Before it was closed in 2010, Blur developer Bizarre Creations was working on an unannounced, untitled racer, former Bizarre artist Chris Davie has revealed.
“This was the final thing being worked on at Bizarre Creations when the company was closed down,” said Davie in a blog post. The project was “approaching alpha.”
Davie shared two videos. The first, available here, shows the Brighton level and uses tech and assets from Blur to test out new ideas.
“This video shows us trying out some new visual effects, partly just because we thought it would be cool, and partly to see how more intense effects would effect the player’s experience (i.e. is driving through a storm shooting and dodging weapons fun and exciting or stupid and annoying),” said Davie.
“So we built a load of big storm effects into the Brighton level from Blur and did some fancier animated turn markers.”
The “Shunt” power-up from Blur was also given an upgrade. It went from a big red ball to a “big refractive energy pulse” that tears up the road as it zeroes in on its target, and leaves a trail of “broken tarmac and scattered, twisted lampposts.”
The second video shows the Dubai stage. At this point, the game was using an entirely new engine developed in-house at Bizarre Creations.
“When we were told the project was being canned and that the studio was facing closer, I bloody mindedly decided to keep working on the art on this track,” said Davie. “So much work had gone into the game already, it seemed a shame that nobody would get to play a finished track, even the dev team, so my goal was to get this Dubai track as close to final as I could before the lights went out for good.
“By the end it had gotten to about an alpha level, there was some really nice things in there, though we still needed to add a load of destructible objects inside the shopping mall and tram station we drive through in the video, and inside the hotel lobby of the building we drive on the outside of here. More animated scenery like the trams too, but time just ran out.”
With Bizarre Creations now closed, the game’s development has been discontinued and the game’s release is not a possibility.
“It’s a shame this thing will never be played, but at least it still lives on in some way in these videos.”
Thanks, Lucid Create.