# Sierra's Cancelled Games: The Ones That Got Away Sierra Entertainment developed some of the most beloved video game franchises in history, but for every game that shipped, others died on the vine. This guide documents Sierra's most significant cancelled projects—ambitious games that never saw release, leaving fans to wonder what might have been. ## Overview Sierra's cancelled games represent a fascinating cross-section of gaming history. These weren't just abandoned prototypes; many were substantial projects with famous designers, completed voice recordings, and playable builds. Their cancellations reveal the corporate dysfunction, industry shifts, and creative conflicts that marked Sierra's decline in the late 1990s and early 2000s.[^ref-1] The pattern is striking: multiple beloved franchises—King's Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest—all had planned sequels cancelled during the tumultuous period between 1997 and 2013. The corporate upheaval following CUC International's acquisition of Sierra, culminating in "Chainsaw Monday" (February 22, 1999), decimated Sierra's legendary development teams.[^ref-2] > [!note] A Timeline of Loss > - **1997-1999:** Space Quest VII, Leisure Suit Larry 8, King's Quest IX (Twins of Change) > - **1999:** Babylon 5: Into the Fire, Manhunter 3: London > - **2001-2003:** Middle Earth Online (Sierra version), SWAT: Urban Justice > - **2013:** King's Quest IX (Telltale), Precinct, Red Baron Remake ## Major Cancelled Games ### Space Quest VII: Return to Roman Numerals Perhaps the most lamented cancellation in Sierra history, Space Quest VII went through multiple development iterations between 1997 and 2002, including both an internal Sierra version and a later Escape Factory console reboot.[^ref-3] **What Happened:** Development began in early 1997 under series co-creator [[Scott Murphy]]. The project was announced for late 1998 but placed on indefinite hold by December 1997. Murphy was laid off from Sierra on February 15, 1998. A brief restart attempt in early 1999 ended when Sierra closed its Oakhurst, California facility on "Chainsaw Monday," firing two-thirds of its employees.[^ref-3] **Why It Was Cancelled:** Corporate pressure to add multiplayer functionality fundamentally compromised the design. Murphy later admitted: "We were being pressured to make Space Quest 7 a multiplayer game, which, by its nature, it just never should have been. Therefore, the design had to be something that I didn't want it to be and I thought it sucked for the most part."[^ref-3] **What Would Have Been:** The game planned to return Roger Wilco to planet Polysorbate LX from Space Quest 6. A later Escape Factory version using Unreal Engine was designed as an action-platformer for Xbox and PlayStation 2, with a shocking revelation that villain Sludge Vohaul was Roger's brother—a failed clone.[^ref-4] **What Survives:** A promotional trailer included with The Space Quest Collection shows Roger "dying" while self-referentially joking about the game's likely cancellation. The trailer "had nothing to do with what Space Quest 7 was supposed to be" according to developers—it was "merely eye candy for management."[^ref-4] --- ### King's Quest IX: The Long Wait "King's Quest IX" is actually an umbrella term for **five separate cancelled attempts** to continue Sierra's flagship adventure game series between 1998 and 2013.[^ref-5] | Years | Project | Developer | Status | |-------|---------|-----------|--------| | 1998–1999 | Roberta's Concept | Sierra On-Line | Never greenlit | | 1999–2002 | Twins of Change | Sierra Seattle | Studio closed | | 2002–2010 | The Silver Lining | Phoenix Online (fan) | Released under new name | | 2007 | Silicon Knights | Silicon Knights | Destroyed by court order | | 2011–2013 | Telltale Games | Telltale Games | Cancelled | **The Most Developed Version:** King's Quest: Twins of Change was directed by [[Mark Seibert]] and written by Cindy Vanous at Sierra Studios Seattle. It featured Alexander and Rosella transformed by wild magic, able to change into animal forms, in a Zelda-inspired action-adventure. The studio "finally died under Vivendi Games" before completion.