Eight Days
E3 Announcements That Never Saw the Light of Day
While Eight Days was unveiled as a tech demo at Sony’s 2005 conference, it wasn’t until the 2006 conference that it was officially announced. The trailer shown that year was action-packed with guns being shot, oil tanker trucks crashing, and a gas station exploding.
Following the June 2008 announcement that Eight Days, which was being developed by Sony Computer Entertainment’s London Studio, had halted production, SCE President Shuhei Yoshida said the decision was partly due to the lack of online content in the game.
Developers who worked on Eight Days eventually gave more information about the vision the studio had for it. It reportedly was to contain large cinematic scenes reminiscent of God of War, while also featuring driving and duck-and-cover combat. But ultimately the endeavor ended up being too costly to continue with development for Sony.
Project H.A.M.M.E.R.
E3 Announcements That Never Saw the Light of Day
This beat ‘em up for the Wii was unveiled at Nintendo’s 2006 conference. Project H.A.M.M.E.R. was being developed by Nintendo Software Technology, one of Nintendo’s development teams.
The unusually brutal Nintendo game was playable on E3’s floor in 2006, and put players in control of a robot-fighting cyborg who needs to save the world. A hammer, or course, is the weapon of choice.
Project H.A.M.M.E.R. reportedly suffered culture problems between the Japanese and American staff at Nintendo. The public didn’t ever get any more information from Nintendo about Machinex, as it was called internally, and in 2009 it was finally cancelled.
Agent
E3 Announcements That Never Saw the Light of Day
At Sony’s 2009 press conference, a previously untitled PlayStation 3 exclusive from Rockstar Games was revealed as Agent. Not many more details other than it taking place in a 1970s world of espionage were given at the conference.
Agent was promised as being genre-defining, and later in 2009 was announced as having a 2010 release window. Not much was heard as 2010 slipped into 2011, until in June Jack Tretton of Sony, while confirming the game was still in development, said he was unsure if it was still to be a PS3 exclusive.
In the years since, Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar, has twice renewed the Agent trademark, most recently in 2016. The game has never been officially cancelled, and last August concept art for the game allegedly appeared online alongside art from Rockstar’s Bully 2.
Project Milo
E3 Announcements That Never Saw the Light of Day
Peter Molyneux is widely known as being a dreamer, if not an over-promiser, and on Microsoft’s stage in 2009 he unveiled Project Milo for the Kinect. It was to be an experience revolving around an emotionally reactive artificial intelligence.
The AI was to take the form of Milo, a 10 year old boy. Molyneux promised Milo would be able to recognize emotions from players’ faces and voices using the Kinect. Conversations would have the child respond based on not just the words he recognizes, but also the tone used when speaking.
Activities players could participate in in the game would shape Milo to be unique to each player. Someone who spends time working in the game would have a more studious Milo than a person who does the playful activities, for example. The point was for players to feel an emotional connection to a character they feel they’re inspiring.
Multiple times throughout its development contradicting statements were made about Project Milo being simply a tech demo or a product meant for eventual release. In September 2010 Project Milo, which had come to be known as Milo and Kate, had been cancelled.
“It wasn’t the ambition, it wasn’t the technology; it was none of that.” Molyneux said years later about the problems the project faced. “I just don’t think that this industry was ready for something as emotionally connecting as something like Milo.”
Brothers in Arms: Furious 4
E3 Announcements That Never Saw the Light of Day
Announced by Gearbox Software’s Randy Pitchford on stage at Ubisoft’s 2011 conference, Brothers in Arms: Furious 4 was to be an over-the-top story of four soldiers sent into the heart of Germany with the task of killing Hitler.
Each of the playable soldiers was to have their own unique traits and style of play. Montana, for instance, was to wield a chain gun, axe, and chainsaw, and would be able to drop bear traps for enemies to get stuck in. Killing enemies would award points to be used on upgrading abilities and weapons, such as attaching a grenade to the aforementioned bear trap.
In March 2012, in the middle of its original release window of early 2012, Ubisoft abandoned the game’s trademarks in the United States, leaving the rights entirely to Gearbox. The game eventually lost its Brothers in Arms branding, becoming simply Furious 4, with Pitchford hinting at major changes.
In July 2015 it was announced Furious 4 was no longer in development.
BioShock Vita
E3 Announcements That Never Saw the Light of Day
Ken Levine announced this all-new BioShock game from Irrational Games on Sony’s stage in 2011, during the announcement of the Vita handheld system itself. Few details were given, and it was eventually revealed this announcement came before development had even begun.
Following the restructuring of Irrational Games in 2014, 2K was handed control of future BioShock games.
In July 2014 Levine tweeted that last he had checked, 2K and Sony couldn’t finalize a deal. “They seemed way more optimistic about this back in 2011. Wish I could do it myself, but lawyers and that. I still love my Vita.”
Levine later revealed the game was planned to be set before the fall of Rapture and would have been in the style of Final Fantasy Tactics.
Star Wars 1313
E3 Announcements That Never Saw the Light of Day
Unveiled during E3 2012, Star Wars 1313 was meant to be a more mature take on the Star Wars universe. You would play as a bounty hunter on the city-covered planet Coruscant, working to reach the bottom of a criminal conspiracy.
Later in 2012, Disney acquired LucasFilm, and in April 2013 shut down all development at LucasArts, letting go all but a few employees to help with future licensing of the franchise to other game development studios. Disney struck a deal to give EA exclusive rights to produce Star Wars games, and in 2014 Disney chose to abandon the Star Wars 1313 trademark rather than renew it.
After development on the game stopped, it was revealed the game’s playable character would have been Boba Fett.
Phantom Dust
E3 Announcements That Never Saw the Light of Day
The original Phantom Dust released as an Xbox-exclusive in 2004, and 10 years later Microsoft announced a reboot of the series during their press conference.
The E3 announcement trailer reportedly caught even some of the development studio’s employees off guard, however. “We had no idea that was even happening… It was like, ‘Holy crap, now fans are expecting characters to look like that, and that’s not what we’re making,’” one anonymous former Darkside employee said.
Rebooting the franchise proved to be costly, and soon after leadership at Darkside asked for more money in early 2015, Microsoft decided to part ways with the developer.
While Darkside’s reboot is no more, that doesn’t mean the IP won’t ever be coming back. In 2016 Head of Xbox Phil Spencer said the company was still looking for a studio to take on the project, and that he regrets unveiling the game so early in its development.
Scalebound
E3 Announcements That Never Saw the Light of Day
Scalebound, which had been under development by PlatinumGames, was announced at Microsoft’s 2014 press conference as an Xbox exclusive title. The trailer shown at the time promised a world of giant, oftentimes hostile creatures, including dragon companions.
The action role-playing game genre hadn’t been attempted before by PlatinumGames, and working with a western publisher such as Microsoft was equally new for the company. Scalebound’s fantasy world was to be offset by a modern-day, headphone-wearing hero, with dragon companions playing an important role in the game. A four player co-op mode was to be included as well.
Microsoft had originally announced a release date of late 2016, eventually changing it to 2017. Soon after calendars flipped to Scalebound’s new release window, Microsoft announced production of the game had been halted.
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