The Recycle Bin

Success is built upon failure. Each year we are treated to hundreds of games cranked out by the industry, having spent years being built by dedicated teams in the hope of achieving both critical and commercial success. But not every game is able to reach that point. For every game that has ever been released, there are plenty more that never got to see a proper release. The vast majority of these games never even get to see the light of day, ideas that never leave the confines of the company where they are first pitched. Only a few lucky ones manage to reach a point where a company is willing to talk with the press about the game. Sometimes all we have is a title and a synopsis, sometimes we have games that are close to completion. 

These games hold an air of mystery to them; we will never get a chance to play a completely polished version of these games, so one can only imagine whether such a game could have been any good. The reasons why these games never come to life can vary widely. Some are cut off very early in development because the vision is just not coming together, some are killed after a substantial amount of work because there are concerns over quality. Some simply get cancelled because the developer is unable to continue to operate. Sometimes they are the corpses that other, better games are built upon. In the most rare of instances, these games get a new life years later. Both Star Fox 2 and Ultracore were, at one point, cancelled games, but circumstances would allow for them to finally, after waiting so long, to be released to the public. 

The Recycle Bin is devoted to digging through the discarded remains of these games and looking at what these games were supposed to be, how and why they were killed, and my own opinion on whether is may have been worth playing if it had come out, or if their premature demise had been a mercy killing.