Concept art of a cancelled successor to the cult-classic Jade Empire has been shared online by BioWare Art Director, Matt Rhodes. The art from the project will be featured in an upcoming book BioWare: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development.
The project, titled Revolver, was originally going to be a sequel of Jade Empire, an action RPG they developed in 2005. The game planned to feature mimics, higher-dimensional predators, and fairy-tale monsters all within a dense and stormy city that resembled Gotham from the DC Universe.
Set in the not-too-distant future, the ambitious project was to be an attempt to really launch the Jade Empire universe into its own thing. With an extremely dedicated narrative and character-driven gameplay across a larger open-world, Revolver was essentially the starting point for the eventual space-opera trilogy we know them for today.
BioWare worked on Revolver for three years, from 2005 until 2008. It is currently unknown why this Jade Empire sequel was shelved. Considering these dates, it’s likely the development team wanted to focus their efforts into the gargantuan Mass Effect (2007), Dragon Age: Origins (2009) and Mass Effect 2 (2010).
…Or maybe BioWare was focused on completing Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood which released on the Nintendo DS in 2008…? Yep. It was definitely Sonic.
Ah, well. While it looks like an interesting world, who knows if this may have been a similar situation to Anthem from a few years ago. For now, BioWare fans can look forward to replaying the Mass Effect series in next-gen glory when Mass Effect: Legendary Edition releases early 2021. Jade Empire will have to wait behind the wings, at least for now.
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