Holy sh!t, I don't think I've been this excited to play something from a sponsored section like ever. That game looks like Doom make on the Quake engine and that looks amazing!
Pirates of the Caribbean as a franchise needs a dedicated episode. The first movie was dangerously close to being cancelled multiple times, the second movie’s script was being written DURING shooting, and the usual woes of making movies on the water came in full force.
My favorite detail is they kept losing Sparrow's hat because it didn't float, so they had to start making them in foam rubber dolled up to look like leather so it would actually float.
Not to mention Depp’s increasingly weird demands and erratic behavior during production of the later sequels, like refusing to read the scripts in advance and having all his lines fed to him on set via earpiece.
@@MrBeardsley From what I understand, that's not uncommon with method actors: the whole idea behind method acting is that the actor embodies the character fully, so getting the lines on the fly can give a sense of spontaneity that rehearsal would lose. It's not surprising to me that Depp would shift to using an earwig because the dude seemed to become Jack Sparrow full-time at some point.
I heard the second movie was largely written when they started filming, but they were writing for three as they filmed that movie due to time constraints. Not sure which one of us is right lol
I remember when I joined the team as a co op engineer, I was transferred to the pirates team after turok 2 got shutdown, 2 weeks after I was hired. I remember at that time we were focusing getting a vertical slice ready for Disney to give green light. Everyone on the team were able to find jobs all around vancouver after the studio shutdown. Great talent!
Damn. If it's worth anything the game looked amazing. Thanks for contributing to an industry that's been a huge part of my life since I was a little kid. Mad respect 🙏
it was during E3 2009? or some shit. i remember the gameplay. i was mad when they cancelled it 10months before its release. when i saw ac black flag trailers i thought it was this game since even walking animations are similar (maybe they sold the rights or models to ubisoft , quietly)... im mad...
God that bit about the lead character designer getting told "well he doesn't look as good as Nathan Drake" after only a few weeks of work. Infuriating! Money men don't seem to understand there isn't some magic make this look great button. Nathan Drake took years of development and insane patience and hard work. Just give the artists time!
Same! I remember seeing it announced at E3 and being utterly gutted when it was cancelled. I just want a good Pirate game. Why are Pirate games so rare? T_T
@@MuddiedProphet I remember when this was announced, I was excited for it. Sadly, 'Dead men DO tell no tales.' At least we have Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag. Not the same, I know, but it was a good pirate game. Some say, it's one of the best Assassin's Creed games, period.
It has been over 10 years and I still frequently think about how much potential this game had, how it was so ambitious and ahead of its time that a lot of gameplay concepts even predated AC: Black Flag and how it could've been one of the greatest licensed games ever made had it not gotten cancelled and I will never forgive Disney for this sin.
Can I just say I love seeing ad reads spotlighting indie games and not just the usual RU-vid sponsors? Very happy to be hearing about a cool new FPS and not a VPN
3:03 Relatedly, the one that made me sad was the GBA Dead Man's Chest. You get an isometric map of the Caribbean to explore, randomly-spawning ships to attack, cities to pillage, shops for ship upgrades, and so on. It was basically a portable Sid Meier's Pirates, with some platforming stages thrown in... except that the entire game can be 100%ed in 3-4 hours. They were so close to having a genuinely good pirate game at a time that was rare (much less on a handheld), but they just didn't include enough content, making for a game that ends just as you're starting to get into it.
wow someone who actually mentioned that game i tried to 100% it kind of recently and i found out that it's actually bugged and you can't collect every single treasure (you can't put the pieces of ehactl together bc once you collect 2/3 pieces the 3rd piece doesn't show up even if you have all the rumors)
This is actually really sad because, honestly, if Disney Interactive was operating at such a big loss for such a long time, if I were in the position to make the decisions... I might have made the same call. Any projects close enough to the finish line could stay, everything else gets cancelled. Let all of those finish and look at the results, then try to focus on "the next big thing" in Infinity (...I would not have thought that, but we're assuming in this situation I also believed that for some reason). If someone went very deep into every currently ongoing project to find the most promising ones, rather than the nearest-to-done ones, they hopefully would have seen this one as very promising and left it alone, but depending on how many projects there were that might not be possible. It really feels like this was just a perfect storm of circumstances that killed this game, and it almost feels like no one is really in the wrong here, just a case of wrong place, wrong time.
@@Iamafishproductions The context of it being Disney makes it kind of silly though. Sure, no company wants any division to run at a loss, but considering the *_absurd_* fortune they make, they could've afforded to stick it out for another year.
