Top Video Games never made

[Spens1]

Much like the greatest television shows never made, this thread is very much the same as that, except for video gaming.

Game Of Thrones (2014):
Developer: Obsidian Software
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

A game set at the start of the series (series 1), you would begin the game as a member of a small house (of your choosing, depending on your region). The player character then begins their adventure and explores Westeros, with the opportunity to rise through the ranks with your actions having direct consequences for you and your house. Depending on your actions, you will gain favour with certain houses (including major ones) and may rise to the position of High King (which is part of the war of succession questline) as well as play a key part in preventing, or helping certain events occur (The Red Wedding, The Purple Wedding, Tyrion's escape to Essos etc). The main storyline focuses on the defending of Westeros against the Whitewalkers were the player character will have to make choices with regards to alliances (if they haven't ascended to the throne already).

The two DLC involved includes the Essos DLC (which includes locations and quests in cities such as Mereen, Qarth and the Free Cities) as well as the North of the Wall DLC which involves going north of the wall to fight off the last remaining whitewalkers.

Other Notable features:

• Settlements and Building - You would have the opportunity as King/Queen of a Kingdom or King/Queen of all of Westeros, to expand and build your territory (building housing, services, castles, barracks etc).
• Handling and Delegating of tasks - You could either directly deal with tasks yourself or you could hire people to fill in the key positions and they would handle the tasks for you. Each person would have ratings such as aptitude,relationship and ability rating (all ranked from very poor to excellent). Depending on that person's rating, things could either go exceptionally well, or could go wrong and you could be facing a war.
• Marriage - An important part in progression in the War of Succession storyline (however, you could avoid this if you wished), marriage and relationships have depth as you will now engage in getting to know a person. Your actions in the game would also determine how your spouse thought of you as a person (depending on their characteristics)
• Dynamic relationships - Much like the marriage mechanic, your relationship with other houses and individuals were affected by the player characters actions.
• Wars and Battle's - Depending on your rank and status, you would have the opportunity to oversee a war campaign and tactics for battles and the war overall. The player character also would have the opportunity to seek advice from their war adviser or delegate to them to handle the task. As a soldier, you would have the ability to either follow orders, take executive decision and take matters into your own hands (if you're losing a battle), disobey orders or betray your side of the war, or even flee the battle (all with unique consequences).

Whilst Bethesda were unable to deliver on this game, as they had been working on their next AAA title from their famed Elder Scrolls Series (ES5: Skyrim, which would be one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time), they would delegate the task to Obsidian games. Obsidian would begin pre-alpha development in early 2010 (after the approach from Bethesda for the project) and proper development after Skyrim's release in 2011 and finish the game in late 2014.

The use of Skyrim's engine and the implementation of several things into the game (detailed relationships and marriage, which is something that Bethesda themselves would take inspiration from for Fallout 4) as well as modifying the battle mechanics, breathtaking locations, differing climates, attention to detail storytelling, implementation of war tactics, worldbuilding and task management would win the game critical acclaim. The War of succession storyline and main storyline and the different 7 Kingdom's Storyline (in particular, the North) would also draw critical acclaimed as one of the best at the time due to the player characters actions having a realistic consequence on the other characters, houses and the world as a hold (which was notable in the game) as well as its emotional story. The game would go onto win a numerous game of the year titles and would go onto sell 65 million copies over PC, PS3,PS4, Xbox360, Xbox1, Nintendo Wii and the Nintendo Switch.

 

[CountDVB]

Yeah, why not? Looks like fun!

Here, what if Sonic 06 was done better?

Sonic Wildfire (2007)
Developer: Sonic Team
Publisher: SEGA

In 2006, SEGA was prepping their release of a new Sonic game for the 15th anniversary of Sonic. However, human error led to some leaked beta copies and word got around about the massive amount of glitches and the plot hole-filled story. SEGA caught wind of this and proceeded to try and do damage control by focusing more money on the game. In a stunning move, the PR people approached the gamers and such who got the copy and asked for input. The itneraction between developer and player was fascinating and the Sonic gamers took the chance to point out the extensive flaws within the game and the story.

