Games

Cancelled or shut down? If you wanted a cancelled game to come out, 99 times out of 100, it was your imagination making it into a great game, and they cancelled it because it wasn't coming together.

For games that were shut down, for me, it was Robocraft. It was only shut down recently, but the version of the game that I loved from about 2017-ish was basically replaced a year later with a version of the game that I was not a fan of, and it stayed that way until the game's and studio's closure. I had to get burned by Robocraft in order to come to some realizations about the rot at the core of live service games, and it informed a lot of where I spend my time and money now.

PT. Still have it saved on my PS4 I think.

The Black Isle version of Fallout 3 (Van Buren).

Bethesda's version had expansive and impressive maps and visuals, but the writing and world-building were subpar compared to Fallout 1/2 and New Vegas.

I sometimes still think about StarCraft: Ghost.

Also not really a whole game, but I hate that CDPR cancelled the multiplayer stuff for Cyberpunk 2077. I was really looking forward to that.

Star Wars 1313 is a big one for me. Same with Battlefront 3, both would have been amazing. RIP og Lucasarts, you were a real one.

Also, Retro Studios has had a few concepts that sounded awesome. They were planning a few Zelda spinoffs I would have really liked to see. Heroes of Hyrule and the Sheik project looked cool as hell.

PlanetSide 1, the MMOFPS that was the former record holder of "Most players in an online FPS battle," which was eventually surpassed by PlanetSide 2.

In its heyday it was a fascinating sociology study.

During EU prime time, players would self-organize into squads of about 10 players. They would apply light pressure to the entire map simultaneously. Territorial gains would be made by attacking undefended bases.

During USA prime time, players would self-organize into platoons of about 30 players. They would press a few strategic locations with medium force. Territorial gains came from fixing operations (using a small force in an easy to defend location to keep a large population of opponents busy) and local numeric superiority at lightly defended bases.

During Chinese prime time, players would group up into a singular mass. Everyone just ran face first into the meatgrinder. No territorial gains were made.

Unreal Tournament series

UE4 movement was buttery smooth

Megaman Legends 3.

"We cancelled it because the fans didn't show enough interest or act like they wanted it badly enough!"

I think a sizable fraction of the world's population is still salty about that, and it's been 14 years.

The original Overwatch. I also know Apex Legends hasn't been cancelled, but they also took away Linux compatibility so it is essentially cancelled for Linux. That's one I miss.

Star Wars Battlefront 3, 1313 Titanfall 3

Star Wars Battlefront III

Might sound odd to some, but Overwatch.

Early Overwatch was great. Then some updates made it better. The only things wrong with it were design choices that were made for financial reasons. Then they made it much worse. Then they made it worse. And worse. And then they made 2, which turned it into just another 'left-click on the target' game, because those make more money. It saddens me that it died.

Wildstar! It was the best playing mmo I've ever seen. The platforming was neat, the world was varied and cool, there was player housing with almost endless customisation! I miss that game.

Hawken. :(

Edit: Started to read through everyone else's opinions and it dawns on me that this is just going to be a giant list of things I may have never even heard of that I might want to play, and can't. You are a sadomasochist. :)

Kerbal Space Program. Loved KSP1, but still salty about spending $60 on the pre release of KSP2 thinking it would help fund development. Never again. Learned my lesson for sure. Both versions are basically dead now. It was a fun ride while it lasted.

Star wars 1313 was THE game I was waiting for. Got very sad when it got cancelled.

Also all of the in-progress and for some completed content that just got shelved for Disney infinity because the new management at Disney forgot why games mattered. (Same time when they absolutely gutted lucasarts). Just for them to start from scratch again a few years later when they realised they still need a videogame presence. Which makes the losses of what could have been hurt more.

vampire the masquerade bloodlines. the classic one had a bumpy release but patches and community work made it fun.

the supposed to be new one got cancelled. i forgot. budget reasons maybe.

I wish StarCraft: Nova had happened

Mostly every Rare game.

• Diddy Kong Pilot (the voxel version)
• Dinosaur Planet
• Donkey Kong Racing
• Twelve Tales: Conker 64

I know 3/4 of these sort of got released, but the mode-7 style Banjo-Pilot is fundamentally not interesting to me, Star Fox Adventures is fine but was a lot more ambitious when it was on weaker hardware, and while Twelve Tales looked generic, Conker's Bad Fur Day is the least funny thing to ever attempt humor.

I didn't forget Donkey Kong: Coconut Crackers, I just don't mind missing out on that.

I loved Descent from back in the 90s...

Prey 2 : https://youtu.be/BPkHZfjK5z4

Some friends and I were so hooked on the gameplay demo (we're big fans of the Mass Effect trilogy), then it was cancelled and replaced by Prey, which was very different (more horror centric and less space opera)

Honestly, I kind of miss the idea of what "Life By You" could've been, as it had the game designer for The Sims 2 and The Sims 3 behind it. That game could've been a return to form and an actual threat to EA's watered down and extremely pricey Sims Slop. If only the team Rod Humble had assembled were able to gel their concept into a reality, with Paradox's backing, could've created something magical. Alas, it was not to be...I still imagine the potential for player driven storytelling that Life By You was offering!

Beyond Good and Evil 2.

I’m not even mad that we didn’t get the multiplanetary open world new-tech live-experience cooperative second coming. I’m mad we didn’t even get a simple, short singleplayer experience living off of the charm of the first one.

Really loved Battlefield Heroes as a kid. I’d love to play it again

Mother 64
Mother 3 is my favorite game, but I'm still bummed this timeline didn't get a fun quirky N64 graphics Mother game. Would have been interesting to see which style elements came through in 3D, which didn't, and what new spins on things would have added to the series

EverQuest Next. That game would have been the best MMO ever, if they would've stuck with it. Unfortunately, SOE got bought out and the new owners were whackos who didn't care. It's sad because nothing has come close since then. Only GW2 and ESO have even a fraction of the concepts of EQN.

The original concept for Bioshock infinite.

StarCraft Ghost

ONI 2

Nosgoth. An asymmetrical, team based shooter where you played as either vampires or vampire hunters. The vampires had more health and mobility but were only melee while the hunters had range and utility. It was buggy and imbalanced and I loved it and clocked like 500 hours before they shut it down.

Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun

I'm sure it was cancelled for a good reason, but man I really want more Legacy of Kain/Soul Reaver lore!

Starwars Galaxies, pre CU

Anthem was a really great idea for a game that had an absolutely terrible execution.

Guns of Icarus, my beloved.

Also, Global Agenda.

Babylon 5: Into the Fire. Killed just months before release after a corporate restructure. The closest we got was some Freespace mods.