Of the big survival-horror and or zombie series out there, Resident Evil and Silent Hill are among the most classic well-known. Still, even these massive series have had canceled games. For Resident Evil there was a pitch was thrown out from the Alien: Isolation team, to Capcom. For Silent Hill there is P.T., or Silent Hills, which is still getting rumors about a possible revival.
While amazing projects like Unseen64 have archived assets from some of these amazing projects, it's still a shame that many fantastic zombie titles seem to be forever lost to the ether.
10 Zombies Ate My Neighbors 2
Zombies Ate My Neighbors 2 was a canceled game planned for Xbox and PS2. Its existence was revealed when Daniel Ibbertson of Slopes Game Room on YouTube was contacted by a former developer on the project. There were plans for an interview after releasing a few art assets but nothing has come of this interview yet. It may never come out but fans of this forgotten SNES original can at least get excited for the remaster on June 29.
9 Midway Zombie Shooter
This game does not officially have a title. It was being made by Midway somewhere around 2009 for the PS3 and Xbox 360. Players would not only fight zombies in the ruins of a city but giant monsters as well. The art assets and gameplay screenshots showcase this nicely. Another interesting fact about the screenshots is that the main character seems to have a spinal health bar like in Dead Space.Â
8 World War Z
World War Z was another Midway project, specifically Midway Newcastle. The company pitched two ideas around 2008. One was for World War Z which was based on the book of the same name. The studio shut down in 2009 without much if any work being shown on this PS3, PC, and Xbox 360 project. Unrelated to this game or Midway, a World War Z game would eventually get made via Saber Interactive in 2019 with the same name.Â
7 Evil Spell
Evil Spell was being developed by Dark Ride Studios, which was comprised of ex-Grin developers. Grin is infamous for working on a plethora of canceled games with Final Fantasy Fortress perhaps being the biggest.
This game was planned as a 2D brawler that mixed time periods together. It was planned for the PS3 and Xbox 360 and besides some art assets, there’s a video walkthrough of a level set in the medieval era in its alpha form.Â
6 ZTA
ZTA was a play off of GTA or Grand Theft Auto. It was more or less the codename for this project which was pitched to Rockstar for the PSP. Based on the limited amount of screenshots, it does look a lot like Grand Theft Auto III in particular but with zombies. The developer, Smack Down Productions, did not get their pitch picked up. It looks like they never got off the ground with any huge project either.Â
5 Death Monsters
Death Monsters was a canceled game in development sometime around 2010, or 2011 for the PS3 and Xbox 360. It was another 2D brawler, hack and slash, and shooter style of game similar to Evil Spell. The big gimmick of this experience was that players could turn into a werewolf to slay zombies and other creatures of the night. Birdies Road was the developer and it doesn’t appear they worked on anything else.
4 Road Trip
Road Trip was a canceled game basically The Last of Us before Naughty Dog had released it. It would take place in a post-zombie world where an older survivor, TJ, would meet up with a young girl, Mia, and go on a road trip across the country. Sounds familiar right?
It was being designed by Hydravision Entertainment sometime around 2009 or 2010 for the PS3 and Xbox 360. The company went bankrupt in 2012 and only a few art assets have survived besides behind-the-scenes history with some of the developers.Â
3 ManhattenÂ
Manhatten takes place in Manhattan if that wasn’t obvious after a violent zombie outbreak. It was planned as a PS3 exclusive around 2006 by one of Sony’s internal developers, Sony Cambridge. That team had worked on a plethora of exclusive titles as far back as the PS1.
This game could not get off the ground though. The company would eventually transition into becoming Guerrilla Cambridge before closing in 2017.
2 Gunhero
Gunhero was being made for the PS3 and Xbox 360 around 2007. The developer was EA Los Angeles who had previously worked on Medal of Honor: Vanguard and Medal of Honor: Airborne. This game also would have a first-person viewpoint but would instead focus on melee rather than shooting. There are some art assets left, a short tech demo, and a planning document. It just never came together and joined the canceled games pile.Â
1 Zombie High
Zombie High is one of the oldest canceled zombie titles as it was planned for the Sega Genesis. What makes this entry unique is the fact that a prototype rom exists of it online. The game starts in a high school with the teenage hero squirting zombies into oblivion similar to Zombies Ate My Neighbors but in 2D.
It’s a barebones demo which is also pretty short but for those interested in the history of canceled video games, it’s always nice to be able to experience one of them first hand.