20 Ridiculous Reasons Video Games Were Cancelled
9. To Focus On A Tron Game Instead - Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned
Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damned was an open-world action-RPG based on Disney's hit blockbuster movie IP, and set roughly a decade before the events of the first film, The Curse of the Black Pearl, with Propaganda Games (2008's Turok) leading development.
The game was formally revealed at E3 2009 where early press previews were largely positive, and by late 2010 the game was said to be feature-complete, with a release intended for early 2011.
However, in October 2010, Disney announced a large restructuring initiative which would see more than 100 of Propaganda's staff laid off, with the remaining team put to work finishing up Tron: Evolution, another game Propaganda was working on at the time.
Because the movie Tron: Legacy was releasing that December, Disney desperately wanted Evolution to release alongside it for maximum brand synergy, but it came at the cost of Armada of the Damned's cancellation.
To bin a basically-finished game based on a franchise of hugely successful movies and then shift focus to a game based on a film series with limited cult appeal, was just a massive own goal by Disney.
Unsurprisingly Tron: Legacy fell short of Disney's box office targets while Tron: Evolution was neither a critical nor commercial success, making it all feel for nought.