Avalanche Studios Group, the Swedish developer behind the Just Cause franchise, was once working on a steampunk open-world game set in an alternative 1950s.
That’s according to former Avalanche developer Mikael Säker, was who directing the cancelled project and then went on to work on the Battlefield franchise. In a video interview with Wassup Conversations, Säker revealed that a financial collapse led to the cancellation of the project and overnight layoffs. At the time of the cancellation, the game still needed another two years to complete, so it ended up on the chopping block along with all other projects except for one.
He said:
That was not fun. I think they had to let the half of the studio go, over a night because of the economic collapse. The publisher cancelled all their games except one, and it was a big publisher. But had been working on this awesome open-world game set in an alternative reality version of 1950s. It was insane! We had a huge this huge version of London that looked spectacular. We didn’t have skyscrapers, but we had, like inverted heights, so the city grew downwards, to the ground. You could fly ziplines, airships, planes and jump down to these really, really deep holes in the middle of the city. So it was visually, and world-building wise spectacular and It had some really great gameplay ideas.
Säker’s LinkedIn profile reveals that he worked on a “big project” that “never shipped” between May 2007 and September 2008, so it looks like the game was in development for almost a year and a half.
[Source: Wassup Conversations, Nikoofarmusic]