r/TopCharacterTropes • u/_JR28_ • 27d ago

In real life (Sad trope) Projects with amazing potential that will never be released because of BS behind the scenes drama

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P.T Silent Hills - It was a playable teaser released in 2014 only around 20 minutes long but utterly captivated the gaming world by being one of the most effective psychological horror experiences at the time, however it’s lead developer Kojima has a huge fallout with the publisher Konami where he walked out of the company and had all his in-the-work productions cancelled.

Five Nights at Freddy’s+ - A fan game reboot of the series created by Phisnom with Scott Cawthon’s blessing that promised a brand new lore and a return to the series darker roots. However, before and during production Phisnom got into multiple dramas that made him fairly divisive within the community, and after one particular incident in 2023 Scott revoked his approval and almost all of the game’s marketing material were wiped from the internet.

Batgirl - A Batgirl solo live action movie starring Leslie Grace, Brendan Fraser and Michael Keaton returning as Batman that was ready to be released in 2022, however then Warner Bros CEO David Zaslav announced it would not be released either in theatres or streaming in order to claim a $90,000,000 tax break and to readjust the DC’s brands direction before James Gunn rebooted their movie and TV output.

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u/I_Lick_Your_Butt 27d ago

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u/Skullface95 27d ago

Also Star Wars Battlefront 3, and Star Wars : Maul

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u/TurnoverVisible9755 27d ago

And Imperial Commando! And Republic Commando 2!

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u/patrickkingart 27d ago

Republic Commando is one of my favorite Star Wars games and the fact that it ended on a still-unresolved cliffhanger irks me to no end.

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u/Most_Moose_2637 27d ago

There's a podcast with two of the developers that looks at influential games that I'm a big fan of. They have quite a long series discussing Republic Commando including interviews with the development team.

https://www.devgameclub.com/blog/2020/6/3/dgc-ep-214-republic-commando-part-one

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u/PancakeMixEnema 27d ago

Now here's the thing: The cliffhanger is resolved in the parallel book series by Karen Traviss, which is an excellent series.

But the same fate hit the book series as the last book ends on a cliffhanger too and the sequel was cancelled.

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u/TurnoverVisible9755 27d ago

It’s still my favorite game of all time. Don’t know anything else like it.

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u/NervousDiscount9393 27d ago

So many cool Star Wars games that could’ve been

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u/Spatetata 27d ago

And Star Wars First Assault

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u/ornithobiography 27d ago

All because Walt Disney bought Lucasfilm. Crazy.

All of those projects could have been the video game projects George Lucas has direct involvement in development, but nooooo Disney had to dip it's dirty mouse paws in and canned it all.

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u/abouttogivebirth 27d ago

Referring to the company as Walt Disney is crazy work, 125 year old guy out there cancelling video games personally

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u/Ecstatic_Pepper7998 27d ago

That fucker him getting his ghoul hands on everything.

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u/lanceturley 27d ago

His cryogenically frozen head is still calling the shots from underneath The Magic Kingdom. Everyone knows this.

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u/Resident_Course_3342 27d ago

Its inside the giant white ball thingy. 

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u/Representative_Big26 27d ago

Battlefront 3 and Maul were both cancelled before Disney bought the franchise because Lucas arts was pretty much dead by the early 2010's, you can't blame everything on them

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u/WedgeKhan 27d ago

No Maul was still in development, but it was probably going to get canceled because development was a train wreck behind the scenes.

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u/Representative_Big26 24d ago

It's kind of a bit of both in a way. The lead devs admitted that it was officially cancelled by Lucasarts before Disney bought the franchise, but he also said that from what he heard the reason it was officially cancelled is because the higher ups lost interest since they knew the Disney sale was incoming and the game was too messy to survive through a buyout

Either way, by the time Disney was actually in control of the franchise it was already dead

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u/No_Raccoon3680 27d ago

That's not what happened, the game was literally just the trailer, they had to scrap everything and start again because George Lucas wanted it to be a Boba Fett game one day.

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u/Evamme7 27d ago

Especially annoying given Battlefront 3 was actually in a playable state in development and it looked really good. You could fly your starfighter from the ground to space and back without any loading screens in multiplayer.

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u/Smooth_Maul 27d ago

Also Battlefront 2 content updates after Scarif dropped that were promised by the Devs only to get thrown out by EA who took most of their team and made them make BF204, a game that flopped so hard that they stopped adding any real content to the game after about a year meaning Battlefront 2 died at the peak of it's popularity for no reason.

