A while back a trailer for Giant Ant’s 2.5D adventure platformer surfaced, featuring a character traveling through a number of different biomes. The trailer isn’t very long but it does showcase what could have been a fairly interesting game.
It was originally revealed through a tweet by the art director on the cancelled project, Eric Pautz, who was working with Giant Ant Software on the unnamed game.
Last year, I had the most amazing time art directing this trailer for a game at @GiantAnt. The game was ultimately cancelled, but I’m really happy we get to post the trailer now. Check it out here: https://t.co/hOnDcKukYz pic.twitter.com/ll2PulyOeu
— Eric Pautz (@epautz) July 17, 2018
The tweet links to a quick trailer for the unnamed game, titled “The Game That Never Was”.
The trailer is only 56 seconds long, just under a minute, but it does preview what would have been what looks like a side-scrolling platformer.
The Game That Never Was // Trailer from Giant Ant on Vimeo.
Visually, it definitely had a standout identity, with what looked like a mixture of some cel-shaded designs and a mixture of gouraud shading using across minimalist backdrops.
The environments range from forests to dark caves illuminated by glowing crystals, to lava-filled rivers with small stones that you hop across.
It’s designed in a similar style as Journey, but it’s hard to tell what would have been the core of the gameplay other than having slick graphics.
There’s no actual telling why the game was cancelled specifically, especially when it doesn’t look too much different in tone than many other games on the horizon or currently out. So I tend to doubt that it was due to the art-style that the game was cancelled. In one shot it looked like the main character was accompanied by a lynx.
Various users asked what sort of game it was supposed to be, but Pautz doesn’t give much detail on it. If it were a fast-paced platformer with interesting stage designs it might have found a place on the market, but if it turned out to be closer to a walking simulator maybe that was the reason for its demise? We may never know.