The game was put off for a year, and in 2007, after months of coding and re-coding along with story rewrites, the new game, Sonic Wildfire, came out for the Nintendo Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3. While the graphics remained polished, they also simplified the art style, with the human characters being simpler looking and a bit more anime-ish which allowed the programmers to put all sorts of emotions on them. The controls had been refined to equal to Sonic Adventure 2's own in terms of quality. The story was simplified and rewritten.

Eggman is back to his usual tricks and has attakced the Kingdom of Soleanna to get information on the Flames of Disaster, a supposed being that contained great power and that Eggman hoped to control like he tried with Chaos. The game focuses on three main characters: Sonic, Shadow and new character, Silver the Hedgehog, each one focusing on different styles of gameplay.

Sonic played in his traditional style, but could locate power-ups that could give him greater abilities like in the previous Adevnture games. His goal was to meet up with Princess Elise, the soon-to-be monarch of the Soleanna, and Eggman's prisoner. Secretly, she let herself be captured to try and sabotage Eggman's plans from within and many people found a great deal of humor between Sonic and Elise's itneractions, balancing the relaxed yet impulsive nature of Sonic with the more on-edge yet patient Elise (think Luffy and Princess Vivi's friendship from One Piece). Meanwhile, Sonic is assisted by Tails and Knuckles.

Shadow meanwhile played in a style remiscent of Shadow the Hedgehog, wielding weapons that could be obtained from the various Eggbots to defeat others while still having a speedy element, albeit one with more puzzles. Here, he is sent on a mission by GUN along with the rest of Team Dark, Rouge and Omega, in Eggman's involvement in a takeover of the kingdom. Besides investigating Eggman's plans, he is also trying to discover what the mysterious individual, Mephiles, wants to do with him.

Lastly, Silver the Hedgehog. A psychic hedgehog, he says he is from the future to prevent a catalcysm as a result of the Iblis Trigger. The only thing he knows is that Sonic the Hedgehog is connected and thus seeks to find Sonic. Having heard of the hedgehog'd heroic nature, perhaps he could help. Silver's style is somewhat based off the Knights of the Old Republic with how his psychic powers are handles and has the most puzzle focus. He must deal with the dark Iblis monsters sent after him while being aided by Amy and Cream. New players loved Silver for his nunaced focus, with writers saying he was inspried by Future Trunks. Silver's gameplay of being able to blitz through enemies with his psychic powers also helped.

The ending involved all three characters becoming super with the reveal of how Mephiles had been manipulating everyone to unite with the Iblis, being two parts of a powerful entity that has to be defeated.

The game garnered praise, especially for how Sonic Team was able to fix the mistakes of the beta. Fire is also a themetical element within the game, from Sonic's power-ups corrresponding to fire in some forms, to Shadow's usage of firearms and Chaos energy and even with Silver in some puzzles with various story elements and metaphors. Furthermore, many people noted the Biblical references, with the final boss being synomous with the Devil (specifically, his Islamic counterpart.) Overall, while a few glitches and problems remained, especially among Sonic purists, the game did quite well with its story and controls, though the lack of mini-games was a complain. It received scores averaging of 4.5/5 and 90%.

 

[Polyus]

So are these actual never-made games or just our ideas?

 

[Toxic34]

Who remembers Human Head Studios' planned sequel to the 2006 game Prey? That was going to be awesome. I do like what Arkane did in reimagining the IP, but I still wish we could've gotten what was initially promised.

 

[CountDVB]

Video game version of these threads:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-best-movies-never-made.11413/

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/top-tv-shows-never-made.51488/

 

[Spens1]

So are these actual never-made games or just our ideas?

well the bethesda idea i had for G.O.T is based a bit on reality, they were offered to make a G.O.T game but Skyrim was in its final stages of development. So with this, i just put the project on Obsidian instead.


However, can't see why our own ideas couldn't be used also.

 

[Samedi]

I remember one of my old magazines either game informer or game pro doing an article on a cancelled Darth maul game. Also 1313

 

[Arkenfolm]

Six Days in Fallujah seems like it could've been a huge hit if done right. The concept was pretty interesting, being a third-person shooter influenced by survival horror and seemingly dedicating a lot of effort to a realistic depiction of what was a very recent event. And then cue people lining up to yell how the game was offensive to soldiers who served in Iraq and then some people saying it might inspire Islamic terrorism because of depictions of Islamic terrorists getting killed. Therefore, the game was never released and remains vaporware.

