No! Watching TV shows doesn't create psycho killers... cancelling TV shows does!

This time of year usually sees people look back on the year just past and to the year coming up, or at least the year coming up until things get announced at E3. Those are taken care of elsewhere so here we are going to look to the cancelled games and devs that got shuttered, possibly for no great reason. Also playing are things where the game series might have been given to or picked up by someone else, and things which radically changed between the initial announcements and earlier showcasings and final release.
Bonus internet points for those making it about 2017. Did Scalebound's promise of PlatinumGames and Hideki Kamiya taking on Bethesda raise hopes and dash them? Visceral games is no more but did they deserve it? Mass Effect: Andromeda seems to have ended the franchise, thoughts?

[prebreak]Older titles[/prebreak]
MX vs ATV, or indeed the Motocross Madness franchise that preceded it, has a rather interesting history. After THQ's demise it was purchased by a company many would have said was a distributor, there was an effort at a new one in 2016 which was not amazingly well met and apparently we get another this year some time. Similarly the Skate series seems to be not there any more, EA's black box studios being shuttered and no real further announcements on its fate, and for all EA might have done it was this that hurts the most for me. That said them selling an everything unlock DLC cheat was probably a sign of things to come. In any case those two franchises represented two of the better options for me for free roam switch off and play, replacements for them being a bit thin on the ground.

This is another entry in our new series exploring game mechanics, concepts within games and other such things. Previously we discussed story canon. We have a long list of topics already planned but guest spots and suggestions are certainly welcome.

 

[WhiteMaze]

Cancelled, never ending development of games, or simply straight out lying between initial promises and final release?

Join the Helldivers i mean Steam Early Access program! We have it all!

 

[DarkenedMatter]

While not a game I'm pretty upset that My Name is Earl never got a real ending.

 

[WiiUBricker]

Mega Man Legends 3. Kind of a wasted opportunity there by Capcom.

 

[KiiWii]

Aliens on Wii U.........

Aliens on N64 for that matter......

 

[pedro702]

Resistance being forgoten, seriously why didnt sony atleast made another game and ended the series for good, snding on clifanger with the last game being on the vita was BS.

Using killzone for a crap as hell launch title wich played nothing like killzone it was more like urban warfare instead of all 3 killzones which were actual global war, still hope to see a decent killzone on ps4.

Spyro hd trilogy , cmon sony fund it like crash did, for me spyro was always ten times better than crash anyday of the week.

 

[FAST6191]

Mega Man Legends 3. Kind of a wasted opportunity there by Capcom.

I was there for the cancelled thread and the footage found of it.
Looked like a bad N64 take on such a game. The franchise itself may or may not have had promise but I can't get to being upset that the thing shown never made it to market.

 

[Deleted User]

How about vapourware like the infamous half-life 3?
Cancelled game series would be SiN Episodes. It had potential but ended up with the first game breaking even so was cancelled.
Remedy love to make games ending with cliffhangers: Alan Wake and Quantum Break.

 

[Joom]

Cancelled, never ending development of games, or simply straight out lying between initial promises and final release?

Join the Helldivers i mean Steam Early Access program! We have it all!

I joined a long time ago with the Starforge fiasco.

 

[WiiUBricker]

Metroid Dread, although it was never really announced and its existence was merely speculated based on a message in Metroid Prime 3 and an internal E3 games list.

 

[330]

Half-Life 2.

Best PC game ever my ass. That cliffhanger ruined the whole experience for me. It's like eating an ice cream and then getting kicked in the balls.

While we're at it, let's also mention these:


- The Darkness. I don't see any way for the franchise to continue, even though the second game does end with a shitty (but not the worst) cliffhanger
- Solatorobo. What's ironic about this game is that, since the WFC for the Nintendo DS has shut down, you may never get to play that stupid last mission with a huge cliffhanger. Fast-forward a few years and hey, they did make another Solatorobo game! Only it's a japan-only mobile game that has no connection with the previous one. Fuck. My. Life.
- XIII. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
- Clive Barker's Jericho. While I can somewhat forgive Half-Life 2 for the overall good experience, not this one. Absolutely not. You don't play with my feelings like this.


