10 Video Game Franchises KILLED By Development Hell
3. Turok
The Nintendo 64 didn’t have many first person shooters but it at least had Turok; the dinosaur battling Rambo-like warrior whose games were a welcome addition to the console’s line-up.
When original publisher Acclaim went bankrupt in 2005, the fate of the Turok series was a big question mark. Gladly, Disney and Touchstone Interactive swept in to not just pick up the rights but also to develop a brand new futuristic take.
Review scores were pretty average but the new Turok showed surprising promise for a reboot and its marketing and name value brought in plenty of sales. So much so that, once they had completed work on Tron: Evolution, developers Propaganda Games passionately got to work on a follow-up.
Unlike most on this list, the development hell here is rather cut and dry. Disney decided that the sales of the Turok reboot weren’t enough to keep Propaganda Games open and they closed the studio in 2011, laying off 200 employees. When you look at Disney Interactive Studios published works around that time, the majority of titles were Disney owned IPs and clearly the big mouse was not interested in anything without the name value of, say, Cars or Hannah Montana.
Ouch. The once great dinosaur hunter, slain by a teenage pop star.