Amid exciting game announcements, disappointing cancellations, and new releases waiting to be played, it’s easy for some games to fade into the background. But there are a few that seem to exist only in our distant memories, in months- or years-old announcement trailers followed by radio silence.
In 2016, we saw the release of Final Fantasy XV, The Last Guardian, and Owlboy, three games nearly ten years in the making that proved not every game stuck in development limbo stays there forever. We also received confirmation that Beyond Good & Evil 2 is in development and saw the launch of Let It Die, which was on last year’s list of games stuck in limbo.
Now, at the start of 2017, we know a bit more about the once-missing Rime and learned that another former lost game, Scalebound, was canceled. But there are still games that don’t fit into either category, ones that were announced in the past, maybe got a trailer, and then all but disappeared. From games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Phantom Dust that have been lost for a long while to more recent mysteries like Allison Road, these are the biggest missing games we’re still waiting to hear more about.
Be sure to check out the video version of this gallery to see trailer clips and gameplay for some of these games gone missing.
Cyberpunk 2077
CD Projekt Red’s mature, futuristic RPG Cyberpunk 2077 has been a mystery for a while now--this is its third year in a row on our missing games list. Years after its 2012 announcement and one cinematic teaser later, we still know very little about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt developer’s next game.
We do know that CD Projekt Red had been focusing solely on The Witcher 3--the developer even said back in May 2015 that it wasn’t planning to talk about Cyberpunk until 2017 at the earliest. Now that The Witcher 3’s final expansion, Blood and Wine, is out, it’s likely we’ll be hearing more about Cyberpunk soon provided that timeline still holds true.
As of right now, we’re hanging all our hopes on a very vague 2017-to-2021 release window.
Dead Island 2
Zombie survival game Dead Island 2 was revealed at E3 2014 with a memorable trailer. It got a spring 2015 release window but was later delayed to 2016. It then lost its former developer, Yager, in July 2015, but publisher Deep Silver assured us it wasn’t canceled.
In March 2016, we learned that LittleBigPlanet 3 developer Sumo Digital took over Dead Island 2’s development...and that’s the last we heard. So far, all we know is that Dead Island 2 will have four playable characters, eight-player co-op, and a sunny California setting.
Allison Road
Fan project Allison Road was set to be a spiritual successor to P.T. and carried with it the promise of mending our broken hearts after Silent Hills was canceled. Its development has been a bit of a roller coaster--it was originally on Kickstarter before abandoning the crowdfunding route in favor of publisher Team17, and it was canceled in June. It was then revived in August by its creator, who formed a new studio to continue development, and Team17 is no longer publishing it.
Ever since Allison Road came back from the dead, we’ve heard nothing else about the highly anticipated indie horror game. In the meantime, we can watch the scant gameplay footage we do have.
Tekken x Street Fighter
Tekken x Street Fighter was announced all the way back in 2010 for PS3 and Xbox 360 before basically vanishing. Producer Katsuhiro Harada assured fans in 2014 and even said again in 2015 that it wasn’t canceled...but in April 2016, Harada revealed that the crossover fighting game was put on hold and that publisher Bandai Namco was waiting for “the right time” to release it.
When we reached out for comment in 2016, Bandai Namco told GameSpot that the team was focusing on Tekken 7, which is set to come out in the early part of this year. If Tekken x Street Fighter is indeed still in the works, we probably won’t hear anything until after Tekken 7 arrives.
Agent
Cold War espionage game Agent was teased in 2007 announced in 2009 as a PS3 exclusive from Grand Theft Auto developer Rockstar North. In 2011, Rockstar parent Take-Two said that Agent was still in active development, and we also saw images from Agent for the first time. Two full years later, Take-Two renewed trademarks for Agent, beginning a series of extensions and speculation.
Take-Two renewed the trademarks again in 2014, just before E3. There was still no official word about Agent’s status, but new images emerged in 2015. Then, at the very end of 2016, Take-Two refiled the Agent trademarks yet again.
If the pattern continues, that doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll get an update on Agent any time soon. But it also indicates that the mysterious Rockstar project isn’t totally dead, either.
Battlecry
Battlecry was announced in 2014 as the project of Battlecry Studios, a developer with the sole purpose of making an online multiplayer arena game. It’s MOBA-like with a melee combat emphasis and a historical bend, and executive producer Rich Vogel said during an E3 2015 presentation that the developer paid special attention to designing the female warriors.
Battlecry had a trailer and even signups for a global beta in 2015 before dropping off the map. Publisher Bethesda expressed concerns about its quality toward the end of that year, which explained its absence from events. It’s been over a year and we haven’t received an update, whether positive or negative.
Phantom Dust
This is yet another game that’s been on our missing games list three years running. Phantom Dust was first announced at E3 2014, but its initial developer, Darkside Game Studios, closed down the following February. Despite that, the reboot of the 2005 Xbox game of the same name hasn’t been canceled outright. We just haven’t received any information besides leaked gameplay footage since the confirmation that it wasn’t dead in 2015.
Deep Down
Even in early February 2015, Capcom’s free-to-play dungeon crawler, Deep Down, hadn’t been heard from in a while. The Souls-like was revealed in 2013, and we saw trailers and got new details up through TGS 2014 before it got quiet.
Deep Down was supposed to have a public beta in early 2015, but that never happened, leading some to speculate the game was canceled. But in February, Producer Yoshinori Ono said in an interview that the PS4 exclusive was not, in fact, canceled and was just undergoing changes. In 2016, Capcom told us that a western release was never even confirmed for Deep Down, so it may be a while before we hear anything more about it.
Wild
PS4-exclusive survival adventure game Wild was revealed at Gamescom 2014 with a trailer. Things were quiet until Paris Games Week in October 2015, when producer Michel Ancel showed off gameplay. We haven’t heard anything since, and we know very little besides the fact that Wild casts you as a shaman who can possess animals.
The Next Borderlands Game
In January 2015, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford tweeted that the developer was recruiting for the “next Borderlands game.” He specifically said that it was “the big one,” indicating a new installment in the main Borderlands series. We don’t know what it will be called, but Pitchford did give a few more details in April 2016 and confirmed that it was in the works. Since then, we still don’t have concrete details, though Pitchford said this January that the next Borderlands game most likely won’t come to Nintendo Switch.
(Art from Borderlands 2)
Bioshock Creator Ken Levine's Untitled Game
At the end of 2015, Bioshock creator Ken Levine appeared on NPR and talked about the design goals for his unannounced upcoming game. We don’t know what it is yet, but we do know that the goal is for it to be highly replayable. Levine also described it as a “small-scale open-world game” with a sci-fi theme. We’re still waiting on an official announcement.
Half-Life 3
Yes, this is the obligatory Half-Life 3 mention. Half-Life 2: Episode 3 was announced back in 2006 but never materialized. It also wasn’t canceled, either. In a recent Reddit AMA, Valve boss Gabe Newell said there was still a possibility of more games in the Half-Life/Portal universe, which means this quintessential missing game is still floating in limbo.
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