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Square Enix's Gun Loco Gets Canned

The Japanese publisher has put the kibbosh on its third-person "spring-action" shooter.

Don’t expect to see Gun Loco in 2011 or, uh, ever. Using the game’s official Japanese site to carry the message, Square Enix has announced that the curious third-person shooter has been canned, according to translations. The game was supposed to debut on the Xbox 360 exclusively at some point this year.

Gun Loco was announced back in August and it turned heads with its strange art. The misshapen, odd assortment of characters, wearing anything from bunny suits to new-age gladiator gear, were a product of toy maker Kenny Wong’s design. Wong is probably best known for his role with Hong Kong-based company brothersfree, which has churned out some toys that feature a similar twisted style.  
 
  

  
 
The translation of the Web page provided via Andriasang makes no mention of why the game was cancelled. Square Enix previously seemed high on the title’s “sprint-action” that would have players ducking, lunging, and vaulting around arena environments in addition to dishing out physical punishment, but I suppose we’ll never get a chance to see how that stuff would have worked. At least, not in Gun Loco.

66 Comments

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DonPixel

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Edited By DonPixel

o goood that color dude.. I just gona say rev Jesse Jacksin wouldn't be happy with this game

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FCKSNAP

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Edited By FCKSNAP
@Mr_Skeleton said:
" @habster3 said:
"It looked pretty mediocre anyway. "
To be honest most japanese games do. "
You can substitute or even take out "Japanese" from your sentence and it would still be true. Being jaded about a medium is fun :D
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deactivated-5af06dc60f373

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Good call.

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Belonpopo

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Edited By Belonpopo

Thank God.

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Subjugation

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Edited By Subjugation

Wow, that looked awful.

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Lind_L_Taylor

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Edited By Lind_L_Taylor
@CH3BURASHKA said:
" God damn it. It would have been good at best, mediocre at most likely, but I really wanted to see it. It was crazy enough to get my attention, and now Square has to go and shit on my day.   The thing to do here is for Square to sell the IP to someone else, preferably a Western developer such as People Can Fly. It'd be a real shame to squander such a cool idea and design aesthetic. "
 
It seems the game was almost finished. I wonder why they would
shit can after the money was spent on it.  Could it have anything to
do with the disaster tightening up finances?
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psykhophear

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Edited By psykhophear

Never even heard of this game. :P

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Soulderon

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Edited By Soulderon

meh...
I don't think there is someone who care for this game.

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Mr_Skeleton

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Edited By Mr_Skeleton
@habster3 said:
"It looked pretty mediocre anyway. "

To be honest most japanese games do.
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habster3

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Edited By habster3

It looked pretty mediocre anyway.

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xMP44x

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Edited By xMP44x

It seemed unappealing from the get-go. The trailer did not engage me in the slightest. It looked like a bad version of The Club, and that game wasn't particularly popular itself. I imagine Gun Loco would have been virtually dead online after about the first week or so, so I'm not complaining or disappointed to hear it's no longer happening.

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Venatio

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Edited By Venatio

Well, not a big loss there, I actually face palmed when I heard of this game for the first time

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vilhelmnielsen

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Edited By vilhelmnielsen
@Hailinel said:
" @VilhelmNielsen said:
" @Hailinel said:
" @VilhelmNielsen said:
" Wait, was this announced? "
Yes, last year. "
Thanks for the honest answer to my snarky, sarcastic asshole hypothetical question. "
I believe that was actually a rhetorical question, not a hypothetical one. "
Ah, crap.
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JoeRosa

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Edited By JoeRosa

Would have been an okay Xbl,Psn title.

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Faint

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Edited By Faint
@ryanwho said:
" Making more time for Final Fantasy Caterpillar Chrysalis. "
Too right you are. Versus XIII was announced 5 years ago. Anyone else ready for another long development flop? Can't say that I am, but it's at the point where anything they bring out is a surprise if it isn't awful.
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teh_destroyer

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Edited By teh_destroyer

Tricks are for kids.

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Hailinel

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Edited By Hailinel
@VilhelmNielsen said:
" @Hailinel said:
" @VilhelmNielsen said:
" Wait, was this announced? "
Yes, last year. "
Thanks for the honest answer to my snarky, sarcastic asshole hypothetical question. "
I believe that was actually a rhetorical question, not a hypothetical one.
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Kyreo

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Edited By Kyreo
@luce said:
" Probably for the best "
Yeah I'm glad to hear this actually.
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Sharpshooter

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Edited By Sharpshooter
@onarum said:
" Thank god. "
I can't help but mirror that statement.
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deactivated-5c468a9482ba9

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Oh no, not another shitty Eidos game!

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vilhelmnielsen

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Edited By vilhelmnielsen
@Hailinel said:
" @VilhelmNielsen said:
" Wait, was this announced? "
Yes, last year. "
Thanks for the honest answer to my snarky, sarcastic asshole hypothetical question.
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fox01313

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Edited By fox01313
@Hailinel: 
Good point, guess that with all the zany stuff surrounding the FF online game I completely forgot about it. Still if the fans of square only want to see more FF & KH then they should start a smaller side studio to handle all the original IPs & let that studio learn lessons like this when the IP might not be that great in it's current form. Great thing about the game industry is that the cancelled games can always come back with the right people running the team/studio.
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onarum

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Edited By onarum

Thank god.

