Presenting, a late build of the unreleased Daredevil: Man Without Fear for the Sony PlayStation 2!
Daredevil: The Man Without Fear (originally known as Daredevil: The Video Game during early development) was a third-person beat em up action game based on the Frank Miller Marvel superhero comic of the same name developed by 5,000 Ft. studios. The game was intended to be published by Encore Inc. and was in development for the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, and PC. The game was cancelled due to Marvels ultimate refusal to approve the game due to the various changes that were made due to Sonys recommendations that steered far from the original concept the developer had sold to the licensor.
Daredevil: The Man Without Fear (originally known as Daredevil: The Video Game during early development) was a third-person beat em up action game based on the Frank Miller Marvel superhero comic of the same name developed by 5,000 Ft. studios. The game was intended to be published by Encore Inc. and was in development for the Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, and PC.
The plot of the game consists of an original story that was based on the Elektra Lives Again comic, starting off with Daredevils arch-enemy, The Kingpin, who had been supposedly assassinated which causes a war among the rival gangs that occupy Hells Kitchen. The gangs compete for power in the entire city, leading to a resurrected Elektra.
You play as Matt Murdocks alter ego Daredevil in this action-styled beat 'em up. The game plays like a loose version of the Spider-Man games, giving you the ability to grapple up walls and cliffs while taking advantage of a spidey-sense like Shadow World that allows you to view heat sources and other forms of life around you. The game is separated into individual chapters where the game guides you to what you need to do to finish it while also offering optional side missions that can be done at the same time.
5,000 Ft. began development on the game after helping 3DO with their port of the Army Men series to the PlayStation. At the time, Encore, Inc. had purchased licenses to several Marvel properties such as Captain America and Daredevil. 5,000 Ft. decided to shift towards creating their own games by using the Daredevil property. The scope of the game was originally much smaller, given that the game originally received a much lower budget. However, when 5,000 Ft.s president Tim Page was contacted by a friend who worked at Sony Pictures mentioned that a movie was in development by 20th Century Fox for 2003, the budget of the game was expanded and thus the games size and scope would expand as well.
Like all third-party developers at the time, the game had to receive approval from the product evaluation departments within Sony and Microsoft. Since Microsoft at the time was a newcomer in the video game console industry, they had a very hands-off approach to the evaluation procedure. However, Sony made several demands on the game that would eventually drain more of the developers limited resources. Sony would suggest things such as adding the beat em up style combat system and adding a grinding mechanic that was inspired by Tony Hawks Pro Skater series. To make matters worse, Sonys demands were at odds with Marvels agreements with the developers, which strained the relationship between all parties involved.
The games first few months of development went smoothly until it was decided that a new engine was to be used. In an effort to lighten the cost of development, 5,000 Ft. decided not to go with third-party engines like RenderWare and decided to use some of the base technology to create their own engine. However, this caused issues during development as some of the technology supporting the RenderWare engine had to be engineered to work with the new engine that 5,000 Ft. was creating at the same time. In the end, the game moved away from being an open-world game and was developed as a linear third-person beat em up. The game would miss its original target release date of February 2003 to coincide with the release of the movie and was bumped up to sometime during the Summer of 2003. The game was in development at least until March of 2004 before the cancellation of the game due to many of the staff members who worked on the game leaving. The final nail in the coffin was Marvels ultimate refusal to approve the game due to the various changes that were made due to Sonys recommendations that steered far from the original concept the developer had sold to the licensor. The game was rumored to almost be completed by the time it was canceled.
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R.I.P. SaikyoMog! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-seAIeu3Og "You know, there are certain flaws in this film," Tom Servo
Besides looking not half bad for a ps2 title, honestly? Daredevil should be the next game to copy the spiderman/batman formula. He's literally a combination of the 2, he swings from rooftops like Spiderman, and he uses sonar to see around like bats batman