The history of video games is filled with missed opportunities, but to the surprise of many it turns out an X-Men game was canceled in the height of its popularity at the turn of the century. While there have been plenty of X-Men games since which have had varied success, the opportunity to pit X-Men against each other would have surely been exciting. It is unclear why the game was canceled but it did have some promising aspects.

The X-Men comic series began in 1963 and followed a mutant school as they battled world-ending enemies and social discrimination. Since this point, the comic book franchise grew and by 2000 it was furthering its reach with the beginning of a very successful film series. While this X-Men game may not have benefitted from the film release as they weren't tied together, the general popularity of the characters would likely have helped the game commercially.

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The game, developed by Spyrox Developments in 1999, used 3-D movements while conforming to more traditional 2-D fighting mechanics. On top of this interesting take on the fighting genre, the game would feature every X-Men character that would feature in the 2000 film as well as fan favorites such as Gambit and Beast. The unfinished footage shows a game in the early stages of development and it may have been canceled early because of the upcoming film, or it may have been too much of a push to have the fighting mechanics in 3-D. Alternatively, funding may have been pulled from the project if the publishers felt that the game would be another bad superhero video game.

Despite its early stages of development, this sounds like a missed gaming opportunity and may well have been a fan favorite. In 2001, X-Men: Mutant Academy was released which used the principles that the Spyrox Developments team had in mind. It is possible that funding was pulled from the original project and invested into a more promising demo. Either way, Spyrox Developments moved away from video games shortly after this venture into superhero games.

While fans will wonder what could have been, the X-Men: Mutant Academy games are a good indicator of how the game would have turned out. Despite a similar title to compare the title with, features like pitting characters against themselves in alternate costumes would have likely excited fans in 1999 and many fans of the X-Men franchise would still like to see a new game with these mechanics. Many titles go forgotten and this one seems to have been lost well before fans could begin to imagine how it would turn out.

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