It's always fun to learn about ditched video game projects that almost were.
For example, we know Criterion Games as the racing masters; the team that brought you various Need for Speed and Burnout titles have excelled in the world of virtual driving. But everyone makes mistakes, as illustrated by studio director Alex Ward.
On his Twitter page, he discussed several failed attempts, including a concept that would've been called "Need for Speed: Millionaire." Basically, you hit the lottery and started buying supercars for you and your friends, and "it was supposed to be Freeburn meets Top Gear challenges." Ward said the team struggled to make it work – they even had a playable build – but ultimately ended up making the well-received Hot Pursuit .
Then they tried a new Burnout set on the famous Route 66 . Ward said the team actually rented cars to do it for real but again, it just didn't pan out. Lastly, Criterion tried a different genre: They wanted to make a quasi-open-world Medal of Honor entry that would let the player assume the role of the Germans (oh, all sorts of controversial):
"I once spent a month or so writing up a Medal of Honor game where you played as the Germans. For the first half. Invading England. I was a HUGE MoH fan back in the day. Would have loved a crack at it. Would have gone open world a bit too. And been very British at core."
Yeah, I loved MoH once, too. And this would've been interesting, no doubt. But we're happy that Criterion stuck with the ideas that did work, 'cuz those are great games.