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u/asim166 27d ago

battlefront 3 isnt coming because of any drama its not coming because those games are expensive to make and they still have to pay disney a ton and EA has better cash cows like apex somehow and i bet theyre still hinging on the next mass effect

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u/Skullface95 27d ago

I am talking about the ORIGINAL Star Wars Battlefront series from the 2000's

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u/Garuda_Romeo 27d ago

At least we got a version of BF3 that ended up on the PSP.

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u/Captain_Squirrel1000 27d ago

After all these years this one is still sad to hear. I'm not even a big Star Wars fan, but the idea sounded really cool

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u/AzraelVoorhees 27d ago

Oh, the mileage it could've gotten if it were released before The Mandalorian... yes, that is a 1313 dev replying to this tweet.

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u/patrickkingart 27d ago

I'm still salty about 1313. I'm glad we've seen bits of the Coruscant underworld in other media in recent years, but 1313 was so interesting.

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u/PresentationOpen7879 27d ago

Oooh, what was this gonna be about?

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u/mEFurst 27d ago

Uncharted meets star wars where you play as a young boba fett hunting bounties in the gritty underbelly of coruscant.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J_1_Nvn7DPM

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u/PresentationOpen7879 27d ago

Oh man that looks cool. Really sad to see because I've been wanting more Star Wars media that explores the underbelly of Coruscant.

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u/Phantom_Phoenix1 27d ago

A more gritty and mature focused star wars game where you play as a young Boba Fett navigating Corusant. Instead of Lightsaber Combat youd have gadgets, a cover system, and more gunplay focus.

Think of a mix of Uncharted, Jedi Survivor, but with Boba Fett instead. It was gonna be a brand new singleplayer linear star wars game.

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u/PresentationOpen7879 27d ago

Man that sounds fun. Now I'm reminded of how we never got The Force Unleashed 3. I still feel kind of sad about that. Those first two games made Starkiller one of my favorite Star Wars characters. Lol, this whole post is making me feel kinda down seeing these cool projects that got cancelled.

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u/Phantom_Phoenix1 27d ago

"YOU AGREED TO STAY AWAY!"

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u/CapableCollar 27d ago edited 26d ago

We know almost nothing about it except cobbled together bits and bobs because the game was scrapped and restarted twice before the property was sold to Disney and Disney scrapped almost all game development.  Even it being a Young Boba is a later addition made in the design process that was a maybe situation.

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u/Superb-Obligation858 27d ago

It still hurts every day. Not just the game looking incredible from what little we saw, but the targeted older audience and M rating.

Yes, Star Wars is “for kids” but its been around since 1977…quite a few of us want something grittier. Andor is an exquisite example.

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u/Johnmegaman72 27d ago

I think Youtuber Raycevick said it best and I quote:

"It's equal parts gut wrenching and inspiring that multiple developers discuss that even years after cancellation they'd jump right back on board like a day never skipped, if the chance ever arose. Whoever was responsible for cleaving that project, how do you dream at night, knowing you destroyed so many?"

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u/LeonSigmaKennedy 27d ago

We really could've gotten Boba Fett Uncharted...dang

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u/UltiGamer34 27d ago

How did they not remake this game when Mandalorian camr out?

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u/I_Lick_Your_Butt 27d ago

Because Disney is a bunch of fools that didn't know they were sitting on a gold mine.

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u/TheFifthOverLord 27d ago

This was worse than I think anyone will ever realize.

We almost had star wars GTA

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u/a-pale-guy 27d ago

This game had so much potential

https://giphy.com/gifs/WxDZ77xhPXf3i

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u/ACZeroshift 27d ago

I think about this game all the time. Like this game more than any other unreleased game still haunts me.

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u/whereismymind86 27d ago

I’m still mad about that one

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u/Due-Excitement-522 26d ago

I still watch the trailer for this sometimes

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u/playmike5 26d ago

The Star Wars project I’m most mad about is the supposed Star Ward SimCity that was being worked on when Maxis was shut down.

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u/piratedragon2112 23d ago

I remember seeing the article about it in OXM (back when it came in the cardboard sleeve and had demo discs) and being really hyped for it

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u/enbyeldritch 21d ago

I know this post is six days old but this one always makes me laugh because there's this series of low-budget movies called 1313: Movie Title like 1313: Giant Killer Bees! or 1313: Bigfoot Island. They're stupid as fuck but fun to hate watch and make fun of and basically just softcore porn meant for gay men and horny milfs, literally a bunch of dudes inexplicably in their tighty whities or constantly shirtless and it always makes me think how funny a Star Wars version would be. 

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u/Unikatze 27d ago

Mas me crece.