10 Video Games That Were Cancelled Despite Being Almost Finished

While some cancelations are due to licensing issues or volatile disputes between developer and publishers, the abrupt cancelation of SEGA’s Propeller Arena: Aviation Battle Championship was nothing more than a case of poor timing and unfortunate circumstance.

As the title suggests, Propeller Arena would see players take part in a series of areal dogfights against other aircraft to win the titular championship. It was developed by AM2 and was completed and ready to be released on the Dreamcast on 19 September 2001.

However, following 9/11, the game’s release was postponed for obvious reasons. Specifically, SEGA cited the game’s artwork (which depicted planes fighting over a city) as one of the main reasons.

However, Propeller Arena’s story doesn’t get any better from here either. Whereas other pieces of media were released at this time following some editing (Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man film being one of the more well-known examples), this game wasn’t so lucky.

Thanks to the disappointing performance of the Dreamcast, SEGA decided that it wouldn’t be financially beneficial to release the game. And with those two blows of unfortunate circumstance, Propeller Arena remained shelved through no fault of its own.