Argonaut's Malice, Orchid Cancelled

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a Gamesindustry.biz report that Argonaut's flagship title, Malice, has been cancelled by publisher Vivendi Universal. This 3D platform title was one of the first ever demonstrated for the Xbox, during Bill Gates' 2001 unveiling of the console, and had more recently added a PS2 version, plus Gwen Stefani of No Doubt's voice for the lead character. The former Starfox developer "..does hope to find a new deal for the game [Malice]", so we may still see it eventually. Also in Argonaut's disappointing news was the fact that their 3D beat-em-up Orchid has been cancelled by Namco - though Namco are still publishing their quirky I-Ninja action title.

The worst part

[True Freak]

I think the worst part of this is:

"A lesser but still unfortunate footnote to these events is the retail failure of Kung Fu Chaos, the quirky Xbox title which was developed by Argonaut's Just Add Monsters studio and published by Microsoft. Although it received significant critical acclaim, the game simply didn't shift any units at retail, and as such Microsoft has not commissioned a sequel, leaving Just Add Monsters working on a new game instead."

Kung Fu Chaos is one of the best games I have ever played. And it's even more fun with a group of friends.

Canceled

[Masami Eiri]

And I was really looking forward to Malice... hopefully they'll find another backer.

Re:big loss...

[alcharn]

I could not agree more. From the start I was even remotely interested. Yeah...I am not going to miss it so much either.

Malice? Malice Who?

[superultra]

Malice, once merely an Xbox graphics demo, never really looked like more than just that: a graphics demo. For a while there, Microsoft picked up to publish themselves. They later dropped it, along with that absolutely atrocious Bruce Lee game, to Vivendi. Me, I'll wait patiently for Psychonauts. If they cancel *that*, someone. will. die.