We need more horror games, but they can be very difficult to make. There are a ton of cancelled horror games out there. The most famous of them was Silent's Hill's P.T., but we are not going to take about what is well-known. Instead, we are listing cancelled horror games you probably never even knew were ever in development. Some of these were such unknowns or cancelled so early in development that few pictures of them even exist. However, they all had pretty interesting ideas.
So welcome to the graveyard of could-have-beens! Here are ten horror games that were cancelled.
10 InSANE
This horror game was announced in 2010 and was a project under the work of the famous film director, Guillermo del Toro. A single title was not the only thing planned either, they were planning a trilogy of these games that were going to be for the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3. Guy Davis was going to be one of the key designers for the game and he has done amazing work on Crimson Peak, The Shape of Water, and Pacific Rim.
So this game was likely going to be amazing with that kind of talent behind it, but it was announced as cancelled in 2012.
9 Sadness
Cancelled in 2010, this survival horror game was planned for the Wii. It as going to scare its players with more psychological horror rather than violence. It became known that the game's development had a lot of issues with deadlines in its relationships with external developers, which is part of why the game was cancelled.
The game was going to be set in pre-WWI Russia and players would control a Victorian aristocrat who is trying to protect her son after their train crashes in the countryside. The son is blind and the enemies were based on werewolves from Slavic mythology. There were also going to be ten possible endings depending on your in-game choices and actions.
8 Jacks Of Evil
This game was planned for PC and you were going to play as a member of an organization called "Jacks of Evil." The organization was comprised of hunters who kill demons, vampires, zombies, and other monsters. They wanted certain scenes to be randomly generated to add to the horror of not knowing what was going to happen and where. Three to four different endings were also planned.
It is believed that this game got canned because it could not find a publisher. It was in development by Fear Studios from 2003 to 2004.
7 Project Carbondale
This game was planned for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox by SEGA in 2003. There are no pictures of the game, but is was known about because SEGA employees were investigating the Illinois city of Carbondale to get inspiration for a project. The game was going to have aliens land in the city and you have to fight them off. The game designer was going to be Shinichi Ogasawara, who was mostly known for his work on arcade games like Gunblade NY: Special Air Assault Force, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, and The Maze of the Kings. Based on some interviews with Ogasawara, it seems SEGA thought of the project to be sort of a possible rival game to the Resident Evil series.
Unfortunately, this game was being developed in a bad time when focus was more on the next generation of video game tech. It it partly due to that that the game was never green lit to the next stage.
6 Black Death
In development by Darkworks around 2011, this game was going to be similar to Dead Island and Condemned. Darkworks was not well known, but they made games such as Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare and Cold Fear. They had an unfortunate history of cancelled games such as Onechanbara reboot, State of Crisis, and The Deep.
Black Death was their last failure before shutting down. What could have been is a game that was about a mysterious disease that made people comatose and slowly turn into monsters. The developers planned to give the player a lot of freedom, action, and speed.
5 Legions Of Fear
Planned for the PlayStation 2 and PC around 2002, this game was going to be set in WWI. The main protagonist, Helena, was going to be lost in a mysterious mansion called Wildcastle Manor. While lost, she discovers that the dead owner of the house promised to sell Helena's soul to his "masters."
The game was going to be a hybrid between a survival horror and point and click adventure game.
4 Redwood Falls
This game was going to be for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and was in development by Kuju Entertainment in 2006. It seemed very promising, with a cool demo that showed a fully flammable and destructible environment, awesome looking enemies, and promising multiplayer gameplay. The developers had a ton of show after only four months of work and a lot of publishers were impressed.
However, development was shut down in 2007 when Kuju Entertainment was bought out. The new owners of the company were not interested in Redwood Falls and cancelled all of its developments.
3 Sundown
Like Insane, this horror game was a project that involved Guillermo del Toro. Sundown was under development by Terminal Reality for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 with Del Toro as a co-developer. Players were put into an apocalypse and had to survive zombies. According to Del Toro, the game was going to be similar to Left 4 Dead.
The game was eventually postponed for a long time until it was announced as cancelled. The amazing concept art alone turns this cancellation into a tragedy for horror fans.
2 Cleric
In development for the PC by Plutonium Games, this cancelled project seemed unique and promising. It was to be a first-person survival horror game with puzzles, action, and role playing involved. It was going to be released in 2003 but that never happened and it was announced as cancelled in 2004.
What we know about the game is that it was going to take place in 16th century Russia. You play as Reverend Father Aronos Schular who is investigating a zombie outbreak. Your weapons would have been two different holy symbols that had different abilities. Multiple endings were considered depending on player choices.
1 Game Of Death
This game was in development by a German team called Burns Entertainment Software in 2001 and was going to be for PC, Xbox, and the PlayStation 2.
The protagonist was going to be a man dying from a lethal car accident in a hospital. He dreams of a world where you have to defeat serial killers to survive. You also had to kill each of them with their own serial killing methods. However, players were also challenged to not become monsters. You had to keep your "innocence" or else you would die at the end of the game. It was said that there were about 40 serial killer bosses that were going to be in the game.