SEGA Released a 2012 Prototype of a Remake of GOLDEN AXE which Was a Nightmarish Project For Developers

In 2012, developer Tim Dawson and a small team of developers were brought on to build a prototype of a remake of the classic 80s video game Golden Axe. The team was only given two weeks to build the prototype and they had to accomplish this in unreasonable conditions set by management. But, they actually managed to pull it off and build a working game that actually looked cool!

Unfortunately, the game ended up being unused. This is one of several video game reboots that SEGA Studios Australia was working on. Some of the others included Altered Beast, and Streets of Rage, as well as an endless runner version of Shinobi. That studio ended up being shut down in 2013 and these projects were lost.

Well, that Golden Axe prototype game is now up and running on Steam, and it consists of a single level to play through. The creators of the game got no credit for the game or notice that it was being released. Dawson posted a rant on Twitter about his experience working on the project, which you can read. It’s a lengthy rant and worth reading, I’ll get you started off with the following:

this project was my personal nexus of nightmare hours, inept management, industry realisations and heroics achieved with a small team under unreasonable conditions, so it's an odd feeling to see it surface eight years later without context, credits and with a joke title sequence pic.twitter.com/lBDVWegn3p

— Tim Dawson (@ironicaccount) October 15, 2020

This actually looks like it would have been a really cool remake! You can check out some footage of it below:

Above is the pre-alpha prototype that SEGA Australia pitched to SEGA as part of their new 'SEGA Reborn' line of remakes. The idea was that all the games unde...