Welcome to Games That Weren't!

We are an Cancelled & Unreleased Video games archive with prototypes, developer history and assets for many computers and consoles of all ages. A non-profit large archive dedicated to preserving lost games that were never released to the public. Sharing history and stories from the developers, assets and more before it is too late. GTW has been preserving lost video game history online since 1999, and long before that offline.

Please Browse our archive and discover the many entries that we host for many different platforms.

Latest News and Posts

Champions

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1992 Konami / Hero Software

Platform: PC (DOS), Amiga and Apple Mac

Champions was a RPG table-top title created by Hero Games originally back in 1981. Setting you within a superhero/comic book themed world, it won a legion of fans, who continue to enjoy the game to this day.

Back in the early 90’s, its popularity resulted in the planned creation of a computerized PC edition of the game, and was set to be published by Konami. According to one magazine article, there were plans for Amiga and Mac versions too.

champions2

Kicking things off, you would set up your character with an initial allocation of “points” given to you to spend. Along with some basic characteristics, you would pick a mask, colour of outfit, power effects and even dialogue for interactions before jumping into the comic book world. Continue reading →

Posted in: Apple Macintosh, Commodore Amiga, PC, Reviews | Tagged: | 7 Comments

Making of the not making of Heart of Yesod

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Steve Wetherill has just created a post with details of Heart of Yesod, including the raw original Q&A that was used to aid producing the write up the GTW book. The design document from 1989 has also been typed up and tidied up, which you can check out at:

https://blog.stevewetherill.com/2022/01/heart-of-yesod-game-that-wasnt.html

Steve’s blog also contains a number of articles about his past work and projects that should definitely be checked out!

Posted in: News | Leave a comment

Myth: History in the Making V1

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Following on from the recent console cancellation of Myth covered on the site, team member Grzegorz Antosiewicz got in touch to highlight a series of changes to the Amiga/ST editions of Myth. What follows is based mostly on the text which Grzegorz submitted and after briefly speaking in the past to Robin Levy and Paul Docherty.

Firstly, it is believed there were roughly distinctive three phases of development for Myth on the Amiga/ST platforms:

1. A simple port of the Commodore 64 game for both Amiga and Atari with similar art style.
2. A first phase of change for art style and gameplay.
3. A second (and likely final) change of art style and gameplay.

Phase 1

During the first phase, System 3 had Bob Stevenson on board as the main graphic artist. At this stage, the game was going to be released for both Atari and Amiga. The game would have more colours compared to the C64 version of course, but with the same main hero just like in the C64 version.

myth large4

There were early press previews in “Zero” and “The One” magazine showing this version, where there was going to be picture of girl in the intro, and she would welcome the player with a digitalized voice sample like in the C64 edition. Continue reading →

Posted in: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Rygar Lynx prototype

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Next up is a short entry for a potential prototype to try and find, thanks to Ross Sillifant for highlighting. When you take a look at the original Tecmo arcade, and various home conversions – you will notice that pretty much all (we haven’t checked every single format) have 5 power-up slots in total. All that is except for the Atari Lynx version:

rygar emushot

Above you can see there are only 4 power up slots, which is fair enough – the Lynx has a smaller screen compared to other formats, so a reasonable thing. Continue reading →

Posted in: Atari Lynx, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Anirog brochures

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Several years ago, whilst preserving The Soul Gem Or Martek for the Commodore 64, we also scanned in some brochures and a club magazine from Anirog software. These don’t seem to be online anywhere, so we have added a page here to share this history with you.

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They give a fascinating insight to what the company was releasing at the time and behind the scenes a little with its club magazine. We hope you enjoy them via the galleries below.

Continue reading →

Posted in: Preservation | 1 Comment

Dark Chamber

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1989 Rainbow Games

Platform: Arcade

Already we have seen a few entries into Games That Weren’t which are arcade releases that were being done by console/home computer software companies, such as Zool, Fire and Forget 2 and The Living Daylights. However, Germany’s Rainbow Arts was also to get in on the act back in 1989.

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The publisher had produced its very own arcade motherboard called Pluto, which offered 128 colours per scan line and per playfield and with a resolution up to 640×480 pixels. Up to 50 million pixels could be moved per second, and there would be hardware zoom and turning features available.

All of this was coupled with a 32-bit processor at 15mhz, 16-channel stero sound and an I/O expansion area for hardware additions in the future. Continue reading →

Posted in: Arcade, Reviews | Tagged: | 3 Comments

Myth: History in the Making

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

1998 System 3

Platform: Sony PlayStation, PC, Nintendo 64 and SEGA Saturn

A fantastic game which I have very fond memories playing on my Commodore 64, Myth: History in the Making was due to be revived by System 3 for the Sony PlayStation and various other platforms back in 1998.

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Sporting what seems to be a similar engine to The Last Ninja (also in production around the same time), the game got hit with delays due to a dispute with Eidos regarding the name ‘Myth’ (of which Eidos had released a game of a similar name on the PC by Bungie Software). In one news snippet in Extreme PlayStation Magazine, it is suggested that the Eidos game would tarnish the name of ‘Myth’ for System 3. Continue reading →

Posted in: Nintendo 64, PC, Reviews, SEGA Saturn, Sony PlayStation | Tagged: | 1 Comment

GTW64 Xmas 2021 update

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Thank you to everyone for their continued support to Games That Weren’t this past year, as we conclude with our yearly update (and larger than our usually monthly update). Plenty to digest and check out and hope you enjoy it!

Gyro Shoc released

A little Christmas present to you all, thanks to Sailor and Taper of Triad. This is a game based loosely on ideas from Dropzone and Wizball, and was developed by Chris Young.

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This release and update is dedicated to our friend Jason Kelk, who passed away in June this year and who was originally going to tidy up the game for GTW to release.

Gyro Shoc Continue reading →

Posted in: GTW64 news | Leave a comment

Rage – early differences

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking
Rage is a neat first person shooter that was released between 2010-12 for various platforms including PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It is a favourite of team member Grzegorz Antosiewicz, who decided to do some research on how the game had changed during its development.
 
The game was in a long development cycle and had a multitude of changes, including Electronic Arts pulling out from being the game’s published. Bethesda stepped in to help id Software, with versions then required as well for PS3 and Xbox 360.
 
Grzegorz talks through some of the differences he has found compared to the final game via a series of trailer videos over the years, starting from as early as 2007:
 
id Tech 5 Engine Demo HD.flv – 2007

 
“3D cactus models at this point. It is hard to say if the other foliage looks better here or in the final version. It is possible that during only the PC development period, the engine supported more different plants types/foliage based on 3D models. The finished game mostly uses 2d sprites for grass, bushes and smaller trees, sometimes as simple single brushes or two connected brushes.”

Continue reading →

Posted in: Microsoft Xbox 360, PC, Sony PlayStation 3, Unused materials | Tagged: | 1 Comment

Breathless early assets

Posted: , last updated: by Frank Gasking

Breathless is a FPS game for the Amiga that was released in late 1995, and was shown in the press a lot at the time over the years.

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As a result, there were a number of early screens and demos that had features that didn’t make it into the final game. Grzegorz Antosiewicz has kindly gone through various demos and magazine previews to highlight some of those differences below. Continue reading →

Posted in: Commodore Amiga, Prototype, Unused materials | Tagged: | Leave a comment