The Last Job (PS2, Xbox) - Games That Weren't

2005 Acclaim Studios Cheltenham

Platforms: Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox

Our next entry into the archive is one where very little is known, but today that is about to change at Games That Weren’t with The Last Job. Not only with details about the game, but an exclusive preview build that you can now download and check out for yourself.

As time has gone on since the start of the games industry, the size of the games being produced have meant sadly much larger casualties with a larger impact. Games which have had a year or more spent on them with often tens to hundreds of people putting their life and soul into it – just to be discarded. This sadly would be the case with The Last Job.

Previously known during development as “The Heist”, the game was developed at Acclaim Cheltenham and was worked on by many people (thought to be around 40 people). Over time we will be speaking to many of those involved to create a detailed historical piece on the game.

The game was shown behind closed doors at E3 in 2004 and had some press coverage, but not that much unfortunately. Although the game was planned for release on the Xbox, the lead platform would be the Sony PlayStation 2.

It was pitched as an action adventure title, which puts you in control of a crew of four talented criminals – each with their own unique set of skills. Out for revenge, the crew wants to steal as much money as possible. At this point the game had been in development for approximately a year, and included scenarios such as ripping off warehouses, robbing yachts, raiding race tracks and clearing out exhibitions.

You would be confronted by security guards, police, SWAT teams – all via a 3rd person viewpoint where you can dive over desks, take cover behind objects to avoid gun fire, before unleashing your own and taking out people along the way.

Within the game you would also control 4 different roles on each mission via parallel play. Basically, this is where each job would be split into “phases”, allowing you to play as all of the crew and interact with your own previous performances on previous tasks by the other members.

As an example, if you do not guard the foyer area well – then your hacker crew member has very little time left to then hack the vault. If you then don’t hack the vault quickly enough, you’ll then have even less time to grab what you came to steal.

A lot of time and research was put into the design, where Acclaim had brought in ex-SAS member John McAleese for a two day team building/training exercise to teach about 20 or so of the team about how special forces people think. The team were also heavily inspired by Michael Mann’s Heat.

Development was generally smooth, though the design would chop and change as time went on, which would cause a few delays during development. Unfortunately, whilst making very good progress – Acclaim closed its doors in August 2004, which saw Acclaim Cheltenham and all its projects closed and cancelled. The game was thought to be around only 40% complete at the time.

Thoughts of The Last Job would disappear, until a build turned up at Games That Weren’t in 2024 thanks to a kind donation from Stuart Maine (a level designer for the game). This would be a backup of the final version on the PlayStation 2 when the game was cancelled. As a result, we have got in touch with many involved and will be producing a detailed piece on the game in the future.

However, in the meantime – you can now checkout the promise of the game for yourself and see just how hard the team had been working on trying to produce a great heist game.

If you start the prototype using the X button, then you can play most of the “Old Bank” levels and some of the story line. It is very glitchy at this stage though, which is understandable given the completion status, and you will occasionally fall out of the level maps. However, using triangle button, you can access a level/scenario select menu to check out other areas.

All the areas included are:

Motel
Old Bank
Dockyard
Convoy Heist
New Bank
Casino
Airstrip
Mansion

The other areas though are not complete – some are missing files too, but with a second controller you can navigate around some of the early maps for a glimpse. A lot of these areas we have filmed in our YouTube video showcasing the prototype.

We’ll have more soon, but we hope you enjoy the prototype and please do let us know via the comments or contact form if you find anything interesting and we’ll add to the page over time!

With huge thanks to Stuart Maine for helping us to save remains of the game and Kristian Jones for initial information about the title and some of the graphical assets.

Download

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