[^ref-6] **The Strangest Fate:** Silicon Knights' 2007 King's Quest prototype was **physically destroyed** by court order after they lost a lawsuit to Epic Games over Unreal Engine source code misuse.[^ref-5] **What Survives:** [[2010 - The Silver Lining\|The Silver Lining]] began as "King's Quest IX: Every Cloak Has a Silver Lining" before receiving cease-and-desist letters and being forced to continue under a new name. Four of five planned episodes were released between 2010 and 2014.[^ref-7] The series eventually continued with [[2015 - King's Quest\|The Odd Gentlemen's 2015 reboot]], which developers explicitly stated was **not** King's Quest IX.[^ref-5] --- ### Leisure Suit Larry 8: Lust in Space Al Lowe's planned sequel would have taken Larry Laffer into space as the series' first fully 3D entry.[^ref-8] **What Happened:** Development began in 1998 under series creator [[Al Lowe]], who had designed every mainline Larry game. The game was cancelled while Lowe was still waiting for project approval, before full development began.[^ref-8] **Why It Was Cancelled:** Corporate turmoil following Sierra's acquisition by CUC International. Lowe described the situation: "Sierra management was in turmoil after Ken and Roberta got bought out by CUC. The new management tried to get me to design my next game without a contract, saying 'we'll work it out later.'"[^ref-9] Al Lowe departed Sierra on February 22, 1999—the same "Chainsaw Monday" that claimed Space Quest VII. Shortly after, Sierra's adventure games department was disbanded entirely.[^ref-8] **What Survives:** Only very early test renders exist from the development period. An easter egg in [[1996 - Leisure Suit Larry 7 - Love for Sail\|Love for Sail!]] referenced the planned sequel.[^ref-8] **The Aftermath:** The Larry series would not continue until 2004's [[2004 - Leisure Suit Larry - Magna Cum Laude\|Magna Cum Laude]]—the first Larry game without Al Lowe's involvement, featuring a new protagonist (Larry Lovage) and a radically different tone.[^ref-10] --- ### Babylon 5: Into the Fire One of the most heartbreaking cancellations in Sierra's history—a game that was **65% complete** with all live-action sequences already filmed.[^ref-11] **What Happened:** Developed by Yosemite Entertainment, this ambitious space combat simulator featured the entire original cast of the Babylon 5 television series reprising their roles. Sierra partnered with Warner Bros. in October 1997 for what was meant to be a late spring 2000 release.[^ref-11] **Why It Was Cancelled:** Sierra's corporate reorganization killed the project on September 21, 1999, just months before completion. The development team was laid off and the project shelved.[^ref-11] **Technical Achievements:** The game's proprietary Inertia Flight Engine could render up to 1,000 simultaneous ships in battles, with over 60 unique ship models. IGN praised the authentic Newtonian physics, calling Sierra "the first company to really get space flight accurate while keeping it fun."[^ref-12] **What's Lost Forever:** The voice recordings featuring actors Andreas Katsulas, Rick Biggs, and Jeff Conaway (all now deceased) represent the **final time the complete Babylon 5 cast performed together**. These recordings remain locked in corporate archives and are presumed lost.[^ref-13] **What Survives:** A playable alpha surfaced in autumn 2014, fifteen years after cancellation. The incomplete build is notoriously difficult to run on modern systems.[^ref-11] --- ### Precinct: Jim Walls Returns In 2013, [[Jim Walls]]—creator of the Police Quest series—attempted to revive police procedural adventures with Precinct, a spiritual successor to his beloved franchise.[^ref-14] **What Happened:** The Kickstarter campaign launched July 16, 2013, seeking $250,000 to develop a first-person police adventure set in the fictional corrupt town of Fraser Canyon, California. The campaign was cancelled by its creators in August 2013.