You know what hurts more than bad games? Canceled games. A broken release can be patched, and a lackluster sequel can sometimes be forgiven. However, when a promising title never makes it out of the door? That’s a wound that never heals. The gaming world has seen some great games, and some even greater ones that were never made in the first place.
I’m forever going to be mad about some games I was waiting for with perhaps the highest amount of excitement possible, and they were either axed mid-development or sacrificed in favor of safer bets that may or may not have worked out, anyway.
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The true NFS: Most Wanted sequel
What could have been, what almost was
2005’s Need for Speed: Most Wanted is arguably the most beloved entry in the franchise, and for good reason. It was gritty, stylish, and packed with personality. While 2006’s Carbon continued the story, Criterion’s 2012 Most Wanted soft reboot took a drastically different turn, instantly dividing fans. But here’s the thing — the 2012 version was originally meant to be a direct sequel to the 2005 classic’s story, following up after Carbon, but it lives on only through leaked footage, concept art, and half-broken playable builds now.
This planned sequel would have returned with the original’s dirty yellow filter, a revenge-driven story, and the beloved Blacklist format. Weapons would’ve been added to the game, à la 2010s Hot Pursuit, and pursuit breakers — objects on the map you could use to take down opponents and cops. Furthermore, the game would have featured a deeper map with mines and suburbs, as well as features like a cost-to-state system, takedown cameras, and a photo mode. That true Most Wanted follow-up? It’s nothing but a canceled dream — unless those remake rumors pan out.
Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012)
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4
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided sequel
I definitely asked for this
Deus Ex: Human Revolution is my favorite game of all time, no questions asked. It climbed to the top of my personal Mount Rushmore, and reconsidering its position is not a conversation I will ever have with myself. That’s why I was perhaps one of the most excited people on the planet when Mankind Divided was announced and came out, only to be disappointed when the game ended out of absolutely nowhere. Mankind Divided’s map of Prague was drop-dead gorgeous, and the game, while smaller, was deeper and richer than before, but it was clearly rushed out of the kitchen and needed some more time in the oven.
I hoped for a final trilogy sequel that would have tied things up beautifully. Sadly, things began going south when Square Enix sold off the IP to the Embracer Group. Regardless, work on a Mankind Divided sequel remained in pre-production for two whole years, with plans to go into full production in late 2024 before being canceled completely. Now, the franchise lies in limbo — eight years would already have been a very long time between sequels, but now, we’re probably never going to find out how Jensen’s story ends, and how it connects to the original games. In the meantime, however, I’ll just replay Cyberpunk 2077 to scratch that itch.
Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016)
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3
Spider-Man: The Great Web
This wouldn’t have been a swing and a miss
This is a canceled game that perhaps stings the most. Insomniac’s Spider-Man was the first game I ever pre-ordered back in 2018, and its sequel is the game that finally made me buy the PlayStation 5. I may have my fair share of complaints from the current generation of consoles, including Spider-Man 2, but its fantastic gameplay experience simply can’t be denied. Now, if you were to ignore the story’s writing and pacing issues, the gameplay alone is so stellar that sharing it with friends felt like the natural next step.
However, Sony has recently canceled a bunch of live-service games in the making, including the standalone Last of Us multiplayer game, and, sadly, Spider-Man: The Great Web. The Great Web would have been a five-player co-op game that brought together different Spider-people from their own realities to fight the sinister six in real-time multiplayer. Imagining myself swinging through New York with my friends as we raced to the objective with pizza on the line is something that gives me joy, and that’s when the realization of this game being canceled shatters that happiness immediately. There’s already a Spider-Man multiplayer mod on PC, proving that we truly do want to swing around with our friends.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
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Star Wars 1313
1313 reasons to stay mad at Disney
Star Wars fans are always going to be mad about the cancelation of Star Wars 1313, the last game in development at LucasArts before the studio shut down. Star Wars 1313 was supposed to be a gritty, serious action-adventure game where players donned the role of a young Boba Fett on the planet Coruscant. Sadly, the game’s production was marred by interruptions and rewrites, as some sources stated that George Lucas personally oversaw production, and his constant rewrites led to a lot of internal re-development.
Then, Disney took over the Star Wars IP and eventually shut down LucasArts as a game development studio, choosing instead to license the IP to third-party studios. Sure, it gave us Star Wars: Battlefront, the excellent Jedi: Fallen Order, and its middling sequel, among others, but Star Wars 1313 never becoming a reality and will forever sting. It’s a shame when studios that make great games are canceled, and yet, it’s also a reality that devs and gamers alike have to contend with.
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Split/Second 2
Gone in a second
Split/Second is arguably one of the most underrated games ever made. A fantastic blow-em-up arcade racer where the map was your biggest weapon, Split/Second was the most fun I ever had in a car game. Sadly, the game never did well on the sales front. Once Disney Interactive Studios shut down Black Rock Studios, it also meant the end of a sequel that was promised and teased in the first game’s ending.
What hurts even more is that the sequel to Split Second was already in early development when the cancelation occurred. We’ve seen proof of some fantastic and promising ideas for the sequel, where gameplay would have extended to riding boats as well as cars, and even on-foot gameplay. If you have the time and haven’t ever played Split/Second, do yourself a favor and check it out — even 15 years later, this game has aged beautifully, and remains just as fun as it was a decade-and-a-half ago.
Split/Second (2010)
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A legacy of lost potential
The worst part about canceled games is that we never get closure. These weren’t just concepts or ideas — they were real, playable, and in some cases, nearly complete experiences that just never saw the light of day.
Everyone has sequels they wish they got, and we still talk about them, still hope for their revival, and still wish things had gone differently. Until the day they’re remade, revived, or reimagined, I’ll stay mad — and I know I’m not the only one.