It's a shame that the Mouse has drawn back on video games for the most part. Armada seemed to be a great game to be finished and possibly make a major stand for a movie based game. I think at some point, someone will uncover the game's files and eventually release them to the public.
There's no reason not to. Disney doesn't want to make money off of it? Fine! Don't! I apply the same logic to Lego. When they retire sets they stay retired. Third party (Chinese) makers produce clones of a lot of those sets. It's no money out of Legos pockets at that point.
Anyone else here hoping we see Skele-Matt's awesome pirate captain design make a return for the inevitable Skull and Bones episode coming.. whenever Ubisoft gets their act together and releases it?
I remember being very excited for Armada of the Damned and so disappointed when it got cancelled. One of those “they should bring that idea back” kind of games that I wish could get made nowadays…
I've barely heard of this game, and yet I remember it being made during the height of every property getting an MMO at that point ...it was the style at the time!
just on the topic of pirates: it would be great to hear from you about the game "The Age of Pirates: Captain Blood", it was supposed to be released in 2010, it was even completely ready, but problems began in court for this brand and it was not officially released, but in 2021 the source code of the game was laid out and it can even to play!
@@frankiebecchi5307 one of the versions (this is indicated in the Russian-language Wikipedia): "To date, the project is still not released, perhaps due to unfinished litigation for the Captain Blood brand between 1C and Playlogic"
This is it. My Mega Man Legends 3, my Silent Hills, my Star Wars 1313. This cancelation bummed me out so bad that my expectations for the industry have pretty much been on the ground ever since. I don't even know why I clung on to it so hard haha.
Man, as someone who’s grown to love pirate games like Black Flag (and I guess Rogue) and Sea of Thieves, this one kind of breaks my heart to see. Sucks to see all that effort and potential go to waste like that. Also, Google Stadia might be a fun one to cover for a Wha Happen, although I don’t know if it could be made into a full episode since it had such a short life span 😂
It has been over 10 years and I still frequently think about how much potential this game had, how it was so ambitious and ahead of its time that a lot of gameplay concepts even predated AC: Black Flag and how it could've been one of the greatest licensed games ever made had it not gotten cancelled and I will never forgive Disney for this sin.
I know this is a really niche pull but Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch needs an episode. That game was touted as "the horse game for adult people who like horses" but it released with such incredible bugs (such as autosave failing) and the devs just shrugging and going "Wow gamers are so entitled" that it really could use an expose.
Ive watched most all of these wha happun videos twice. Ill be working just listening to these along with the worst fighting game videos. And also watched the 5 hour bunch ups. I really enjoy everything from the way he words them to the facts and inside scoops he has. Great content
I've got some mostly-fond memories of the 2003 "Pirates of the Caribbean" (those are scare quotes btw) game which was originally the sequel to a DIFFERENT game that got full-on Super Mario Bros. 2'd. They just kinda jammed the Black Pearl into it and at the end you get to sink it. (The cutscene shows the crew standing up in skellington mode at the bottom of the sea, implying they're going to refloat it somehow).
Yep, some of the tracks meant for the Tortuga levels were repurposed for the Lego tie-in. I think some of the 3D models were adapted for use in Disney Infinity as well; early screenshots from that show a ship that's identical to the one from Armada, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's code serves as the base for Infinity's PotC world.
This should have been finished. This would have been the best Pirates of the Caribbean game. Fair play for getting in touch with Chris! Yeah, Curse of the Black Pearl is the best Pirates film. This game and Turok 2 would have sold millions of copies. Don't forget about that Pirates of the Caribbean Online game from back in the day. That was actually decent. Loved the usage of Cervante's stage music from all the Soul Calibur games! Fantastic video Matt!
I was wondering where I'd heard of Chris before, and when you said he landed on his feet cofounding red hook I made a gigantic fist pump. what a feels good story.
I know the cancelled Sly Cooper movie was teased for a video but I would love a What Happened on the Ratchet & Clank movie. With a early script draft called one of the best, to the amount of independent financial backing that movie got, I just want to know why we got...the most generic animated kids movie you can imagine. Released in theaters for some reason too!
I was so stoked when this game got announced as a kid, especially as the MMO Pirates of the Burning Seas got released as well. It's a shame that this game didn't come to fruition as the POTC universe is oozing with great video game potential. It sadly got shut down, but the Pirates of the Caribbean Online MMO was actually fun too, so it's somewhat of a consolation.
