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

GTW64 Xmas update for 2020

The yearly tradition of a large GTW64 xmas site update continues, even if this year has been pretty shite overall. We kick off with the following updates for you:

41 new entries added

A ton of new entries, mostly with downloads for you to check out of various previews that have been floating around for some time but may have passed you by. Ultrabulb is worth a look – a previously unknown Gremlin Graphics game.

Bad, Brain Tumour, City Champ, Coloris, CubeSim64, Eelona – The Warrior Princess, Flex, FootMan, Immensity, Jagged Sword, Jump-Kid, Jumpy64, Katabatia, Lingo, Mad Crash Racing, Mad Ninja, Mario Clone, Mario Run, Minimus, Misfire, Motorman, Mr. Pilic, On Table, Oolong, Outbreak, Oxygen Racer, Pac Man Arcade, Paku Paku, Phantasm, Proxima, Rip Off, Space Ball, Squad Force Five, Squirm 2, Squost, Star Fighter, Star-Wars, The Last War Brains, The Lost Vikings, The Sixth Sense, Ultrabulb

17 entry updates added

Then the usual updates for a number of posts, including tidy ups and new scans.

3 Days In Carpathia, Alloyrun, Atlantian, Bubble Blaster, Defensive, Dux, Futureball, Great Giana Sisters, Klartz and the Dark Forces, Nightbreed RPG, Nuclear War, Outrage, Pipe Mania 2: Plumber’s World, Play and Learn series, Savage Platforms, Teladon, Total Recall V1


Not C64 related, but over the past few months we have been adding a plethora of new content, detailed write ups and assets for a number of different platforms. Most of these are in relation to articles covered in the book and assets that didn’t make it to print. There are also a number of multi-format posts which you may want to check out via the links below:

As you can see, we didn’t get to dig out any new big C64 findings in time for the update, which was mostly due to being tied up over the past few months with the release of the Games That Weren’t book and committing to adding bonus content to the site which was referenced in the book. Just hasn’t been time i’m afraid. The aim is to resume trying to find more lost C64 titles once more in the new year, now things are beginning to settle.

However, my good friend Vinny Mainolfi has come to the rescue this year and has two previously unreleased and complete games being released as part of his Xmas newsletter to subscribers to FREEZE64. These are in the shape of Trooper (by Barbarian 2 developer Rob Stevens) and Winning Streak with graphics by Jon Temples (artist for CJ’s Elephant Antics). This is along with some new titles as part of his Christmas pack to supporters. Well worth checking out at https://freeze64.com/

Finally – thank you to everyone for all their support during 2020 and for those especially who have brought the book and shared their love of it online and personally. It has meant a great deal seeing all the positive reviews and photos, and has been very humbling. Happy holidays to you all and here’s hoping for a more positive 2021!

Frank.
(Long suffering GTW webmaster!)

Posted in: GTW64 news | 2 Comments

Arabian Nights early screens and assets

Thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz, we present a series of earlier screens from Arabian Nights on the Amiga, showing various differences from the final game. I will hand over to Grzegorz to explain what he’s found:

Today I would like to share a page from old magazine “Joystick” from November 1992. There is a preview of Krisalis’ Amiga platform game “Arabian Nights” (released in 1993).”

 

In the preview, you can see how different the main protagonist looks. His red fez in the early version has some white material, plus his face was more chubby. All pictures from preview show different parts of the first level, and layout was not changed in released version. Continue reading

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

Guerrilla War

1989 Imagine Software

Platforms: Atari ST and Commodore Amiga

I never played the SNK arcade, but remember seeing the terrible Commodore 64 conversion by Sentient Software and wondering just how it got past quality control at Ocean Software at the time.

Also in production though were conversions for the Commodore Amiga and Atari ST platforms. It seems that these were being arranged by Ocean France, and the work was subcontracted out to a team called Prestasoft, which only seemed to have the one game to its name – Expressing.

Apart from adverts, nothing much was mentioned or shown of the conversions at all, especially in the UK press. It would be the French press which would see exclusive screenshots of at least the Atari ST edition.

