Games That Weren't: Cancelled & Unreleased Video Games
Latest News and Posts
Today we are bringing you a very early test build of Croc on the Colour Gameboy which is of part of the first level map, but with a lot of content and presentation missing at this stage and no enemies or collectables. Score panel isn’t finished and contains junk characters.
Here you can move Croc around the slopes and up on the platforms, before hitting a dead-end. However, if you keep pausing and unpausing whilst jumping, I found that you will essentially “jump climb” up past the dead-end to be able to see a bit more of the map.
Missing for 33 years, and eluding GTW for 26 – we are at long last proud to present one of our holy grail titles with the release of Nigel Mansell World Championship on the Commodore 64 by Gremlin! Check out this very advanced preview and full story:
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/nigel-mansell-world-championship/
Full video of recovery can also be found here:
It is with a huge thank you to both Mark Greenshields and Darren Melbourne for making this recovery possible!
Our sixth update of the year for our ever-growing Commodore 64 archive is mostly updates this month, with 3 new entries, including Dominion (a long lost shooter), details about a Stephen Hendry snooker game from Zeppelin that fell through and a rather risqué adventure game which many feel could have been a fake.
All finished off with 16 updates with various new scans and also new updated screenshots for the Mega Games entry after the recent better quality BBC Commercial Breaks upload, and news of an Alien 3 prototype. Oh, and keep an eye out on the site tomorrow!;)
Dominion – a full shoot-em-up recovered!
Thanks to Hedning / Genesis Project, a surprise and complete Delta-style budget shoot-em-up has been recovered from the strangest of places, written by the team that did Black Tiger for U.S. Gold. Check out a fun little shooter!
2 new entries added
Stephen Hendry Snooker, Ifigonia
16 updates added
3 2 1 quiz game, Castle Capers, Commando 86, Covermount casualties, Crystalopis, Drive, Elevator, Intruder, Jeeps, Mega Games, Mindstone, Night Walker, Psyclapse, The Last Stuntman, Ultra Games, Unknown Educational game
Alien 3 prototype recovered
In case you missed it the other week, Sailor/Triad has recovered a rare prototype of Alien 3 for the C64 which has some minor differences compared to the final version.
https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2025/06/alien-3-c64-prototype-recovered
A surprise for tomorrow!
An extra surprise is coming hopefully tomorrow morning for the site. Watch this space;-)
2021 AwesomeBlade Software
Platforms: PC, Mac, Linux (+ potentially others)
In 2021, 8-Bit Apocalypse appeared on Kickstarter as a very cool and interesting indie project from developer Ricardo Jorge. The game was a modern homage to arcade classics and dystopian sci-fi, blending aesthetics of 1980s pop culture with fast-paced action, a deep backstory, and an original synth soundtrack.
The game was essentially to be top down twin stick shooter action game, where players take control of a mysterious lone soldier fighting to survive in a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk world ruled by corporate tyranny and crawling with enemies – from mutated beasts to military robots.
1984 Star Systems Software
Platform: Atari 400/800
A short entry for a title that was created by Russ Wetmore, and one of the last games they worked on before moving onto new platforms. Unfortunately the game was never released, but thankfully it was recovered in 2015 via the AtariAge forums and Kay Savetz.
Here is what Russ had to say about the game:
1984 Star Systems Software
Platform: Atari 400/800
Did you know that Preppie was meant to have been a trilogy? Neither did we – though thanks to Avram Dumitrescu, we learn that back in 2005 it was established that Russ Wetmore was planning to create a 3rd game called Preppies in Space thanks to an interview.
Avram not long afterwards got some more details directly from Russ:
Thanks to Sailor of Triad, a rare prototype of Alien 3 for the Commodore 64 has just been discovered recently. This was a demo that was seemingly produced for producer Joe Bonar to take a look at back in the day to see progress with the project.
It is possible that it could have been also passed onto magazines for screenshots – which makes it a shame that it wasn’t included as a demo on the likes of Commodore Force or Format at the time.
Carts of Fury is a 2007 Canadian Tire Flash-based advergame that was once available online, and then even given out as physical CD-ROM copies about a year later. It is no longer available today (not currently on Flashpoint Archive) and was yet to be preserved until now.
Thanks to a contributor who wishes to remain anonymous, a physical copy was acquired and digitally preserved, and we have now uploaded everything here and to Archive.org. Details about the game are thanks to them:
1993 Enigma Variations
Platform: Gameboy Original
Also known as: The Adventures of Dr. Franken: Part 3
Our next entry into the GTW archives is a surprise 3rd title in the Dr. Franken series which was being developed on the Nintendo Gameboy by Enigma Variations. However, when you look at the prototype we have recovered, you wouldn’t think it was the same series.
The 3rd game it seems was to take a very different direction, and had Dr. Franken heading off into space and travelling around to different planets to carry out certain puzzles to then escape to the next planet, and so on. We’re not sure exactly what the story-line was at this stage.
1999 Anarchy Arts
Platform: PC
Also known as: Shogo: Mobile Armor Division Expansion Pack – Legacy of the Fallen
Legacy of the Fallen was an ambitious add-on pack developed by Anarchy Arts as an expansion for the 1998 first-person shooter Shogo: Mobile Armor Division. The project began in late 1998 after Monolith Productions, the creators of Shogo, approached Anarchy Arts with an offer to develop the add-on. For the relatively young and unknown studio, this was an exciting opportunity to make a name and earn revenue, so they accepted.
Anarchy Arts operated initially as a virtual company with team members scattered worldwide, but the scale of the project led them to consolidate in Salt Lake City, Utah. There, the core team of about ten people, including programmers, level designers, and artists lived and worked intensely for seven months in a cramped three bedroom apartment, putting in long hours to bring Legacy of the Fallen to life. The development was powered by Monolith’s LithTech engine, which the team praised for its flexibility despite some early challenges.
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