Oh, can't forget Polybius, that could've been a huge hit and been a craze that would make Pac-Man and Space Invaders look like nothing. No wonder there's all the stories about government agents shutting down the test marketing.

 

[Polyus]

well the bethesda idea i had for G.O.T is based a bit on reality, they were offered to make a G.O.T game but Skyrim was in its final stages of development. So with this, i just put the project on Obsidian instead.


However, can't see why our own ideas couldn't be used also.

Oh, excellent.

I'd love a tycoon game or city builder with real consequences. "Oh no, because you reduced the maintenance budget of this rail line, Oil Train #7 derailed and exploded in the center of town, killing 850 people."

Terminator RTS.

Fallout war-era RTS.

 

[Tales Weaver]

Harry Potter Online (2009)
Made by: 4LEAF Studios
Published by: Softmax

Based on Novel by J.K. Rowling, the players of this MMORPG can choose from 2 schools, Ilvermorny and Hogwarts, defeat magical creatures with Powerful spells, chatter with friends.

The plot takes place after fall of voldemort in 1998. Set in 2009, it describes a new dark wizard rising from remnants of death eaters.

 

[mattep74]

Total War, Human civilization
Civilization and Total War joins forces to create this massivly game from the first human settlements to colonizing space. You start with a small tribe and ends up owning all of Earth. Maps like in civilization, battle like Total War.

 

[Samedi]

Saints row on the psp could have been interesting. 50 cent was even said to have been involved

 

[KuboCaskett]

Megaman/Rockman Legends 3

It was in the planning stages and even had fan input but was cancelled for some stupid reason by Capcom IOTL (and I don't blame the fanbase for having beef with them but that's another story for another time). But for this thread, let's say the company rightly allowed this game to go through and finish development ITTL, perhaps for the 3DS (though they could just make it for the PS3 but I digress).

Basically a followup to the fantastic Rockman Legends 2 (of which I'm currently playing though right now), where the titular boy-cyborg-thing is trapped on Elysium, a planet of sorts, at the end of the last game and the Casketts have to find resources to build a rocket to save him yet are having trouble and head over to Klickelan Island where an artifact called the "Fire of Creation" might help them in their development of said rocket. However complicating things are the local gang called the Rebel Raiders that are causing trouble in the capital of the Island, Teomo City, air pirates, and of course Reaverbots that are wandering in the ruins of Klickelan Island. The Casketts come across the protagonist of this game, Barrett, along his girl sidekick, Aero, and seek their help in return for taking care of the aftermentioned threats to the Island and the two agree and thus the adventure kicks off.

RML3 plays like the previous two games albeit with some new additions to spice up the gameplay while adjusting to the 3DS control scheme; and is also somewhat more "open-world" than the last two with more environments to explore despite the action taking place in Klikcelan half the time.

God, writing this stuff makes me wish OTL's Capcom outta resume making the game but it would to pull an N Sane Trilogy (or rather a Duology in this case) for the last two games on present hardware to recapture interest in the Rockman Legends franchise before doing so (but I digress).

Metal Slug: SV-001 (the original version)

No joke, it was going to have only the titular tank the "protagonist", albeit piloted by some engineer dude name Phil Gene instead of an Italian-American 2nd Lieutenant named Marco Rossi and that the game only has 5 stages and the gameplay more slower and oddly more akin to a schmup game like Nazca's Air Duel and In the Hunt only on land. IOTL, it was changed to the familiar, outside of the tank version due to the higher ups at SNK demanding the game have more value to be worth playing on the Neo Geo. Let's say the SNK didn't bother somehow and that the tank only version came through ITTL.

TTL's Metal Slug would probably somewhat play like the OTL one only more slower and somewhat more difficult regarding the projectile spam of the enemies and the less platformy nature of the stages. At least that the players would have some POW soldiers who aren't bummish tramps wearing pants ITTL's game help them out mainly by either moving around throwing grenades or riding on the tanks shooting rocket launchers, though they would potentially be killed in the process (but heck it'd might be possible to keep them alive throughout the game for all I know). While it'd still have a fan following due the look and gameplay of the series, it'd be less popular due to the lack of visible protagonists and a lack of a sense of humor seen IOTL's version.

