Developers laid off from Dauntless creator Phoenix Labs unveiled a game that almost was at the studio. Codenamed “Project Dragon,” it was officially cancelled over the weekend, prompting several artists and the game’s composer to reveal their work.
This past May, Phoenix laid off around 100 employees and canceled several projects in development. When studios kill projects, they don’t always let staff (current or former) publicly speak on nor show off at length what they’d been working on.
According to principal concept artist Nicholas Kole, there were multiple internal attempts to save “Dragon” that went nowhere. In revealing his work, he called it “the largest ever art bomb of work I loved.”
In Kole’s words, “Dragon” would’ve been a multiplayer sandbox-RPG inspired by Minecraft and Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. The project had been in development since 2021 and the studio’s third project after 2023’s Fae Farm.
A look at what “Project Dragon” could’ve been
For Cole, he showed concepts for several in-game creatures. One was influenced by pine cones (hence its name “Pinoceros”), and another by clay ocarinas.
Further art was revealed by co-developer Airborn Studios. Looking back on its contributions, Airborn called “Dragon’s” situation “bittersweet,” and lamented that players “won’t be able to experience [our designs] the way it was intended to be.”
Image via Airborn Studios/Phoenix Labs.
Along with the art, composer Cris Velasco released one of the would-be game’s tracks, calling it one of his favorite scores he ever made. “Now never to be heard in its entirely,” he added.
Interestingly, Kole, who previously worked at Crash developer Toys for Bob, briefly mentioned a fifth game in that series that was also cancelled. He gave no details, but noted the eventual embargo break for that game would “break people’s hearts.”
At time of writing, Kole and other artists have said they’ll reveal more from “Dragon” over time. So if the project sounds interesting, it would be worth checking back on those accounts from time to over the next several days.