8 Canceled Games We Could’ve Had But Didn’t

Your favorite video games from childhood stick with you forever. After hundreds of hours logged, each level and final boss is embedded in your memory. However, some games with terrific potential never escaped development. Which ones are the most notable? Here are eight canceled games we could’ve had. 

1. Football Manager 25

Football Manager is one of the most popular video game franchises worldwide. When it debuted in 2004, it became one of the five fastest-selling PC games of all time. Fans were ready for the 2025 edition, whether they wanted the reins of Manchester City or Atlético de Madrid. However, plans fell through this year. 

When it was time to release Football Manager 25, the developer said it would cancel the title instead of further delays. If Sports Interactive released the game later in 2025, it would’ve clashed with next year’s game. The most significant obstacle was the transition to the Unity engine instead of the in-house system. 

2. Call of Duty: Vietnam

Call of Duty is another successful franchise with terrific gameplay and storytelling, so having canceled games is surprising. However, Activision has a few COD titles that didn’t quite pan out. For example, Call of Duty: Vietnam should’ve debuted in the early 2010s, but it fell through. What could have been?

As the name suggests, Call of Duty: Vietnam would have taken place in the title country, Cambodia and Laos. Considering the setting was the 1960s and 1970s, the timeline coincided with the Vietnam War. Past COD games have included Vietnam missions, but the franchise has yet to have a fully dedicated game. 

3. The Avengers 

Before the likes of Deadpool and Wolverine entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), there was the original Avengers movie. The 2012 film was among the most successful superhero flicks of all time, and there was supposed to be a video game to go along with it. However, it wasn’t that simple. 

THQ Studio Australia set up the game to be a first-person brawler like Street Fightter, letting you pick among the Hulk, Thor, Captain America and Iron Man. Ultimately, financial problems brought down THQ, as it spent a lot of money on other games. While Marvel could’ve saved it, the company elected to cancel production and toss it with the other canceled video games. 

4. Mortal Kombat: Fire & Ice

Mortal Kombat was unique for its time due to the blood and gore with every hit. While parents might not have wanted their kids playing, the franchise exploded into one of the most popular of all time. Considering the name, you may be surprised to hear Mortal Kombat has canceled games. 

That said, Fire and Ice is a rare miss from the Mortal Kombat crew. Reportedly, the title would’ve been a co-op action game with Sub-Zero and Scorpion as the protagonists. Instead of being a sequel to Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks, Fire and Ice is permanently among the lost video games due to management changes at Midway. Instead of Mortal Kombat, the team focused on other projects. 

5. Batman: Gotham by Gaslight

“Batman: Gotham by Gaslight” was a lesser-known DC Comics movie from 2018. Its large absence from theaters could help explain why the video game never panned out. Releasing a video game with a film does wonders for promotional purposes. However, the story goes back a little further, as the video game struggled to ever get footing. 

The Batman: Arkham series is popular to this day because of its terrific storytelling and graphics. Following the success of Batman: Arkham Asylum in 2008, gamers nearly got a Batman: Gotham by Gaslight video game. However, it’s now among the lost video games due to licensing conflicts. Warner Bros. owned the rights to Batman and refused to give them up for this type of game. 

6. Mr T.: The Video Game

Mr. T has been a household name for over four decades, as he made his name in acting and professional wrestling. From “Rocky III” to the main event at Wrestlemania I, his stardom is unique. In the late 2000s, his legacy nearly extended to a video game, but the plans never panned out. 

Between 1993 and 2010, various publishers released the Mr. T comic books bearing his name. By 2009, ZootFly wanted to create a video game on these novels. The title would’ve included Mr. T and Will Wright as the protagonists in a fight against Nazis and war machines. However, production canceled the project and left it among the discontinued games. 

7. Silent Hills

There are horror games, and then there’s Silent Hill — one of the scariest games in the industry’s history. In this survival series, you take over the protagonist, who tries to figure out his wife’s death. Silent Hill was so popular in 1999 that a sequel came out just two years later. After a decade of enjoying the game, developers went back to the drawing board for yet another edition. 

This title was supposed to be Silent Hills, and Kojima Productions began work in 2012. By 2014, players got a glimpse of the game through Playable Teaser (P.T.), letting gamers walk around the haunted house. Demos typically lead to a fully published game, but not in this case. Unfortunately, in 2015, Silent Hills became one of the most disappointing canceled games of the generation. 

8. Half-Life 3

We know — the Half-Life 3 jokes have existed for the better part of two decades. Since Half-Life 2, the world has seen a pandemic and the Cubs winning the World Series. Shocking, right? As it turns out, Valve worked on Half-Life 3 around 2013 before ditching the project. 

About six years had passed since the last Half-Life game, so fans started to get antsy. One of the barriers was creating the game on the Source 2 Engine, which had not been completed by the development period. Reportedly, Half-Life 3 wore out the Valve team and canceled the title, later known as Half-Life 2: Episode Three. Now, it’s left to history as one of the most popular unreleased games ever. 

Paying Homage to Canceled Video Games 

Some video games exist but were pretty bad upon release. However, there are some discontinued games we’ll never know because they never made it out of production. How good would Silent Hills or Call of Duty: Vietnam have been? While cancellations were more prominent a decade or two ago, Football Manager 25 shows they can still happen today.