Come to think of it, I'd be willing to try out the earlier version of the game if someone where to find a playable copy and upload it on the internet but I digress.

Oh, can't forget Polybius, that could've been a huge hit and been a craze that would make Pac-Man and Space Invaders look like nothing. No wonder there's all the stories about government agents shutting down the test marketing.

AVGN played an alleged copy of the game on an arcade cabinet and somehow acted weird; I think maybe he did that to himself by deluding himself into thinking the game is more than it is, that or the game is possibly lamer than it is.

 

[Screwhorn77]

AVGN played an alleged copy of the game on an arcade cabinet and somehow acted weird; I think maybe he did that to himself by deluding himself into thinking the game is more than it is, that or the game is possibly lamer than it is.

Polybius is merely an urban legend, the one AVGN played is also fake. There are a lot of fake Polybiuses on the web, the Sinneslochen one is just the most known.

 

[Polyus]

Polybius is merely an urban legend, the one AVGN played is also fake. There are a lot of fake Polybiuses on the web, the Sinneslochen one is just the most known.

I am not! lol

Honestly, I want a ridiculously in-depth military strategy game, something that'd blow everything else out of the water. But you can only play as a select few nations, namely:
North Korea
North Vietnam
Israel
South Africa
France
Yugoslavia

It would start in 1954, and maybe go to about 2020.

 

[FillyofDelphi]

I've actually been doing some research on the idea of the continued relevence of the "Edutainment" genre (The actually educational variety that had a place in school) specifically games related to the MECC and Learning Company that took off in the 80's and 90's and a more successful integration of early video games into the American educational system in general. For example, maybe a "Silk Trail" that explores the culture, commerce, and history of Centeral Asia in the same way Oregon Trail covered the Frontier period and the Amazon Trail covered the Amazon River Basin. Or a combination of educational games through a video game version of a classic novel (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?) that combines literary study with a variety of basal skills.

 

[Petros >Peter Fergus<]

We'd have gotten at LEAST one good Duke Nukem game if they'd released one every two years, ready or not. Same with Half Life.

 

[KuboCaskett]

Polybius is merely an urban legend, the one AVGN played is also fake. There are a lot of fake Polybiuses on the web, the Sinneslochen one is just the most known.

I figured it was a fake all along, I was merely making a fan theory on the last parts of the video within context mind you.

 

[Tales Weaver]

RWBY online(2008)
Developer: 4LEAF Studios
publisher: Softmax
Based on Animation by Monty Oum and Spiritual successor to Talesweaver, it is about 4 girls who enter beacon academy, a schoo which trains huntsmen who defend the planet remnant from creatures of grimm. The video game is storytelling MMORPG with 5 Episodes and an Epilogue. Which is a parallel universe to Monty's animation on Roosterteeth. This describes RWBY meeting together and 3 more character for episode 2, and SSSN for episode 3.

 

[MusuMankata]

Age of Mythology II (2007)
Developer: Ensemble Studios
Publisher: Microsoft

Age of Mythology II is the sequel to the mythological spin-off of the "Age of Empires" series. In this installment, the four civilizations of the first game plus its expansion, the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Norse and the Atlantenas are now pitted against the Chinese and the Mesoamericans as well. While the previous civilizations merely received an aesthetic makeover and balance changes, ranging from minor (the Norse's Ulfskarl can be recruited in the Town Centre) to critical (for instance, making Egyptians able to build the same kind of monument more than once, in order to gather Favour faster), the two new civilizations introduced their own specific playstyle: while the Chinese rely on gold/jade gathering to get Favour and have armies based on having myth units boosting the human and siege units; the Mesoamericans gather favour by killing either their own units or the captured enemy's thanks to a new mechanic making unit conversion and capture possible, with no proper base building (as the villagers, much like the Atlanteans', don't have to drop off resources back at the base, producing all human units by turning their very cheap villagers into units and having myth units being produced at the Altar, where they also gain favour from sacrifices, while also lacking of any proper base defense). Currently, the game is considered rather unbalanced in disfavour of the Mesoamericans, and the changes brought the expesion The Aspects (introducing the Indians) haven't helped.