go

edit: I trump both the sequel-wishers and fetch-quest-mockers by wishing Anachronox itself hadn't been slowly cancelled for most of its development. But I'm glad they got it into a box.

 

[L'ennui]

Star Trek: Secret of Vulcan Fury

Would have been the spiritual sequel of 25th Anniversary and Judgement Rites. Awesome adventure games and this one would have had KILLER BLOOM GRAPHXXX for the time, but alas it was not meant to be. I remember having bought a PC gaming magazine (think it was Computer Gaming World or something) just to learn all about it, and in that issue I incidentally discovered Total Annihilation, which turned out to be major kick-ass.

Oh yeah and the original vision Blizzard had for WC3 was about a thousand times more interesting than what they ended up doing. Ah well.

 

[circ]

I agree, ST 25th and Judgement Rites were just amazing. Really captured the ST spirit in every way and the puzzles were very challenging. Too bad about the arcade bits here and there.