Feast your eyes on the Roman game we might have had instead of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
The long lost Call of Duty: Roman Wars has resurfaced.
Call of Duty: Roman Wars is one of those shelved projects that you hear about, but never see. That has all changed now, as GamesRadar managed to get its hands on some footage of the long lost prototype, along with some details courtesy of anonymous sources.
As the video above details, Call of Duty: Roman Wars was created by the then-independent Vicarious Visions in response to Activision's request for pitches for a new Call of Duty game. According to the report, the pitch was ultimately rejected for being too off-brand. When Activision did eventually open the property up to a third developer, it went for Sledgehammer - which gave us Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare.
Don't get too harsh about the eight year old pitch footage above; that games look rough as guts at the pitch stage is one of the reasons why the industry is so secretive. Instead, pay attention to the cited influences and the variety of ideas on offer. It's interesting stuff.
Although GamesRadar reports the project was shelved as some members of the team were unhappy moving forward without the Call of Duty license, PC Gamer has a different story: the project was repurposed and pitched to Ubisoft after Activision turned it down, explaining the Ubisoft flag you'll see in the final scenes. Vicarious was later purchased by Activision, and spends most of its time on Skylanders.