After 21 years, a long-lost Iron Man game which was in development for several months in 2003 before getting scrapped has surfaced online thanks to one of its former developers.
Over on Twitter, retired programmer Kevin Edwards, a former GenePool Software employee, has shared some screenshots and a video from The Invincible Iron Man – the working title for a game which which Edwards claims was "canned by Activision" as GenePool was shut down. Development began after work was finished on X2: Wolverine's Revenge, which was released on PS2, Xbox, GameCube, Game Boy Advance, PC, and Mac back in 2003, but sadly, the Iron Man game was never completed.
"We were about five to six months into the project with a brand new engine for PC, Xbox and PS2," Edwards says. "Then they pulled the rug, at which point we had no work and then no job! It really was looking great."
Here's a game I worked on at Genepool Software after we finished "X-Men 2: Wolverine's Revenge". AFAIK this is the first time the game has been shown. "The Invincible Ironman" ( working title, 2003 ) was canned by Activision and our studio was shutdown. xemu is pretty impressive! pic.twitter.com/2CNpbI2JyjJuly 2, 2024
Here's a teaser video of "The Invincible Ironman" for the original XBox console from 2003 that I worked on at Genepool Software. I'm still getting my head around the controls again and will post some proper gameplay footage in the next couple of days. pic.twitter.com/84IL5igN2dJuly 3, 2024
But why did it get canceled? Edwards says the team "never got to hear the exact reason(s)," but notes: "The film being delayed was a big one, or perhaps they didn't think the game was good enough and therefore didn't want to fund it further. Or perhaps some other dev was lined up to get it instead."
It's not clear what delayed movie Edwards is referring to, although an animated Iron Man movie with the exact same name released in 2007, which seems like it could potentially have been related. That aside, it's worth pointing out that a GBA game, once again boasting that same title, launched in late 2002. Curiously, this was also published by Activision, but it was developed by Torus Games.
Even if the GenePool Iron Man game never made it onto PC or consoles, Edwards plans to post "some proper gameplay footage in the next couple of days," which is bound to be interesting. Sadly for Marvel fans, this isn't the first time an Iron Man game has been canceled – a couple of years ago, it was revealed that the Just Cause devs at Avalanche Studios had once been working on one for around two years, and "it looked absolutely amazing." Hopefully EA Motive's single-player Iron Man game will be able to make up for those losses when it eventually launches.
Be sure to check out our roundup of the best single-player games to play right now for some new gaming recommendations.