[^ref-14] **Why It Failed:** The team acknowledged several missteps: failing to build a community before launch and presenting graphics that looked "a little arcade-ey" rather than conveying the "living history, interactive history" aesthetic they intended.[^ref-15] **What Was Planned:** Players would control Officer Maxwell Jones through an episodic story combining authentic police procedures with action sequences—shootouts, car chases, foot pursuits, and hand-to-hand combat.[^ref-14] --- ### SWAT: Urban Justice Sierra's planned fourth SWAT game, Urban Justice was meant to succeed [[1999 - SWAT 3 - Close Quarters Battle\|SWAT 3]] but was cancelled in favor of what became [[2005 - SWAT 4\|SWAT 4]] from Irrational Games.[^ref-16] **What Happened:** Set in 2006 Los Angeles during the city's 225th anniversary, the game featured three rival gangs—the Loco Riders, Krazy Boyz, and Compton 187—in open warfare. After spending years in development limbo, Vivendi discontinued the project.[^ref-16] **Technical Details:** The Takedown 3D engine supported 5,000-polygon character models with 29 differentiated impact points for realistic damage modeling.[^ref-17] **What Survives:** A 2002 trailer was included on Disc 2 of No One Lives Forever 2. An easter egg in SWAT 4's Victory Imports Auto Garage mission shows Urban Justice as an arcade cabinet—a company in-joke acknowledging the cancelled project.[^ref-16] --- ### Middle Earth Online Sierra's Middle Earth Online was one of the earliest attempts to bring Tolkien's world into MMO gaming—and featured radical design decisions that proved too controversial for mainstream audiences.[^ref-18] **Innovative Features That Killed It:** - **Permanent Character Death:** When your character died, they were gone forever - **Limited Elven Population:** Reflecting Tolkien's lore of diminishing Elves - **Severely Restricted Magic:** Even Gandalf "didn't show a full array of fire balls and lightning bolts"[^ref-19] **What Happened:** Sierra licensed the property in 1998 and developed it at Yosemite Entertainment. The entire development team was eventually dismissed. The project was later acquired by Turbine and evolved into The Lord of the Rings Online—without the permadeath feature.[^ref-18] --- ### Manhunter 3: London The Manhunter series—Barry, Dave, and Dee Dee Murry's dark post-apocalyptic adventure games—was planned as a trilogy, but the third game was never made.[^ref-20] **What Happened:** A poster in [[1989 - Manhunter - San Francisco\|Manhunter 2]] advertised "Manhunter 3: London," teasing the planned sequel. However, the Murrys were convinced by Brøderbund to publish their next project (Ancient Art of War) through them instead of Sierra. Ken Williams refused to be the "high bidder," and the developers never returned.[^ref-21] **Revival Attempt:** In 2008, Dave "Mike" Murry was reportedly working on a Manhunter London game with a dual protagonist structure—playing as a new Manhunter in the first half and the original protagonist in the second. The project appears to have remained in development limbo.[^ref-22] --- ### Red Baron 2013 Remake Damon Slye, creator of the legendary Red Baron flight simulator, attempted to revive the franchise through Kickstarter in 2013.[^ref-23] **What Happened:** Mad Otter Games acquired the Red Baron IP in 2009 and launched a Kickstarter on October 22, 2013, seeking $250,000. The campaign raised only $40,493 (16% of goal) before being cancelled.[^ref-24] **Why It Failed:** Slye candidly assessed the problems: "We didn't build a community before we launched the Kickstarter. We didn't present it very well. The game didn't look right. It looked a little arcade-ey. It didn't look like living history, interactive history."[^ref-23] --- ## Why They Were Cancelled ### Corporate Instability Sierra's acquisition by CUC International in 1996, followed by the merger into Cendant and sale to Havas/Vivendi, created constant leadership changes that disrupted ongoing projects.[^ref-1] ### Adventure Game Decline The late 1990s saw traditional adventure games fall out of commercial favor. Vivendi president Mike Ryder declared in 2002 that "the adventure genre as we knew it may no longer be viable."