CombyLaurent — a Swiss video game preservationist whose work we've covered in the past — has recently announced that they have managed to archive 11 prototypes of a cancelled Vectorman PS2 game that would have seen the Sega character make the jump to 3D. That's in addition to a bunch of other design documents and concept art, which are all now available to view on the Sega Dreamcast Info Game Preservation website.
Vectorman, in case you've never heard of it, was a 2D action platformer designed by BlueSky Software and published by Sega. It was released in North America and Europe in 1995 and saw players take control of the game's titular robot (or "orbot" as it is referred to here) as they embark on a quest to defeat the evil dictator Warhead.
Later on, it received a sequel Vectorman 2 in 1996 and saw various pitches floated for a potential third game in the series, including BlueSky Software's Vectorman 3: Ultra for the Sega Saturn, VBlank's Vectroman Neo for the Sega Dreamcast, and a PS2 reboot simply titled Vectorman from the Cel Damage developer Pseudo Interactive.
It's the last of these that Laurent seems to have turned his attention to of the late, with the video game historian recently posting online that they had recovered a large cache of materials from the game's development.
According to the history of the project that accompanies these recovered materials, the project originated in 2002 when Pseudo Interactive pitched a 3D demo of the project to Sega of America. Sega of America liked what it saw and commissioned the team to develop it further, with the project gradually evolving from a faithful 3D adaptation to more of a Halo-esque third-person shooter. The project was announced via a press release in April 2003 that gave the title a tentative release window for early 2004 and also appeared at E3 in May 2003 but was cancelled in November of the same year due to internal changes at the publisher following Sega of America president Peter Moore's departure and the company's marketing department abandoning ship.
You can read the full account here and view more of the materials.
Comments 3
Laurent Comby is actually from Switzerland.
I remember this game. I was so excited for a new vectorman game. Love the 1st 2. Played them a lot despite owning a N64. Man I wish they never canceled the vectorman sequel. With all theses old SEGA IPs being relaunched maybe we will see vectorman return.
#verctormanforsmash🤣
A lot of these prototypes show promise, especially the earlier ones that kept the design closer to the first two games. I never cared for the very military-looking, tank-ish design that was shown later on in magazines. I was actually glad that version was cancelled at the time.
A new Vectorman could be great though as long as they bring back the style, sound and rhythm of the first two games and then go wild.
Vectorman, Astal, and Clockwork Knight are my top requests for SEGA revivals.
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