Canceled games are seemingly a dime a dozen. What good does it do to dwell on what could have been? While these projects will probably forever remain in ruin, it doesn’t mean their existence, or lack thereof, is worthless. For those interested in trivia, come, take a quick tour down the forgotten road of what could have been instant PlayStation classics. As a side note, most of this information was uncovered through Unseen64, which has an awesome database of lost footage and concept art. If this piece is to your liking, we urge readers to check it out.
10 Lufia 3: Ruins Chaser
The Lufia series often gets forgotten as one of the SNES’ best RPG series even though it had diminishing returns past this era. It could have been bigger though. See Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals launched in North America in 1996. At the 1998 Tokyo Game Show in Japan, Lufia 3: Ruins Chaser was revealed for the PS1 with some art and a short video. Sadly that was all that was ever revealed before it was quietly canceled in favor of creating the Game Boy Color game, Lufia: The Legend Returns, in 2001.
9 Cortex Chaos
Even though Naughty Dog left the Crash Bandicoot series behind on the PS1, the series continued through other developers. One of which was Traveler's Tales, who are now more known for their LEGO games. A pitch was discovered for a game called Cortex Chaos for the PS2 that would have been a spinoff starring Dr. Neo Cortex. Since the team already experimented with using him as a main character in Crash Twinsanity, it wasn't that weird of an idea. It looks like it would have been like Pikmin, but with Cortex's clones instead of adorable plant minions.
8 Final Fantasy Fortress
Final Fantasy, be it a main title or a spinoff, is usually still handled by Square Enix internally. So with that said, this game was being handled by GRIN, a Western studio. The codename was actually just Fortress, but was indeed based on a new interpretation of Final Fantasy.
One that was darker and more action-packed. There's a lot to cover on this story, but basically all the work completed was not viewed highly from Japan so eventually, the budget ran out for this PS3 and Xbox 360 dream project. At the very least we got some awesome concept art.
7 Heartland
Incognito Entertainment was going to develop a PSP first-person shooter called Heartland, which was first conceived as Homeland. For those unaware, David Jaffe, the man behind the Twisted Metal series and the original God of War, founded Incognito Entertainment. This was a subsidiary of Sony's various gaming studios. The game, as the name might hint at, would have involved taking back North America from China. Even though it had a big backing behind it, it didn't get off the ground too far as almost no footage or art exists.
6 BioShock Tactics
Ken Levine, creator of BioShock and head of Irrational Games, revealed at the E3 2011 Sony show that his team was working on a game for the PS Vita set in the BioShock universe. That is literally the only thing ever publicly released. The next update fans would get would be of its cancelation in 2014. Afterward, it was also unveiled that it was going to be a tactical RPG set in Rapture before the chaos started. This was revealed via some tweets Levine sent out also in 2014.
5 Resident Evil: Alien
That’s not the title at all, but more of a clever callout to what could have been. See before developer Creative Assembly started Alien: Isolation, they pitched Capcom their idea for a Resident Evil game. All that is known about the game is that they wanted to involve Jill Valentine and there is also the three concept images as seen above.
That is all, unfortunately. So this is more like a game that never existed more so than a canceled game, but the idea of this team making something akin to Alien: Isolation has us dreaming. Presumably, this would have been a PS4 and Xbox One game.
4 Metallica: Damage Inc
While bands have received video game tie-ins before like The Beatles and Green Day getting their own Rock Band editions, it is harder to find action games based around groups. It is not unheard of though as is the case with Revolution X with Aerosmith and Moonwalker with Michael Jackson. Point is this PS2 exclusive was going to be a post-apocalyptic racing game starring Metallica. As is the case with most of these, plans fell through before any more than concept art hit the table. It is unknown how involved Metallica ever was.
3 Tomb Raiders
While multiplayer was dabbled with in testing phases throughout the Tomb Raider series, it was never implemented until 2010's Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light. Just before this, another game was being conceived, which was codenamed Raiders. It would have also been co-op, but would have remained truer to the original games. That is to say, it would have been a third-person action-adventure game and not top-down for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. The craziest part was that players would become Lara Croft’s clones! There is no art other than some title mock-ups using assets from Resident Evil and Aeon Flux.
2 Contra Online
Believe it, or not, Konami wanted to make a multiplayer-focused Contra game aptly titled Contra Online. As bizarre as this would have been on PC, PS2, and Xbox systems, it actually would have made some sense. After all, Contra was one of the first big military versus alien shooters around way before DOOM and Halo. It would have been a natural evolution for the series, but sadly not much made it past planning stages. There is only one sad screenshot that looks like it came from the VR training portion of Metal Gear Solid.
1 Jak & Daxter 4
Another Naughty Dog franchise that was abandoned past its original platform was Jak and Daxter. Unlike Crash Bandicoot though it really didn't continue except for two PSP spinoffs from other teams. There are HD remakes on PS3, but no new games on the system, but there was going to be a fourth title and it was from Naughty Dog internally. This was post Uncharted. The plan was to reboot the franchise and make it even grittier. However, that grit was used in favor for a new project instead aka The Last of Us. Maybe after the second game they can try again.