[^ref-4] ### Original Creators Departing [[Roberta Williams]] left Sierra in 1999 (reportedly required to sign a non-competition agreement), [[Al Lowe]] departed on Chainsaw Monday, [[Scott Murphy]] was laid off—the designers who had built Sierra's franchises were gone.[^ref-5] ### Chainsaw Monday February 22, 1999 devastated Sierra's studios. Ken Williams described it: "This is a sad ending to Sierra's twenty-year operating history in Oakhurst, which at one time, represented over 550 Oakhurst-based employees."[^ref-3] --- ## What Survived ### Spiritual Successors Several original Sierra designers launched Kickstarters to create spiritual successors to their cancelled games: | Designer | Original Series | Spiritual Successor | |----------|----------------|---------------------| | [[Scott Murphy]] & [[Mark Crowe]] | Space Quest | SpaceVenture (2026) | | [[Jim Walls]] | Police Quest | Precinct (cancelled) | | [[Damon Slye]] | Red Baron | Red Baron Remake (cancelled) | | [[Al Lowe]] | Leisure Suit Larry | Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded (2013) | ### Fan Projects The King's Quest community maintained hope through multiple cancelled official projects. [[2010 - The Silver Lining\|The Silver Lining]] came closest to being a "King's Quest IX," releasing four of five planned episodes before development stalled—though it was forced to drop the KQ name entirely.[^ref-7] For Space Quest, the fan game "Space Quest: The Lost Chapter" attempted to fill the gap, though with mixed results.[^ref-3] ### Official Revivals Some cancelled projects eventually led to official revivals in different forms: - **Middle Earth Online** → The Lord of the Rings Online (2007) (different developer, no permadeath) - **King's Quest IX** → [[2015 - King's Quest\|King's Quest (2015)]] (not considered KQ9) - **SWAT: Urban Justice** → [[2005 - SWAT 4]] (different developer) --- ## The Human Cost Behind every cancelled game were developers who poured years into projects that would never see release. **Evan Buehler**, sound designer on SWAT: Urban Justice, traveled from Seattle to Idaho to record over 40 firearms with professional studio equipment—audio work that would never be heard in a finished game.[^ref-25] The **Babylon 5: Into the Fire** team completed all live-action sequences with the original television cast, including actors who have since passed away. Those performances may be lost forever in corporate archives.[^ref-13] **Scott Murphy** learned his project was cancelled on Christmas Eve 1997: "That was the word used. And wasn't that a nice Christmas present?"[^ref-26] --- ## Lessons Learned Sierra's cancelled games offer cautionary tales about: 1. **Corporate Acquisition:** Creative studios often suffer under corporate ownership focused on short-term profits 2. **Chasing Trends:** Forcing multiplayer into single-player franchises (Space Quest VII) typically fails 3. **Timing:** Games cancelled at 65% completion (Babylon 5) represent enormous waste 4. **Crowdfunding:** Nostalgia alone can't fund revivals—community building and proper presentation matter The tragedy is that many of these games could have been great. The talent was there. The fan demand was there. What was missing was corporate support for the kind of creative, single-player experiences that had made Sierra legendary. --- ## See Also - [[1999 - SWAT 3 - Close Quarters Battle]] – The predecessor to cancelled Urban Justice - [[1995 - Space Quest 6 - Roger Wilco in the Spinal Frontier]] – The unintended series finale - [[1996 - Leisure Suit Larry 7 - Love for Sail]] – Al Lowe's final Sierra Larry game - [[1998 - King's Quest - Mask of Eternity]] – The last released King's Quest before the reboot - [[2010 - The Silver Lining]] – Fan project originally titled "King's Quest IX" - [[2015 - King's Quest]] – The eventual series reboot --- ## References [^ref-1]: [The Digital Antiquarian – King's Quest](https://www.filfre.net/tag/kings-quest/) – Sierra corporate history, Chainsaw Monday, adventure game industry decline [^ref-2]: [King's