Welcome to Games That Weren't 64!
We cover Cancelled & Unreleased Video games for the Commodore 64 computer. A non-profit large archive dedicated to preserving lost games that were never released to the public, as well as prototypes and the odd preservation of released titles. Our aim to share history and stories from the developers, assets and more before it is too late. GTW has been preserving lost video game history since 1999.
Please Browse our archive and discover the many entries that we host and have saved over the years.
Latest News and Posts
IK+ design and development notes
For the past year, we have been preserving Archer Maclean’s legacy, saving his source code and various design notes. You can see some of our examples here of recent work as we start to take a look at prototypes and unused materials.
On the request of Chris Wilkins of Fusion Retro Books, we have preserved many work disks of Archer’s – but have also scanned in a plethora of documents and notes which Archer created as he developed his games. These give a fascinating insight into Archer’s process and attention to detail when developing the game. Continue reading
Games That Weren’t featured in 2025 Zzap!64 annual!
The 2025 Zzap!64 annual has arrived and looks great! The biggest surprise was the six page Games That Weren’t tribute feature by Ian Osborne, who had created the article that inspired it all. Talking about how some of the titles in his article were expanded upon.
I kept over the years misspelling Ian’s surname, and seems there were more I’d missed from old write ups on the site. Now fixed, and my apologies once more Ian. I can assure there are no more misspellings and I’ve double checked. Thank you so much for the lovely words!
Order your copy at https://fusionretrobooks.com/collections/2025annuals/products/zzap-64-annual-2025
GTW Highlight No.19: Hydrogenese recovered on the Commodore 64
GTW Highlight No.19: September finally saw the long lost Hydrogenese on the Commodore 64 recovered by CBA/SCS+TRC. A brilliant early look at what could have been an amazing space shooter!
Read more about the title at:
https://gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/hydrogenese/
GTW Highlight No.18: Recovery of AtariSoft’s Stargate (Commodore 64)
GTW Highlight No.18: September was busy, and also saw the recovery of AtariSoft’s Stargate on the Commodore 64 at GTW thanks to Ken Van Mersbergen. Check out Tom Griner’s long lost conversion for yourself at:
https://gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/stargate/
GTW Highlight No.12: The Godfather breakthroughs (SEGA Master System)
GTW Highlight No.12: June was certainly busy, and we did a huge investigation into The Godfather on the Sega Master System + others. It vanished after a rough first cut that wasn’t up to scratch. We made some big breakthroughs in terms of who worked on it:
https://gamesthatwerent.com/2024/06/the-godfather/
GTW Highlight No.03: IK and IK+ prototypes saved (Commodore 64)
GTW Highlight No.3: Our annual #Commodore64 Christmas update saw various International Karate and IK+ prototypes recovered, with other Archer Maclean materials and many other games preserved for the first time. What will we have this year I wonder?
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2023/12/gtw64-christmas-update-2023/
Rubicon unused loading screen
A quick unused materials post today, where The Sarge recently released an unused Rubicon loading screen for the Commodore 64 via their Fairlight Demo called The Demo Coder.
With thanks to Jazzcat for flagging up!
GTW64 November 2024 update
A smaller update this month, but our next and last update of 2024 should hopefully be a lot bigger. See you then! ;-)
2 new entries added
Roadwars V2, The Scarlet Pimpernel
11 updates added
Allaxmax, Around the World in 80 Days, Charlie Chaplin, Cityfighter, Crossfire Canyon, Cybowormz, Genesis, Ivanhoe, Sagan Om Ringen, Stargate, Unicorn Software titles
Modulus C64 game fully restored to full glory after 25 years!
Not technically a Game That Wasn’t, but a lovely story from Ready64, where Modulus on the Commodore 64 was released with content missing, so it was not possible to complete.
One of the coders Ivan Del Duca has now restored it to full glory. More details and download can be found here:
https://ready64.org/recensioni/leggi_recensione.php?idrec=75
Sonic the Hedgehog
1991 U.S. Gold
Platforms: ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 (GTW64 entry), Amiga, Atari ST, PC
Back in the days before SEGA’s trusty blue mascot appeared on the scene, the company would licence its various games to the likes of Activision, and U.S. Gold – resulting in conversions of Afterburner, Outrun and many more for home computers of the time.
When Sonic first appeared, it blew everyone away – including U.S. Gold, who were keen to snag the home computer rights quickly, and were very confident that they would get them given their current relationship with SEGA. Continue reading
