8 Cancelled Wrestling Video Games

8. WWE Titans: Parts Unknown

Before beginning a fruitful association with Nintendo which resulted in successful spin-offs Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon and a Wii reimagining of Punch-Out!!, Next Level Games pitched a very unorthodox wrestling game to then publishers THQ.

Concept art trawled from the personal portfolios of current and former Next Level staffers unearthed the existence of the proposed WWE Titans: Parts Unknown. The name offers a clue to its direction: the superstars were turned into literally larger-than-life characters, and transported from the ring to highly stylised, fantastical settings based on exaggerated aspects of their personas.

As a taster, an even-more-supersized Triple H called a crumbling castle courtyard his home - replete with trademark iron cross adorning the rug - whilst John Cena was set to duke it out on the rooftops of a murky metropolis. Think WWF WrestleMania: The Arcade Game, but multiplied by about a million.

As intriguing as the Tekken-like take was, publishers THQ weren't keen, and nixed the idea before it could proceed beyond the concept stage.