Back in the early days of the Playstation 2 every company was looking to take advantage of the hardware by developing titles that would go on to revolutionize the video game industry and leave a memory to a potential franchise to this day. With titles launching in under a year of the PS2’s launch such as Dead to Rights and Oni, some decided to go the route of third-person action titles. One such title was a little game developed by Widescreen Games then known as White Fear.
This game had had you play as a young shaman named Iru who aims to help his polar village after an evil witch named Sukko destroys their homes. Not only did this witch leave her servants to control the area, but also cast a curse on the town causing them to turn to ice monsters. The player would have to have then go on an adventure using both magic and melee weapons to kill Sukko and restore the village.
Unfortunately, the game went through development hell starting in 2004. According to Queue Times, then publishers Microids dropped the project after numerous postponements. After all, the game was originally announced in Spring 22 and was to release in November of the same year. After Microids dropped publishing rights, Playlogic picked it up where it appears the game remained in development until at least mid-2006. This can be confirmed as GameSpot published a First Look piece in May 2006 and noted a release in September of the same year on Playstation 2 and PC.
Thankfully while no exact reason has ever been given, the game does still live on as in 2019 a prototype was leaked online from a build dated April 2, 2002 where it has successfully been archived forever.
