The best games that were never released

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Of course, there is usually a good reason why games are cancelled in the middle of development, many are those who have met that fate, but there are also a lot of cases where at least I think it may have been a little undeserved and hasty. It is of course extremely difficult to know how these games would have turned out in the end, there are no guarantees that any of them would have been good. So I am of course speculating wildly here based entirely on the potential I saw in these now sadly defunct projects. There are a lot of interesting titles that sadly never saw the light of day and it's always interesting to think about what could have been even if it's basically pretty hopeless. You may have shed a tear or two while reading about some of these five titles below.

Silent Hills/P.T. (Konami)

What we got promised something tremendous, a short playable teaser that scared the crap out of anyone who dared to play it. It was scary, it was atmospheric and so full of potential. Hideo Kojima's take on Silent Hill was something the gaming world really needed, something we deserved to play. I really, really wanted to practically shit myself with fear. But as we all know, Kojima and Konami had a major falling out, which led to him leaving the giant, probably for good. Ten years have now passed and instead we got Death Stranding even though Silent Hill has awoken from its hibernation I can't help but wonder what might have been if Kojima and Konami had stayed together. In all likelihood we'll never know.

Fable Legends (Lionhead Studios)

I love Fable, despite all the flaws and despite everything Peter Molyneux promised but could never keep. Fable Legends felt incredibly ambitious and actually came really far. With a budget of 75 million dollars, we at least got a closed multiplayer beta. The whole thing would take place several hundred years before the original trilogy and focus considerably more on co-operation between four heroes, either you could play alone and fill in the other slots with AI or friends could join online. It was an interesting concept and by all accounts it was pretty much a done deal when Microsoft instead chose to cancel the expensive project altogether. The reasons were that it was too expensive and that the interest from the players themselves was not quite at the level expected. At the same time, Lionhead was also cancelled, perhaps they had also tired of all Peter Molyneaux's crazy promises.

The Last of Us: Factions (Naughty Dog)

The fact that this one is on the list really stings, I'll be honest. What was once described as Naughty Dog's most ambitious project ever ended up being scrapped after years of development. The mere thought of playing a porkier version of the still somewhat underrated multiplayer mode Factions from the first game got me incredibly excited, as I spent well over a hundred hours on that mode. But then people started talking about how problematic the development was, Bungie had reviewed the project and then Naughty Dog laid off a lot of people and more or less declared the game dead even then. Right then and there, I knew deep down that The Last of Us Online would never happen, but I continued to live in denial until it was officially confirmed. It will take me a while to get over this disappointment, that's for sure.

Darkborn (The Outsiders)

The Swedish Stockholm-based indie studio The Outsiders had something really interesting going on with their debut Darkborn. The premise was that you played as a race hated by the Vikings where your fellow species are slaughtered senselessly by these barbarians. The idea was that you would start your bloody quest for revenge as a small and relatively harmless monster puppy that relies on sneaking up on the Vikings and then slowly grow and unlock new abilities during the game to finally become a very terrifying and powerful predator. It feels like this could have been a really good game, but it was obviously over the top, and David Goldfarb has said in retrospect that it was the decision to do it in an open world that was its downfall. The fact that they then also broke with the publisher Take-Two did not improve the odds either as it also became a financial issue. 2020 they therefore pulled the cord and went on with other projects instead.

LMNO (Electronic Arts)

This is the game I'm least sure would have turned out well in the end among those already mentioned, despite Steven Spielberg being involved in a corner. It seems to have been planned to be a blissful mix between parkour, role-playing elements and adventure so maybe that was a bit overambitious too. That said, I'm still extremely curious about what it could have looked like and especially what it would have been like to play it. It would have been quite interesting to rescue an alien and then take it on a road trip, a bit like the film Paul but most likely much more serious? I think so anyway, but at the same time I don't think it would have gone down well with the general public, EA probably didn't think so either and in 2010 they announced that they had cancelled the project.

Which defunct game would you like to play if you could choose freely?