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Fez II

Ever quit a major project purely out of spite? Congrats: you’re one step closer to being a game developer!

The original Fez was a charming game with an addictive gameplay mechanic that kept players coming back for more. Creator Phil Fish was hard at work on the sequel when he got into a Twitter spat with Marcus Beers. This culminated with Fish saying that Fez II was now canceled, leaving fans to dream about what it might have been like.

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Star Wars Battlefront III

Did you find the newer Star Wars Battlefront games a bit disappointing? In that case, you’ll be sad to hear that we nearly had the perfect sequel!

Star Wars Battlefront III was going to take everything you loved about the original Battlefront II and make it better. That means additional characters, weapons, locations, and a killer story. Compared to what we ended up getting with EA’s Battlefront games, it’s tough not to be disappointed at what could have been.

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Starcraft: Ghost

For longtime Blizzard fans, this one really hurts. Starcraft: Ghost was going to be a stealth-action Starcraft spinoff featuring the fan-favorite Ghosts used by the Space Marines.

The game was announced way back in 2002 and not officially canceled until 2014. The game was likely always doomed due to numerous production delays behind the scenes, but sadly players spent 12 years waiting for this title only for their hopes to be dashed.

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Super Mario Spikers

Mario and his friends have been helping make sports games fun for many years now. And Super Mario Spikers was going to be the bizarre cross between volleyball and wrestling that you never knew you needed!

What happened to the game? Nintendo got nervous about a game with their family-friendly characters that was all about violent and aggressive sports tactics. But developer Next Level Games eventually moved on to Wii Punch-Out!!, where cartoon violence was to be expected.

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Daredevil: The Man Without Fear

Marvel Comics gave us a great “What If?” series that focused on alternate possible worlds. And in video games, we have our own “what if:” in this case, what if Daredevil beat Batman to the punch!

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear was a game planned back in 2003. It was going to be an open-world action epic that made great use of Daredevil’s powers and modest tools. In other words, this was going to be an Arkham Asylum-style game six years before Batman showed us his detective mode.

The game died largely due to fighting between Sony and Marvel. And that alone serves as a stark reminder of how weird Marvel’s creative properties were before they were assimilated by Disney.

7

Sonic X-Treme

Ever wonder why we never had Sega’s answer to Super Mario 64? Because Sega screwed up, of course!

Sonic X-Treme was going to be that game, and it had two modes being developed by two teams. One offered 2.5D sidescrolling action while the other offered free-roaming boss battles. Sega eventually wanted the entire thing to be free-roaming, but this caused the game to collapse under the weight of its own missed deadlines.

Changing a killer game up halfway through and losing the game altogether? This was a plan that could only come from the minds behind the 32x.

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Batman: Gotham By Gaslight

We all know the Arkham games are very sweet. But what if we could have had a steampunk version?

Batman: Gotham By Gaslight was going to be an open-world action game modeled after the 1989 graphic novel of the same name. In it, players would have to match wits with none other than Jack the Ripper! Sadly, THQ killed this game, leaving us to simply drool over the existing art assets.

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Aliens: Crucible

Many canceled games are canceled early on to save both time and money. However, Aliens: Crucible was canceled when this game was nearly complete!

This game was going to be a multiplayer RPG where players have to either eradicate the Xenomorphs infecting a colony or simply survive long enough to be rescued. It would have featured robust character customization and a permadeath feature in place of continues.

Oh, and if any Facehuggers got your buddies, you’d have to decide if you wanted to put them down right away or wait for an alien to emerge from their chest!

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Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun

It was never the biggest series, but the Soul Reaver and Legacy of Kain games were real game-changers in the ’90s. And Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun was going to take the best of the old franchise while adding new features such as a multiplayer component.

Square Enix eventually decided the game simply wasn’t a good fit. This was bad news for franchise fans, but the multiplayer portion eventually evolved into the standalone game Nosgoth.

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Mega Man Universe

When Super Mario Maker came out, it was like somebody flipped on a light switch. Suddenly, gamers everywhere wanted this style of level creation for their favorite franchises.

Depressingly, we came very close to something similar in Mega Man Universe. It was going to be a fun sidescroller with a level creator option to make things endlessly replayable. Capcom scrapped the project for unknown reasons, leaving Mega Man fans with no choice but to GET EQUIPPED with CRIPPLING SADNESS.

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World of Darkness Online

Ever wished there was an MMORPG that deliberately aimed for an older audience? Sadly, we were so damn close!

World of Darkness Online was going to be an MMORPG focused on the World of Darkness series. We could have had a cool gothic world filled with vampires, werewolves, and other things that went bump in the night. The game folded due to an overstretched development team, but some of the ideas and art assets will live on in future World of Darkness projects.

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Prey 2

It wasn’t everybody’s cup of tea, but the original Prey was a unique and innovative game. Prey 2 was going to continue the franchise with more action and sci-fi fun, but that game never saw the light of day.

Between shuffling IP rights and creative squabbling, the game never amounted to anything more than some crappy prototypes. Franchise fans had to simply content themselves with the reboot of the series back in 2017.

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Highlander: The Game

The world of Highlander seems ready-made for a video game. After all, it’s all about epic sword fights throughout history, and the winner of each duel becomes stronger than he was before.

Originally, there was going to be an action RPG Highlander game from Square Enix, but it was canceled back in 2010. That means for those who want to get a Highlander video game fix, your best bet is to track down a Jaguar CD and play Highlander: The Last of the MacLeods.

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Silent Hills

Sometimes, these canceled games were very nearly a reality. And that is the depressing case with Silent Hills.

When players scoped out a free PlayStation Network demo in 2014 called PT, it revealed itself as an advertisement for Silent Hills. This game was going to be directed by horror master Guillermo del Toro and star Norman Reedus. But when co-director Hideo Kojima had his legendary fallout with Konami, the game died (though Kojima and Reedus would later team up to make Death Stranding.