Avalanche Studios co-founder Christofer Sundberg talked about the closed project AionGuard, an ambitious open-world fantasy game that was made in the late 2000s.
According to him, the project offered solutions similar to those now praised in Crimson Desert. The player was to play the role of a knight-mage and capture enemy fortresses. The battles resembled large-scale battles from "The Lord of the Rings."
The hero's abilities looked impressive even today: flying on dragons, freezing giants, and turning into a huge golem. The developers spent more than two years honing the mechanics, including cutting supply lines and attracting local tribes to sieges. Despite the finished prototype, the fate of the project was decided by the publisher.
The end of the collaboration was unusual: a major partner, probably Disney Interactive Studios, terminated the contract with a regular SMS. The company changed its strategy and decided to focus on its own safe brands instead of new brands for an adult audience. Avalanche tried to save the game by showing it on the cover of Edge, but no one picked up the project.
After that, the team moved on to Arcadia Rising, a steampunk story in an alternate London, but it was also canceled due to THQ's financial problems. Sundberg still believes that both games deserved to be completed.
