The game publishers of the world had big plans for the fall of 2009. Then everyone realized that “New Super Mario Bros.,” “Modern Warfare 2,” and “Assassins Creed 2″ were all coming out within a couple weeks of each other and they decided that, perhaps, it would be best to hold some of their games back until next year, giving these games more time in the development oven.
Many games that were originally scheduled for late 2009 were pushed into the first quarter of 2010. There are others, though, that remain a total mystery as to when they’ll release. Here are five games that may or may not see the light of day in the next 12 months.
Hydrophobia
Alongside the original “Bioshock,” Dark Energy Digital’s “Hyrdrophobia” represented the cutting edge of water technology in video games in 2007. DED actually built the game from the ground up just to show off their physics engine and its ability to render water that behaved realistically. By the end of 2007, “Hydrophobia” disappeared, reappearing only at the end of 2008 to announce a March 2009 release date. The last anyone heard of the game was in October, when DED said “Hydrophobia” would only see release episodically on Xbox Live. Then they said, no, it would hit retail. Whether or not this game will actually come out this year is anyone’s guess.
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Sega announced that Gearbox would be making a shooter sequel to James Cameron’s “Aliens” back in December of 2006. 2006! No one saw hide nor hair of the game until 2008 and by the end of that year, following a round of layoffs at Gearbox, everyone assumed the game was dead. Both Sega and Randy Pitchford of Gearbox said no way! We’ll have it out in 2009! Then Sega announced they’d be publishing Rebellion’s “Aliens vs. Predator” shooter and Gearbox released “Borderlands” to much acclaim. 2009 ended and no one’s talking about “Colonial Marines”.
Beyond Good and Evil 2
In fairness, Ubisoft and creator Michael Ancel never explicitly said that this sequel to 2003′s cult classic would be arriving in 2009. Quite the contrary. Following the “Beyond Good and Evil 2″ reveal at Ubisoft’s 2008 Ubidays event, both Ancel and Ubi execs publicly said that the game was far from release. Even after the May 2009 leak of test footage from the game, Ubi’s Laurent Detoc has tried to calm expectations, “Whether or not it comes out remains to be seen anyway, but we didn’t want to abandon that IP because it has a cache and authenticity about it.” It makes the MIA list precisely because of its vague treatment from the IP holder. Yesterday, though, we did get a tiny mention from Geoffroy Sardin, who said that the game is “still in production.” Better than nothing…
Splatterhouse
Bottlerocket and Namco’s reboot/sequel to the classic 16-bit sidescroller series was not only supposed to come out by the fall of 2009, it was already being demoed to the public. Regular ol’ joes off the street could try out the Xbox 360 build at the February 2009 New York Comic Con. Shortly after that, though, Namco took the project away from Bottlerocket, citing missed milestones and shoddy work. The publisher did say that they would finish the game internally, bringing over key staff from Bottlerocket in the process, and that the game would hit shelves as planned. Clearly, nothing has gone according to plan when it comes to the new “Splatterhouse.”
Gran Turismo 5
Polyphony Digital says that “Gran Turismo 5″ exists. They have let people play it before. Heck, just last week people were playing “Gran Turismo 5″ in 3D at CES. That it exists is not in question. Whether or not this game will ever, ever get released is up for debate. “Gran Turismo 5″ was originally intended to release not too long after the launch of the Playstation 3 in 2006, albeit in a fairly strange form. It was previously thought that it would be available as a stripped-down disc-based game that was supplemented by DLC. Then came the reveal of “Gran Turismo 5: Prologue,” a retail released demo that Sony would precede the impending release of the full game. Last fall, Sony and Polyphony announced that “Gran Turismo 5″ would release come out in Japan in March 2009. As of yesterday, its release date is “TBA.”
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