Jade Empire 2 & Revolver: the Lost Bioware RPGs (Patreon)

Published:

2017-07-24 11:09:41

Imported:

2020-07

Content

What happened to Jade Empire 2 and what is Revolver, the ambitious but forgotten Bioware RPG we'll never play? In the mid '90s BioWare was a favorite team to western RPG fans thanks to cult classics such as the Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights series. At the end of the ‘90s they wanted to enter the console market and developed MDK2 for Interplay, but unfortunately that did not set the market on fire as they could have dreamed for. After Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Bioware decided to embrace a more action oriented combat system suitable for controllers and the results was one of the best action RPGs to be released on the original Xbox: Jade Empire, published in April 2005. Only a few months later Microsoft released their new Xbox 360 and in November 2005 BioWare co-founder Ray Muzkya teased the existence of a sequel for Jade Empire, already in development at the time.

While Jade Empire is now a cult classic, unfortunately it did not sell as much as expected on the original Xbox and after a few months of concepts and early prototypes, Bioware decided that Jade Empire was not popular enough for their new plans.

Jade Empire 2 was chosen as the core to develop a new action RPG series for both consoles and PC: the mythical chinese martial-arts setting of Jade Empire was dropped in favor of a more urban, near-future sci-fi setting. With the Jade Empire name removed from the project, Bioware gave it a new codename: Revolver.

Files

Jade Empire 2 + Revolver: Cancelled Bioware RPGs | Unseen64 Ft. ItsaDogandGame

► ► You can read more about Jade Empire 2, Revolver and other cancelled games in the book "Video Games You Will Never Play", available on Amazon & Createspace: https://www.unseen64.net/2016/09/19/video-games-you-will-never-play-unseen64-book/ ► Thanks to ItsaDogandGame for the voice over! You can check his channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/ItsaDogandGame ► What happened to Jade Empire 2 and what is Revolver, the ambitious Bioware RPG we'll never play? In the mid '90s BioWare was a favorite team to western RPG fans thanks to cult classics such as the Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights series. At the end of the ‘90s they wanted to enter the console market and developed MDK2 for Interplay, but unfortunately that did not set the market on fire as they could have dreamed for. After Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Bioware decided to embrace a more action oriented combat system suitable for controllers and the results was one of the best action RPGs to be released on the original Xbox: Jade Empire, published in April 2005. Only a few months later Microsoft released their new Xbox 360 and in November 2005 BioWare co-founder Ray Muzkya teased the existence of a sequel for Jade Empire, already in development at the time. While Jade Empire is now a cult classic, unfortunately it did not sell as much as expected on the original Xbox and after a few months of concepts and early prototypes, Bioware decided that Jade Empire was not popular enough for their new plans. Jade Empire 2 was chosen as the core to develop a new action RPG series for both consoles and PC: the mythical chinese martial-arts setting of Jade Empire was dropped in favor of a more urban, near-future sci-fi setting. With the Jade Empire name removed from the project, Bioware gave it a new codename: Revolver. ► Please, consider pledge on Patreon to help Unseen64 to keep the site online and remember more lost games: https://www.patreon.com/unseen64 ► This video is released under Fair Use, to help preserving the unseen history of video games. Some footage was cut from these videos: SW: KotOR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsMmDOrneWI