Gamecloud recently had a look at cancelled games over the last few years. Two of the projects that came up was X-COM Genesis and X-COM: Alliance. As they correctly point out Hasbro did us both favours, and you can read why at Gamecloud.

If you would like more information on the death of these games, and the demise of Microprose, head over to The Last Outpost (new site here). Cyke did a 3 part interview with David Ellis of Microprose 3 years ago; Early Days (part 1), Interceptor (part 2) and Genesis (part 3).

Thanks for the heads up Arghis!

The plot was lost (literally) around the time of Apocalypse, and it was all downhill from there.

Gutted.

Awesome article Genesis was going to be the game of my dreams... X-Com 1's foes (plus new ones) with Real Time mode... all I could have wanted ^_^

Awww... I want Genesis!!

Very interesting reading that the Outpost articles

I'm quite convinced the Genesis intro would have been the best intro ever seen in a videogame.

Y'know, reading the planned story for Genesis, I can't help but notice holes in it. Unless the invasion fleet came from within the solar system, X-Com Frontier would have picked them up a long way away. Sol is included in the sphere of influence for your first base, there's no way anything can get close without being spotted.

And if it was from within the solar system well, I'll chalk it up to government incompetence Too eager to get out and not eager to even check on the other planets. You'd think they'd have learned from Cydonia and the Leviathan

Genesis would have been very enjoyable to play from the looks of the screenshots and the storyline. Sad to see it go under. It's sad to see any project fall apart actually. Whether it would be a game designed from professional game developers or dedicated fan developers.

Mmmm, that article has the wrong "Old" Alliance pics from development team 1, thats not what Alliance looked like by its cancellation.

For those of you who do not visit The Last Outpost much, the interviews with David Ellis by thecyke has now been ported over to the new site.

• Part 1: The Early Days
• Part 2: Interceptor
• Part 3: Genesis

Enjoy.

- Zombie

I'm confused. At what point did Gamecloud make an argument that the cancellation of those two games was a good thing? I saw alliance in action and was actually interested in it in spite of its lengthy delays. Don't know about Genesis though. It looks kind of ugly. That never hurt the older games but still... if they had to go RTS, it should at least be pretty.

Genesis was not to be RTS..

"The combat portion of the game was going to have a very similar feel, but it would have had slightly different mechanics (real-time, for instance-more on that later). "

That's from the Dave Ellis interview at:

http://www.thelastoutpost.co.uk/games/dave-ellis-genesis

He meant a system like in Apocalypse or UFO Aftermath / Aftershock.

I didn't see him say anything about having a choice between the two. Was that the plan?

Me neither, so I'd assume it would only be pausable real-time.

According to Mr Ellis from a different interview:


So yes, a pausable real-time environment would best describe Genesis.

I knew I remembered reading this somewhere.

- Zombie

that sounds very familiar to UFO: Aftermath, so i think you could consider aftermath the closest relative to Genesis