An unreleased Spielberg game has surfaced today. As part of a documentary on the history of Arkane Studios produced by the folks at Noclip, footage, and details of an unreleased game being made in collaboration with famous filmmaker Steven Spielberg are now being seen online for what appears to be the very first time. Head below for all the details.
The documentary in question, known as “The Untold History of Arkane,” details some of the development house’s long lost projects, including one it began creating with Spielberg himself. These days Arkane is known for its immersive first-person simulations, including the fantastic Dishonored series and Prey. Still, at one point, it was knee-deep in a sort of escort mission meets sci-fi Steven Spielberg video game known as LMNO.
Unreleased Steven Spielberg game:
Around 20-years ago now, Spielberg inked a deal with EA to create three video games. While two of them never saw the light of day, the critically-acclaimed Boom Blox did indeed hit store shelves and ended up being one of the higher-rated puzzlers on Nintendo’s Wii U platform. However, Arkane did start on a playable prototype for LMNO we are finally getting to see footage of today.
Parkour, melee combat, and more:
LMNO — which was a codename for the game — mostly had players escorting an alien creature by the name of Eve across the United States. Featuring a first-person point of view, the game’s prototype made use of Mirror’s Edge-style parkour mechanics as well what appears to be a melee combat system. According to Arkane, Spielberg was adamant about not having any gunplay in the game at all.
There was, however, an interesting communication system planned for the way the player interacts with Eve. The silent alien partner (at least in the early stages of the game) can emote to the player using a sort of colorful aura that appears around her head. This, in combination with both the player’s and Eve’s ability to point things out to one another, was the only way for us to know what Eve was thinking and the like. The story of the experience was directly connected to the relationship the player and Eve shared along the way, although details on how that would actually play out are thin.
1950’s Las Vegas:
In the documentary, not only do we get some details from art director Sebastien Mitton on LMNO — it was not an open-world experience and was running on Unreal Engine 3 at the time — but also some direct gameplay footage of the small slice of the game that was actually created. While plans were in place to have players travel the length of the country with Eve, only a small section of the 1950’s Las Vegas desert and a sort of truck stop diner ever came to fruition.
Be sure to dive into Noclip’s new Arkane documentary and the early footage of the unreleased Steven Spielberg video game. The LMNO part is quad up above, but there’s plenty more in there, and it’s definitely worth watching for anyone who is a fan of Arkane or games in general.
gadgetnewsonline’ Take:
While it’s certainly not the kind of game I would personally love to have gotten my hands on, it certainly looks interesting. One can only imagine how things could have played out between the player and Eve in terms of communication and learning more about each other across the journey. While the somewhat tamed down combat might not fly all that far these days, Spielberg, plus the 1950’s and aliens is almost always a sure fire hit. And with Arkane’s penchant for immersive first person simulations, imagine what something like this could look like these days. Players had to be aware of how the public was responding to their alien friend as the authorities could get called on you at anytime. Something like the escalating police presence via GTA, in combination with a somewhat passive combat system, could make for some amazing cat and mouse moments. Add some alien powers in there, and we could be on to something here.
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Source: Polygon
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