Quest Omnipedia – King's Quest IX](https://kingsquest.fandom.com/wiki/King%27s_Quest_IX) – comprehensive history of all KQ9 attempts [^ref-3]: [SpaceQuest.net – SQ7 Documentation](https://www.spacequest.net/sq7/) – development timeline, working titles, team quotes, Chainsaw Monday details [^ref-4]: [Wiw.org – Space Quest 7 Archive](https://wiw.org/~jess/sq7.html) – Escape Factory version, Vohaul revelation, December 2002 cancellation [^ref-5]: [King's Quest Omnipedia – King's Quest IX](https://kingsquest.fandom.com/wiki/King%27s_Quest_IX) – Silicon Knights prototype destruction, marketing decisions [^ref-6]: [King's Quest Omnipedia – King's Quest: Twins of Change](https://kingsquest.fandom.com/wiki/King%27s_Quest:_Twins_of_Change) – Mark Seibert as director, gameplay details [^ref-7]: [King's Quest Omnipedia – The Silver Lining](https://kingsquest.fandom.com/wiki/The_Silver_Lining) – original "King's Quest IX" title, Phoenix Online Studios [^ref-8]: [Unseen64 – Leisure Suit Larry 8 PC Cancelled](https://www.unseen64.net/2009/10/25/leisure-suit-larry-8-pc-cancelled/) – Development timeline, cancellation details [^ref-9]: [Larry Laffer Dot Net – Plot of LSL8 from Al Lowe](http://larrylaffer.net/exxxtras/larry-game-materials/plot-of-leisure-suit-larry-viii-from-al-lowe) – Al Lowe quote about CUC acquisition [^ref-10]: [Wikipedia – Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leisure_Suit_Larry:_Magna_Cum_Laude) – First game without Al Lowe [^ref-11]: [Abandonware France – Babylon 5: Into the Fire](https://www.abandonware-france.org/ltf_abandon/ltf_jeu.php?id=2287) – 65% complete, development history [^ref-12]: [IGN – Babylon 5: Into the Fire Preview](https://www.ign.com/articles/1999/05/15/babylon-5-into-the-fire) – technical achievements, flight mechanics praise [^ref-13]: [Frontier Forums – Babylon 5: Into the Fire Discussion](https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/babylon-5-into-the-fire-abandoned-1999-space-game.61329/) – cast information, voice recording details [^ref-14]: [Kicktraq – Precinct Campaign](https://www.kicktraq.com/projects/precinctgame/precinct/) – Campaign dates, cancellation information [^ref-15]: [Polygon – The Red Baron is Ready to Fly Again](https://www.polygon.com/2015/9/22/9354153/the-red-baron-is-ready-to-fly-again/) – Damon Slye interview on Kickstarter failures [^ref-16]: [Police Quest Omnipedia – SWAT: Urban Justice](https://policequest.fandom.com/wiki/SWAT:_Urban_Justice_(cancelled_game)) – cancellation details, SWAT 4 easter egg [^ref-17]: [UOL Start – SWAT: Urban Justice Preview](https://www.uol.com.br/start/previas/2002/02/22/swat-urban-justice.htm) – Takedown 3D engine specifications [^ref-18]: [Engadget – The Game Archaeologist: Middle-earth Online](https://www.engadget.com/2011-06-21-the-game-archaeologist-and-the-what-ifs-middle-earth-online.html) – Sierra development history [^ref-19]: [The One Ring – Game Reviews: Middle-Earth Online](http://haven.theonering.net/reviews/games/middleearth.html) – permanent death analysis, magic restrictions [^ref-20]: [Manhunter Wiki – Manhunter 3: London](https://manhunter.fandom.com/wiki/Manhunter_3:_London) – cancelled game information [^ref-21]: [Sierra Gamers Forums – Why was there never a third game?](https://www.sierragamers.com/forums/topic/why-was-there-never-a-third-game/) – Ken Williams explanation [^ref-22]: [AGD Interactive Forums – Manhunter 3: London coming soon](http://www.agdinteractive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12634) – 2008 revival information [^ref-23]: [Polygon – The Red Baron is Ready to Fly Again](https://www.polygon.com/2015/9/22/9354153/the-red-baron-is-ready-to-fly-again/) – Kickstarter failure analysis [^ref-24]: [GamesNostalgia – Red Baron](https://gamesnostalgia.com/game/red-baron) – Kickstarter amount raised [^ref-25]: [IGN – SWAT: Urban Justice Developer Diary #5](https://www.ign.com/articles/2002/05/01/swat-urban-justice-developer-diary-5) – Evan Buehler sound design [^ref-26]: [Wiw.org – Old SQ7 Archive](http://www.wiw.org/~jess/old_sq7.html) – Christmas Eve cancellation quote