Just happened to randomly see this video. Don't know if anyone will see this but I'll add to the pot: I had a chance to listen to and speak with one of the developers talk a bit about the project, around 2016 or 2017. While they didn't go too in-depth, they mentioned that the codebase of the water technology and pirate ship gameplay was eventually sold to Ubisoft (to recoup costs by Disney, since they weren't going to use it for anything), which then became a cornerstone of Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag. As Ubisoft got the rights to all the code from Disney, the Pirates of the Carribean programming team didn't get any credit for their work that basically became the basis of the game as a result. Just how things work sometimes.
I was so confused when you referred to James Sterling. I couldn't understand what Commander James Stephanie Sterling had to do with any of this! Finally I figured it out.
Great vid as always Mr. McMuscles! This one hurt a lot, since Armada of the Damned showed so much promise. Also, since it was mentioned: Split/Second was a truly amazing racing game! Tight controls, innovative HUD design, and per lap spectacle for days. Good times, until Disney got all...Disney about it.
I first thought we're talking abt the Pirates of the Caribbean 2003 game and I had to google it just in case I missremembered it. PotC 2003 was an exeptional good game!
I was a QA Tester on Tron Evolution and Pirates of the Caribbean Armada of the Damned. I can safely say it was going to be one of the absolute best 3rd person action games in that console generation.. wayyyy ahead of its time. Unfortunately Disney shut us down during production. RIP Propaganda Games. Screw you Disney.
Matt: What happened to Pirates of the Caribbean: Armada of the Damed? Well, executives at Disney... Everyone who's seen a What Happened before: I KNEW IT! Matt: ...took a hands-off approach to the production for the most part and only really intervened when their games division was suffering major financial losses. Everyone: ...oh.
It's one of those series that would probably do really well if it was given a modern remake, maybe something ala She-Ra or similar. It has an ongoing plot, a weird but interesting setting, pirates... what's not to like?
I hope one day they release a build like how it was with Starcraft Ghost and an earlier version of Duke Nukem Forever --- except this one game looks amazing and so much fun. It is always sad when a project with passionate developers is cancelled. Thank you for preserving this
These types of episodes are always the most painful. Perhaps there's a chance builds of the game will surface some day, if they haven't already in secret.
I remember seeing the cinematic and some of the gameplay. Was big into Fable 2 still at that point and I got real pirates meets fable/other rpg's of that time vibes as you pointed out and it could've been amazing! Alas 😞
Listened to the pirates of the Caribbean theme for the first time in about 5 years today at work. Was thinking about how I never saw a game of the series besides the Lego ones. How cool it could maybe be. And then you upload this. Wtf.
Man I'm still bummed disney closed down BRS, Split Second and Pure were very fun games to play, hell Split Second still holds up today and I'm glad the servers are still up
Man, this is the kind of Pirate game that I've been wanting for some time. I never even knew this existed until this video dropped. I really wish Disney didn't pull its plug and give it some time to finish, but I'm also not someone who is quite savvy in business practices, so they probably didn't see it as optimal. It's sincerely a shame this game will never see to light, although I do hope some dev team will find a way to revive this game in the form of a spiritual successor. Here's my request for future episodes, if Matt and Supporters ever get the chance to touch on them. BANDAI NAMCO's Rise of Incarnates and AOne Games' Omen of Sorrow
IF this ended up good, I would have been all over that. Putting it before the first Pirates is a fantastic idea as is a different lead. Jack Sparrow is a great side character but the movies drop in quality when he becomes the focus. Will Turner is a bit of a wet blanket though to be honest. Anyways, that whole universe is a gold mine for pirate adventure stories.
Good lord, I hated the fifth movie so much. On Stranger Tides gets a lot of hate as well, but I consider it leagues better than Dead Men Tell No Tales. Jack Sparrow is simply unrecognisable in the fifth movie.
It's kind of annoying too because if you look at some of the development material from this game and compare it to stuff in DMTNT, you can actually see a fair amount of similarities. Hell, the Devil's Triangle looks damn near identical to a piece of Armada's concept art; look up the Antilles Gate on the PotC wiki, it's near one to one. The idea that stuff from this game led to the creation of that movie is just another level of sadness in this story.
Disney's gradual downsizing of its gaming side was, honestly, one of the worst things to happen-- okay wait hang on mid typing this comment you mentioned Chris moving on to WORK ON DARKEST DUNGEON? OKAY YEAH THAT'S A GOOD REBOUND
Funnily enough, there was actually a pirates of the Caribbean game not too dissimilar to this called just "Pirates of the Caribbean" released in 2003 for the xbox. Was a pretty solid RPG at the time. A shame this one never saw the light of day.
