10 Incredible Video Games That Never Existed
Cancelled before their time.
Often, a smaller company will struggle to convince a larger publisher into taking a chance on an unproven concept. Publishers are cautious, especially when it comes to spending money; they expect immediate returns on their investments, and their expectations are often unrealistic, or downright implausible.
In some cases, the cost of actually producing a game will exceed initial predictions, and in these instances, a publisher might choose to axe an upcoming title, rather than allow for it to come to fruition.
Ultimately, the decision to cancel a video game is about cutting losses, or at least, potential losses. Sometimes, the game in question is much anticipated, and would likely achieve a degree of commercial success, but that alone isn’t enough to guarantee its survival. In some instances, a game is cancelled for seemingly no reason whatsoever, or because of something utterly arbitrary, like a disagreement over artistic direction.
Whatever the reason, the following titles were all cancelled before their time, and will remain incomplete forever - or at least the foreseeable future. Some of them had trailers, and some even had playable demos, but none made it onto store shelves. They were abandoned in an unfinished state, and while many of them might have turned out excellently, we’ll simply never know what could have been.
With that said, here are 10 incredible video games that never existed, but certainly should have…
10. Silent Hills
Announced in 2014, Silent Hills was heavily
anticipated, and was planned to be the ninth instalment in the Silent Hill
franchise. Directed by Hideo Kojima and Guillermo Del Toro, the game was unveiled
via a playable teaser, entitled P.T., which tasked players with navigating
their way through a haunted house, which functioned as though a cyclical
labyrinth, growing steadily more eerie over time.
Solving the final puzzle of the teaser (which was downright impossible) revealed the title for the upcoming project, as well as several other crucial details. However, following the completion of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Silent Hills was cancelled due to a dispute between Konami and Kojima, and though the details of that dispute are unconfirmed, it resulted in Kojima leaving the company altogether for pastures new.
In some alternate reality somewhere, Silent Hills was finished and released, and in all likelihood, it’s one of my favourite games. P.T. alone won multiple awards, and was downloaded over a million times prior to its removal from PSN.
Can you even imagine how successful it would have been? Representing a dream collaboration between several prominent creators including legendary manga artist, Junji Ito, Silent Hills was all set to take the world by storm. Alas, we’ll never know... but we can dream.