What Could Have Been – Redwood Falls

Every now and then we come across a game that had limitless potential.  Something that would have defied our imaginations and stolen our hearts.  Or, in RoH’s case, caused them to skip a beat or two.  These things happen.  Devs run out of money, publishers don’t want to pick up the game, or the promise that the game once held dissipates and you’re left with hours upon hours of time gone down the drain.

One such instance is Redwood Falls, a canned PS3 and 360 game that was canned by Kuju Entertainment.  No publisher showed interest in supporting the game and sadly it was cancelled back in 2006.  You can check out the demo and judge for yourself – is Redwood Falls a game that you’d play?

Kuju was bought out in 2007 and the new company didn’t exactly want to risk a new IP like Redwood Falls as is the case with many new IPs.  When it costs millions of dollars to make a current-gen game, you don’t exactly want to take a risk on something that might flop.  Something just didn’t sit right with the new company…

Redwood Falls used the Unreal Engine 3, which gave Redwood Falls an incredible appearance.  The environment was flammable and destructible, enemies were afraid of fire and could regenerate when damaged.

To quote the developers,

“There’s no horror in an enemy that dies with one shot, but the infected are unlike any you’ve ever met before; you can blow holes in their flesh and hack off their limbs, but the flesh grows back.  Headshots won’t kill them and decapitation will only slow them down.  To defeat these enemies, you are going to have to ge tup close and personal.  Bear traps, aces, Molotov Cocktails and Petrol cans are the order of the day.  Cut them up and burn what’s left–if you want to survive, you’re going to have to get bloody.”

Also touted was a multiplayer aspect of the game.  It would sort of play out like Versus in L4D, with living players and…you know…un-living players.

The haunting atmosphere of the Great White North, no HUD to tell you where enemies are coming from, a choice system that brings consequences to your game,   exploration in a possible open-world concept with everything happening in real-time, the scares carefully paced out….

…damn.

Well, perhaps with the Playstation Move on the horizon, a FPS horror title like Redwood Falls might live on yet?

–jeeves86

With files from Unseen64

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