Gameplay of cancelled Legacy of Kain: Dead Sun leaks
30 minutes of Climax's culled creation.
Half an hour of footage from cancelled PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 Legacy of Kain game Dead Sun has found its way online.
The title had been in development for three years at British studio Climax, known for its work on Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and the upcoming Assassin's Creed Chronicles: China.
Legacy of Kain series developer Crystal Dynamics, then busy building the Tomb Raider reboot, had also been involved in overseeing the project.
But publisher Square Enix pulled the plug in 2012 after it decided that the title would not meet its sales expectations, even as the project was being discussed as a PS4 launch title.
The footage, dug up by NeoGAF user Mama Robotnik, includes glimpses at the game's early cut-scenes, exploration, combat and gameplay.
There are similarities to Assassins' Creed to be found, as well as elements familiar to Shadow of Mordor - such as an otherworldly protagonist and spiritual buddy, with exploration and missions set across a large open environment.
Gameplay is taken from a "vertical slice demo" of the game presumably made for internal use within Square Enix.
It's not the first we've heard of the game - Mama Robotnik revealed its existence back in 2013 with a similar information dump - but this is the first time we've seen in-game footage.
Square Enix acknowledged the cancelled project had existed at the time of the previous leak, and also confirmed that it would not ever see the light of day.
"I can confirm that Dead Sun was a project which had been in development - but which was cancelled," then community manager George Kelion wrote at the time.
"I know it's disappointing to hear about these things out of context, and whilst some of the details released are accurate - some details are not. You know game projects can be cancelled for a variety of different reasons and I know it's very hard to tell from images and info alone, but in the end LOK: Dead Sun just wasn't the right game, at the right time... but you'll have to take me at my word on that, I'm afraid."
Only the game's multiplayer portion survived Square Enix's cull - it was expanded upon and recently released separately as the free-to-play spin-off Nosgoth.
Watch below what might have been (NSFW warning for one character's partial nudity):
