It’s sad part of the industry where sometimes stuff happens, and said stuff is unavoidable, and because of the stuff, games we look forward to get dropped, shelved or simply lost in the “to do” pile gathering dust in a dark corner.

Some developers are clear in their ways by telling us outright that we’ll never see a specific game coming out – but then there are developers who feed on the false hopes of gamers and keep a tiny flame of hope burning.

Days turn to weeks, weeks turn to months and months turn to years – and eventually some games become a distant memory; until someone comes along and asks: wait a minute, where the hell did that game go?

Half-Life 2: Episode 3

Let’s start off with an easy one, shall we?

Half-Life 1 was released in 1998; Half-Life 2 came 6 years later in 2004. Episode 1 landed 2 years after that, and Episode 2 a year after Episode 1 and, look, let’s be honest here, if Valve were following a trend, then Episode 3 should have released 6 months after episode 2.

Instead, we’ve been hanging around for what will the 5th year in 2012 to find out what happens after…well, gee, it’s been so long I can’t even remember how episode 2 ended.

Recent (debunked) rumours are all hyping up a Half-Life 3 announcement at some point this year – but a whole new game means a whole new direction and a story that leaves a whole lot of questions unanswered.

Perhaps Valve were hoping the modding community would come along and finish things up for them – but if the Black Mesa mod’s development cycle is anything to go by, things probably wouldn’t be any different.

The Getaway 3

Back in the day, when people considered the PlayStation 2’s graphics to be ground-breaking, Team Soho set about recreating the city of London for the game, The Getaway.

The game was a sandbox “GTA-clone” set around gang activity in fair old London, with intersecting stories and cinematic scale unheard of for the time. The game was arguably ahead of its time, and spawned a sequel called The Getaway: Black Monday.

While the gritty realism never quite encroached on GTA’s slice of the pie – Team Soho made huge waves at E3 2005, when they showed off footage for The Getaway 3, showing Picadilly Circus in glorious HD detail.

Then the game got cancelled in 2008. Then “put on hold”. And was never heard of again. The last game Team Soho developed was 2009’s EyePet – so we take it as a “not gonna happen”.

Eight Days

Another victim of the “cancelled then put on hold then disappeared” treatment is Eight Days. First used as a tech demo to demonstrate the PS3’s Cell processor capabilities in 2005, the game was officially announced and titled in 2006.

It was set to take place over 8 days across a few American states, with an in-game clock literally counting down the hours and adapting the conditions accordingly as you moved through time. Sure, it sounds quaint now, but for 2005 it made brains explode.

Of course, then it got cancelled, shelved and forgotten – until recently making an interesting, if brief return to the spotlight in the unlikeliest place – Grand Theft Auto 5.

A bit of a wide stretch, but it turns out a guy who worked on Eight Days in the mechanics department is apparently working on GTA V, which means that – although in limbo – fragments of what could have been may yet live on.

Call of Cthulhu: Destiny’s End

Very few of you probably had the balls to play Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth.

That’s not a condescending statement, because I fully admit that I have not been terrified by a game like that since Silent Hill 2, and may have actually cried a little while playing.

At least for the first half of the game.

The Bethesda-published, Lovecraftian-inspired first-person shooter cum survival horror excursion was widely accepted as pretty damn good, earning critical praise – but not really getting the sales to match.

As such, it wasn’t very long thereafter that the developers, Headfirst Productions, went bust, and the in-development sequel to the game went *poof* and was never heard of again.

Oh, wait, you mean you didn’t even KNOW there was a sequel? Oh yes, and by the looks of this trailer – it was going to be…abysmal. Or great. We’ll never know.

Dino Crisis sequel

Technically – technically – Dino Crisis 2 did get a sequel. Indeed, Dino Crisis 3 does exist.

Why haven’t we heard of it? Well, because it’s completely and utterly horrible in every way imaginable (an article for another time) and we’re pretending it doesn’t exist.

When it comes to survival horror, Capcom of the late 90s really wasn’t at a loss for bankable IPs. The Resident Evil franchise has changed quite a bit over the years, but still celebrates much success – but the other OTHER survival horror series, Dino Crisis sort of just…stopped.

Dino Crisis 2 ended with an obvious sequel in mind – with a major character literally asking the main protagonist to build a time machine to came save him (um, it sort of makes sense in the game, okay?) before ending on a “did he die or didn’t he?” note.

What happened? Where was this going?

What we expected was a sequel. What we got (had Dino Crisis 3 existed, because it doesn’t) was action-shooter-dinosaurs-in-space.

I kid you not.

Can you think of a game that just upped and disappeared? Or perhaps a title promised but never delivered? Share your thoughts on the MyGaming forum or in the comments below.

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