Sega turns 60 this year and the company is celebrating that fact on multiple fronts, one of which is the utterly insane game gear. Micro, another way sega is marking the occasion is by giving away four games on steam, one of which is a canned prototype for a golden axe, sequel which was developed in just two weeks in 2012., dubbed golden axed see what they did there. The game will be free to download on october 18th and is based on the work of sega’s, now defunct australian studio. The fact it’s being released at all has come as quite a shock to the original developers, who had no idea. Sega was planning to do this. According to tim dawson, the main developer of the prototype describes it as a darker bloodier golden axe with splatter and decapitations, and two button combat that aim to remain true to the spirit of the original game, but ultimately turned into something of a horror project coded under Crunch conditions, he says it became his personal nexus of nightmare hours, inept management, industry, realizations and heroics achieved with a small team under unreasonable conditions. His twitter thread on the topic is well worth a read, as he describes his constant battles with management and his disagreements with the lead designer who apparently wanted a god of war style game and not an arcade brawler. At one point, the lead even claimed that golden axe and sega stablemate streets of rage were the same game.
Dawson concludes that they didn’t want it. They wanted something else entirely dawson who would found which beam games with mishra and produce assault. Android cactus also contests warning bad language, sega’s steam page listing for the game which, in all fairness, won’t, have been written by the same management who scuppered the project eight years ago. Golden axe may be janky, maybe buggy, maybe an artifact of its time, but it offers a unique glimpse into the prospect of a project that could have been. This may be something of a dark project for dawson, but it’s going to be interesting to see what he achieved when the game becomes free to download on the 18th, it will be for one day only so be sure to pop it in your diary. The original golden axe hit arcades back in the late 80s and spawned multiple sequels, including two, which were exclusive to the mega drive its arcade follow up revenge of death. Adder is finally getting an official release this year, while golden axe, the duel and golden axe – beast rider, arguably failed to do the brand justice sega also tried to turn the series into an rpg with the likes of golden axe, warrior on the master system, an axe Battler a legend of golden axe on the game gear, as well as the sega, australia prototype. Another potential sequel was canned which would have resembled vanilla ware titles such as odin sphere and muramasa. Sega is also releasing endless zone armor of heroes and streets of camaracho for free, the latter of which fuses the worlds of yakuza and streets of rage here’s.
Some more info direct from sega armor of heroes, relic entertainment, dasha, retro, inspired multiplayer tank romp for up to four players in vs, combat and couch co, op available from october 15th to 19th endless zone amplitude studio, stash the endless universe and fantasies on it and collide In this side, scrolling shoot m up available from october 16th to 19th streets of camaracho sega registered dash, kuru and majima from sega’s critically acclaimed yakuza series are raging on the streets of camaracho in a new but familiar challenge available from october 17, 19 golden axed sega Registered dash a build of a never before seen glimpse at a canned project called golden accept reborn available from october 18th to 19th.iEPaLj-AhWA
