Canceled PS2 Daredevil Sport Now Playable 20 Years Later

Daredevil: The Man With out Concern, a 2003 PlayStation 2 superhero sport that was in improvement by 5,000 Ft. Studios for the PlayStation 2 earlier than getting canceled, has resurfaced after 20 years with a brand new playable construct.

Learn Extra: The Life And Dying Of A Daredevil Video Sport

The sport preservation group Hidden Palace managed to launch a playable model of Daredevil: The Man With out Concern on October 31 by way of member Casuallynoted, who apparently obtained the construct from an nameless developer of 5,000 Ft. It’s a late prototype with a good quantity of bugs, together with potential crashes after the primary chapter and getting caught behind partitions. That stated, it nonetheless options the bones of what 5,000 Ft. Studios and writer Encore Inc. have been engaged on in collaboration with Sony throughout the early aughts.

The brainchild of 5,000 Ft. Studios, a Nevada-based developer whose earlier credit solely included two Military Males ports from 2001, Daredevil: The Man With out Concern began out as a easy mission earlier than ballooning in scope. Initially often known as Daredevil: The Video Sport earlier than adopting the identical identify as writer Frank Miller’s 1993 comedian, Daredevil was prototyped as a sequence of “vignettes” showcasing pivotal moments within the blind crimefighter’s historical past.

Nevertheless, as the Misplaced Media Wiki explains, Marvel’s imminent Daredevil film mission led 5,000 Ft. to transform the idea into an open-world journey, now additionally slated for the Xbox and PC. Tensions arose when Sony had very particular requests for brand new varieties of gameplay so as to add to the sport, whereas Marvel needed it to hew extra carefully to the upcoming Daredevil film.

Extra bother struck when the builders tried to adapt the then-popular RenderWare engine to the mission’s altering wants. After operating into critical points there, they lowered the mission’s scope from open-world journey again to linear brawler. Issues continued as “inner strife” on the studio precipitated it to overlook its February 2003 launch. A brand new date was set for summer season, however employees departures and persevering with bickering between Sony and Marvel put the ultimate nails within the Daredevil sport’s coffin. 5,000 Ft. Studios itself closed in 2012.

Now, although, because of an nameless developer reportedly related to five,000 Ft. Studios, a near-final construct of the canceled PlayStation 2 sport has been launched onto the web by way of the sport preservation group Hidden Palace.

Though it wound up getting canceled resulting from artistic variations between Marvel and Sony, based mostly on the video it seems to be fairly tight. It recollects early-aughts 3D superhero gems comparable to The Unbelievable Hulk and Spider-Man, with a little bit of Tomb Raider blended in, too.

The sport apparently tells an unique story based mostly on the 1999 Elektra Lives Once more comedian and starring Daredevil’s arch-enemy The Kingpin. It’s a disgrace, then, that it was canceled simply earlier than completion. As The Hidden Palace notes, solely the Sport Boy Advance ever ended up getting a Daredevil sport. The a lot much less bold Daredevil: The Man With out Concern for Sport Boy Advance arrived simply in time for the Mark Steven Johnson-directed live-action movie.

Learn Extra: Why I Love Daredevil

As Hidden Palace experiences, the newly launched construct of Daredevil: The Man With out Concern is playable, however with a number of bugs and game-breaking glitches because it’s unfinished. It’s good that this lastly snuck out 20 years later, although nonetheless a bummer the mission by no means received to dwell as much as its potential. With the success of Insomniac Video games’ Marvel’s Spider-Man sequence, and the Wolverine sport on the horizon, possibly Daredevil will get one other shot at online game redemption.