1

Continue reading

Posted in: Atari ST, Reviews | Tagged: | 3 Comments

Ramrod

1987-1991 Gremlin Graphics

Platforms: Commodore Amiga and Atari ST
Credits: Richard Costello (Lead developer), Bill Allen (Arena subgame developer), Andy Bryant (Gun subgame developer), Kevin Bulmer (Artist) and Ben Daglish (Music and FX)

For years, screenshots from magazines have taunted us for the many games that got away from us, and none more so than Ramrod by Gremlin Graphics. Previewed in the likes of Zzap!64, Zero and various other magazines over the years – we salivated over the wonderful Marble Madness‘esq graphics with a character that looked like the distant cousin of Robocop.

RAMTITLE
The actual title screen from Ramrod in its full and proper pixel glory.

Continue reading

Posted in: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | 4 Comments

Assassin early screens

A quick post thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz, with some images showing some minor differences and what seem to be some unused assets not seen in the final game.

The One magazine showed a preview with some early screens, one showing screens with a mountain background layer. In the final game, that level section would feature just plain blue sky and some small white clouds.

Clipboard03

Continue reading

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

Alien Breed 3D unused assets and early screens

A quick post thanks to Grzegorz Antosiewicz, with a series of screenshots and magazine scans showing unused assets and features not found in the final version of Alien Breed 3D. The game was previewed in many magazines during 1995, with some of the most interesting screens being shown in CU Amiga magazine. The first preview is from March 1995:

Differences: Continue reading
Posted in: Commodore Amiga, Unused materials | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Dragon

1988 Firebird and then Electronic Arts

Platform: Atari ST (and likely Commodore Amiga)

An impressive looking title which featured a massive dragon main character, which took up most of the screen. This was to be a second title signed up by Firebird from ICOM Simulations, along with Blazing Barrels (which also never saw release).

dragon2

The game was shown briefly in a few magazines, and TelecomSoft’s Richard Hewison recalls seeing the game on the ST and how simple it was:

“Dragon was never advertised, and the development version on the ST was extremely simple. Basically, on the left you saw a castle with a drawbridge. The drawbridge was open, and a large dragon sprite could walk along the drawbridge and back. That was about it! The whole thing looked and felt a little bit like ‘Black Lamp’ which Firebird had only published earlier the same year (1988).

I have no recollection as to what happened to the deal with ICOM (UK) Ltd. It might have still been active when BT sold the labels to MicroProse, or the deal might have already been dead.”

Continue reading

Posted in: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

Cyber Assault

1990 ARC

Platforms: Atari ST and Commodore Amiga

Cyber Assault was a vector-based obstacle course game announced by ARC. In the game you must control a character called TRAX (an exo-skeletal humanoid), who can run, jump and walk through a 3D universe. Impressively he would have displayed over 70 faces animated accurately at 15 frames per second.

3 2

The story would go that years ago, you murdered a civi-cop and were then imprisoned for life. Once a year, the worst prisoner is given the chance of freedom by entering the Cyber Assault. A deadly obstacle course race. Win and you are free. Fail and you are a dead man. Continue reading

Posted in: Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, Reviews | Tagged: | Leave a comment

MARSOC: US Marine Corps Special Ops

2010 Zombie Studios

Platforms: Microsoft Xbox 360, PC and Sony PlayStation 3

As part of the launch and release of The Games That Weren’t book, we are adding assets and content that didn’t make it to print as bonus DLC content to share with you.

Within the book is an in-depth and detailed 16 page story about the ambitious MARSOC development by Zombie Studios. A game inspired by titles such as Gears of War and Call of Duty, the title would set you within the lawless port of Massawa, Eritrea – hunting down a dangerous warlord called Limbano.

marsoc video shot 1

We talk to Zombie Studios founder Mark Long, senior level designer Erik Bretz, producer John Williamson about the promising development, which at one point had been picked up by SEGA for publication. You can read the full story about the development in the Games That Weren’t book.

Continue reading

Posted in: Bonus, Microsoft Xbox 360, PC, Reviews, Sony PlayStation 3 | Tagged: | Leave a comment