Gone But Not Forgotten: 10 In-Development Games Canceled This Year

As if the last two years’ worth of layoffs and studio closures weren’t bad enough, 2025 kicked off with a slew of high-profile game cancellations and the shuttering of once-great developers, even though the companies funding and publishing these titles continue to churn out record profits. The games industry continues to be in the midst of a transitory period, recovering from the unprecedented growth of the early 2020s and adjusting to try and meet the realities of an uncertain economic forecast. As a result, we’ve seen a staggering number of games canceled just this year alone, with the following 10 titles providing the biggest sting from the knowledge that they’ll never see the light of day.

• Developer — Uncapped Games
• Publisher — Uncapped Games
• Genre — RTS
• Reveal Date — June 7, 2024
• Cancellation Date — May 23, 2025

The loss of Uncapped Games’ debut title, Battle Aces, is a huge disappointment for RTS fans, especially after such positive reception from the game’s open beta earlier in the year. Unfortunately, the interest in Battle Aces‘ beta access fell a bit short of what Uncapped Games had hoped for, resulting in the studio making the call to cease development. The RTS genre seems to be on a bit of a come-up thanks to newer entries like this year’s Tempest Rising, so hopefully the minds behind Battle Aces can pivot to a new project with a similar template.

• Developer — Bend Studio
• Publisher — Sony Interactive Entertainment
• Genre — Unknown
• Reveal Date — N/A
• Cancellation Date — January 16, 2025

One of the first major cancellations to get announced this year came from none other than Sony Interactive Entertainment, which revealed that two in-development first-party projects were ceasing development. The first of them is an unannounced live-service game from Days Gone developer Bend Studio, which is understandable given how disastrous Sony’s push into live-service has been. With any luck, Bend will get a chance to make Days Gone 2 now that the original’s Remastered version and PC release have turned perception toward the game around.

• Developer — Cliffhanger Games
• Publisher — Electronic Arts
• Genre — Action-Adventure
• Reveal Date — July 10, 2023
• Cancellation Date — May 28, 2025

Despite being a few years into development, Electronic Arts pulled the plug on the single-player Black Panther game that was supposed to be a rival to other great superhero adventures like Insomniac’s Spider-Man titles or Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham games. With the Black Panther film franchise effectively on hold, EA’s decision to cancel Black Panther likely means it’ll be a long time before someone attempts to revive the property for another project.

• Developer — Bluepoint Games
• Publisher — Sony Interactive Entertainment
• Genre — Action-Adventure, Live-Service
• Reveal Date — N/A
• Cancellation Date — January 16, 2025

After knocking it out of the park on the Demon’s Souls remake for the launch of the PS5, Sony Interactive Entertainment tasked Blupoint Games with working on a live-service game connected to the God of War universe. That game was never officially announced but was confirmed to have existed following its cancellation earlier this year, freeing up Bluepoint to hopefully work on something better suited to its talents as an expert remake and remaster studio. Fingers crossed we get them on something Bloodborne-related as penance.

• Developer — Extremely OK Games
• Publisher — Extremely OK Games
• Genre — Metroidvania
• Reveal Date — December 8, 2022
• Cancellation Date — January 22, 2025

One of the year’s earliest cancellations that still stings to think about is Extremely OK Games’ Earthblade. Development on Earthblade began shortly after Extremely OK Games’ (formerly Maddie Makes Games) work on Celeste, and it was shaping up to be an incredibly cool take on a Metroidvania with plenty of great narrative pull and some very cool pixel art visuals. Unfortunately, internal issues within the studio, coupled with a lack of real progress, inspired Extremely OK Games to pull the plug on Earthblade to shift priorities and rediscover a love for game development.

• Developer — Rare
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — Adventure
• Reveal Date — November 14, 2019
• Cancellation Date — July 2, 2025

The recent Microsoft layoffs saw the company’s Xbox division and Microsoft Game Studios publishing arm heavily impacted, with more than 10 studios affected and several projects canceled. One of the more surprising cancellations is for Everwild, the next game from legendary developer Rare and the studio’s first new title since launching the hugely successful Sea of Thieves. Thankfully, Rare still exists as a studio, meaning we should hopefully see them bounce back with a new project sooner rather than later.

• Developer — Hypixel Studios
• Publisher — Hypixel Studios, Riot Games
• Genre — Survival, Creative Sandbox
• Reveal Date — 2015
• Cancellation Date — June 23, 2025

Hypixel Studios began development on Hytale way back in 2015 as a way to build out its popular Hypixel server in Minecraft, with the project eventually growing to catch the attention of League of Legends‘ Riot Games. But after roughly 10 years of development with not much progress to show for it, Riot Games withdrew its funding from the project, forcing Hypixel to announce Hytale‘s official cancellation this June.

• Developer — The Initiative, Crystal Dynamics
• Publisher — Microsoft Game Studios
• Genre — FPS
• Reveal Date — December 10, 2020
• Cancellation Date — July 2, 2025

It might have seemed like the Perfect Dark reboot was practically doomed from the beginning, but the first gameplay reveal shown off last year left fans with plenty of hope for it being a strong follow-up to the N64 original and a great spiritual successor to the Deus Ex franchise. Of course, the game’s tumultuous development (which saw original developer The Initiative sidelined in favor of bringing in veteran studio Crystal Dynamics), coupled with Microsoft’s decision to lay off a significant portion of its gaming division, saw Perfect Dark ultimately canceled and The Initiative shuttered.

• Developer — Splash Damage, Bulkhead Interactive
• Publisher — Splash Damage
• Genre — Action
• Reveal Date — December 8, 2022
• Cancellation Date — January 8, 2025

The reveal that Splash Damage was following up its work on the excellent Gears Tactics with a game set in the Transformers universe was exciting news, but the title was unfortunately canceled at the beginning of this year due to cuts from parent company Tencent. It’s a shame, too, because the leaked footage that had been circling the Internet showing off gameplay snippets pointed to Transformers: Reactivate being a very cool online-focused action game with a style that sat nicely between the Transformers cartoon and the live-action films.

• Developer — Monolith Productions
• Publisher — Warner Bros. Games
• Genre — Action-Adventure
• Reveal Date — December 9, 2021
• Cancellation Date — February 25, 2025

Similar to Perfect Dark, Warner Bros. and Monolith’s Wonder Woman game was a title whose development woes were well broadcast, with a lack of new updates or information pointing to trouble behind the scenes. Sure enough, in February of this year, Warner Bros. Games announced that not only had the Wonder Woman game been canceled, but it was also shuttering Monolith Productions. This one especially stings, given that Monolith has a strong pedigree and that the iconic “Nemesis” system from the studio’s Middle Earth games dies with it.