Games That Weren't^®

Also known as Chaos at one point, Kanaan was a 1st/3rd person shooter due to be published on PC by Ubisoft, and developed by Argonaut. It was cancelled when very close to completion.

The game is already well covered by our friends at Unseen64, though reader Werta Best has been on a mission for many years now to try and recover remains of the game as part of an ambitious project.

From magazine screenshots, details and various promotional art recovered, Werta and his team have been painstakingly trying to make a complete recreation of the title, which you can see some progress of further below.

Although progress for this recreation has been impressive, the team are starting to hit brick walls and are hoping to find more assets, or even some playable builds of the original game to help with their efforts.

In particular, the team are trying to find a technical demo that was shown at E3 1998 in Atlanta, as well as raw original screenshots that were printed in EDGE magazine back in September 1998. However, anything in relation to the game from old backups and drives would be very welcome indeed.

Some prototypes have surfaced of other Argonaut titles from a user known as TheWiseBitMonkey, though they have confirmed not to have anything of Kanaan in their archives.

Contact attempts with a number of past Argonaut developers and artists have so far drawn blanks, so if you know anything more about the game or who might have something to help Werta’s efforts, then please do get in touch!

Just to update, in July 2022 – Werta found a short official trailer of the game, probably planned for E3 in 1998. The video was included in a promo CD from UBISoft:

Here is an update of progress by Werta in October 2022:

Here is a 25th anniversary post on the game:

Then finally, here is a recent update from Werta in November 2023:

“Today I have finished the most complicated 3D object from the game promo screenshots. Originally it was captured only in two screenshots in 1998. It consists of about 1000 polygons. Look on and enjoy these screenshots…”

We have added the new object screens thanks to Werta to the gallery below. You can follow any other updates here at the Old-Games forum.

Gallery sample of some of the restoration work so far by Werta