Honorable mentions for the most boring/wtf endings that are almost as bad as a cliffhanger and they didn't get any sequel:


- Pokémon Conquest. Oh cool I beat everyone. Wait, is that Arceus? K.
- Super Smash Bros. 4. You can say anything you want about the broken mechanics of Brawl, but the story was cool. The "arcade" mode of this new game... wow... a ball? Really guys? There were rumors about letting the ball do something for the Wii U version but that never happened.
- Rayman 3. ARE YOU SERIOUSLY SUGGESTING THAT WHATEVER CAUSED THE CONFLICT THE FIRST TIME IS GOING TO APPEAR AGAIN? IN THE STUPIDEST WAY POSSIBLE, TOO?
- Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. I know, it's an old arcade game. The ending still pissed me off though.

 

[Costello]

no one mentioned Mass Effect yet? too soon?
or maybe it's not been cancelled for good ?

 

[Vappy]

Ongoing grumble about the abrupt ending and umfortunate fate the Legacy of Kain series got. Not that Nosgoth was bad necessarily, but I'd have much rather had another solid single player entry that concluded the story. Having said all that, and seeing what Dead Sun was looking like, maybe it's for the best it went the way it did.

 

[smileyhead]

Still waiting for Portal 3.

 

[huntertron1]

Cancelled, never ending development of games, or simply straight out lying between initial promises and final release?

Join the Helldivers i mean Steam Early Access program! We have it all!

well actualy thesres a few that manage to be full games (hello naboor)

 

[VartioArtel]

Shuttered Devs?
Surprised we aren't getting more Bungie complaints considering Destiny's life cycle.

 

[SANIC]

Half-Life 2.

Best PC game ever my ass. That cliffhanger ruined the whole experience for me. It's like eating an ice cream and then getting kicked in the balls.

While we're at it, let's also mention these:


- The Darkness. I don't see any way for the franchise to continue, even though the second game does end with a shitty (but not the worst) cliffhanger
- Solatorobo. What's ironic about this game is that, since the WFC for the Nintendo DS has shut down, you may never get to play that stupid last mission with a huge cliffhanger. Fast-forward a few years and hey, they did make another Solatorobo game! Only it's a japan-only mobile game that has no connection with the previous one. Fuck. My. Life.
- XIII. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
- Clive Barker's Jericho. While I can somewhat forgive Half-Life 2 for the overall good experience, not this one. Absolutely not. You don't play with my feelings like this.


Honorable mentions for the most boring/wtf endings that are almost as bad as a cliffhanger and they didn't get any sequel:


- Pokémon Conquest. Oh cool I beat everyone. Wait, is that Arceus? K.
- Super Smash Bros. 4. You can say anything you want about the broken mechanics of Brawl, but the story was cool. The "arcade" mode of this new game... wow... a ball? Really guys? There were rumors about letting the ball do something for the Wii U version but that never happened.
- Rayman 3. ARE YOU SERIOUSLY SUGGESTING THAT WHATEVER CAUSED THE CONFLICT THE FIRST TIME IS GOING TO APPEAR AGAIN? IN THE STUPIDEST WAY POSSIBLE, TOO?
- Cadillacs and Dinosaurs. I know, it's an old arcade game. The ending still pissed me off though.

The Final Boss of the Classic Mode in Smash 4 is a huge castlelike fortress. It plays the same as the Subspace Emissary in the sense of you beat enemies to proceed and you die once you reach 100% and hit a hazard like lava. There's another boss at the end but I'm not saying what it is.

 

[CrakrHakr666]

Still waiting for Portal 3.

Seriously? I have almost no hope for that given how Valve handles the number 3.

 

[RedoLane]

Rather than talking about Megaman Legends 3, what about Megaman Universe?
Remember when they announced you could also play in traditional Megaman stages as Rockman, Bad Boxart Megaman and Ryu from Street Fighter?
Still sad it was cancelled...
Also I'm surprised no one mentioned Scalebound, which was cancelled around January last year.

 

[WhiteMaze]

well actualy thesres a few that manage to be full games (hello naboor)

A few yes. The big majority are scams however.

no one mentioned Mass Effect yet? too soon?
or maybe it's not been cancelled for good ?

Hmm didn't remember the Mass Effect series. But honestly, it has run its course. I would consider the Mass Effect series to be done by now. I mean how many games were there? Four? Five?