Long before it became EA DICE and released titles like Mirror's Edge and various Battlefield games, Swedish studio Digital Illusions Creative Entertainment worked on an unreleased and forgotten Genesis/Mega Drive game called Hardcore in 1994.
As the video above explains, the Turrican-esque run-and-gun shooter project was 99 percent complete with just "one bug left to squish" when Psygnosis cancelled 13 of its Genesis projects in an afternoon meeting after deciding to abandon the platform.
DICE co-founders Andreas Axelsson and Olof Gustafsson debuted this footage of Hardcore at Swedish demoscene show Datastorm last month. I really like how the bosses have a counter showing how close they are to dying. Also, make sure to watch the video to the end for the rotating Continue text on the Game Over screen -- very fancy!
Psygnosis and Sony still own Hardcore's license so DICE hasn't been able to release the game for free to Public Domain, but Axelsson says they're "working on that."
Perhaps Sony will relent and lets go of this one. Can't be too hopeful.