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Deusoma

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Edited By Deusoma
@RockmanBionics said:
" @ZombieSpace said:
" @Krakn3Dfx said:
" Alright, cool.  So tell me about Just Cause 3 now. "
Guns. Scorpion guns. "
Scorpions made of guns holding guns made of scorpions. "
So, do I just give you the money now, or do I have to wait for the official announcement?
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Sooperspy

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Edited By Sooperspy

I was kinda looking forward to trying this.

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Junpei

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Edited By Junpei
@Hailinel:  You pretty much summed up everything I was gonna say. It's just been setback after setback for Square and financial risk in new product is gonna come at a premium. As much as I love seeing all the PS1 classics coming out on the PSN store it won't even come close to denting the losses they've had in the past year.
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picklecannon

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Edited By picklecannon

Thank goodness, this game didn't look to good in the trailer.

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kickahaota

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Edited By kickahaota

Sigh. My dreams of being a poorly-dressed rabbit furry in a somewhat mediocre-looking third-person shooter must remain unfulfilled.
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JoyfullOFrockets

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Edited By JoyfullOFrockets

For once developers understood a game is genuinely going to be crap and decided to scrap it.

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BackseatBoss

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Edited By BackseatBoss

This is only for the better,because all I've seen of this game was terrible.

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Hailinel

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Edited By Hailinel
@VilhelmNielsen said:
" Wait, was this announced? "
Yes, last year.
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vilhelmnielsen

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Edited By vilhelmnielsen

Wait, was this announced?

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deactivated-60339640361ae

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Good riddance.

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Icemael

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Edited By Icemael

I bet the one guy excited for it will be very disappointed.

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MisterMouse

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Edited By MisterMouse

that is a bummer i guess.

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jacksukeru

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Edited By jacksukeru
@ZombieSpace said:
" @Krakn3Dfx said:
" Alright, cool.  So tell me about Just Cause 3 now. "
Guns. Scorpion guns. "
Scorpions made of guns holding guns made of scorpions.
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Aetheldod

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Edited By Aetheldod

It is for the best , man that was awful

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ChristianCastillo

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@ryanwho said:
" Making more time for Final Fantasy Caterpillar Chrysalis. "  
yay
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Hailinel

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Edited By Hailinel
@Peisistratus said:
" We here at Square are in the business of making bad decisions, and business is good.   "
@fox01313 said:
"

Really don't understand Square sometimes as it seems that every time they try to get away from FF/KH to some new IP they tend to turn tail or not fund it as well. Maybe someone from the team will be able to take this somewhere else to get worked on as the game itself looked interesting enough to dive a bit further into it.

"
As long as Square Enix doesn't announce the specific whys regarding the game's cancellation, there's all sorts of speculation that could be made, but there's nothing that points to this being a poor business decision.
 
Frankly, the company got hammered last year with the failure of Final Fantasy XIV.  The game is still in the free trial phase while they try to fix everything that's bad about it.  The game is a financial albatross at this point; they either get it working, get players to subscribe and get at least some money from it, or they let it go and lose all of the money that they invested in the project.  The company has also temporarily shut down the FFXI and FFXIV servers to conserve energy at the Japanese government's request, and they will not be billing any players for subscription time as long as the servers are down.  Meaning that currently, Final Fantasy XI is not earning the company any income, and Final Fantasy XIV's recovery has been further set back.
 
Given this financial state of affairs, it's likely that Square Enix took a hard look at their projects in development and chose to axe Gun Loco because, as weird and "un-Square" as it is, it's also an untested, unproven game and not as likely to succeed in the market as games like Final Fantasy Versus XIII or XIII-2, Kingdom Hearts 3DS, or any entries from other existing franchises.  Which sucks, because I'd love to see some new IP from the company as well, but they also likely saw some very legitimate business reasons to cancel Gun Loco.
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Kyle

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Edited By Kyle

Yeah, that game looked pretty fuckin' bad. No surprise there.

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CharAznable

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Edited By CharAznable

Ugh, glad this was canned. That video footage was released THIS YEAR and not in 1999?

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KyleBaron

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Edited By KyleBaron

Someone cancelled the sequel to The Club before it had a chance to stay out of the bargain bin.

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Cybexx

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Edited By Cybexx

I wasn't expecting this to do well or be very good

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fox01313

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Edited By fox01313

Really don't understand Square sometimes as it seems that every time they try to get away from FF/KH to some new IP they tend to turn tail or not fund it as well. Maybe someone from the team will be able to take this somewhere else to get worked on as the game itself looked interesting enough to dive a bit further into it (though didn't look that great but might have a few interesting moments in it).

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1960sSpiderman

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Edited By 1960sSpiderman

We here at Square are in the business of making bad decisions, and business is good.  

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ch3burashka

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Edited By ch3burashka

God damn it. It would have been good at best, mediocre at most likely, but I really wanted to see it. It was crazy enough to get my attention, and now Square has to go and shit on my day.  
 
The thing to do here is for Square to sell the IP to someone else, preferably a Western developer such as People Can Fly. It'd be a real shame to squander such a cool idea and design aesthetic.

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Brackynews

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Edited By Brackynews

American McGee and Kenny Wong would probably get along great.

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killroycantkill

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Edited By killroycantkill
@Hailinel said:
" @skinnyluigi:  You are an idiot. "
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ZombieSpace

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Edited By ZombieSpace
@Krakn3Dfx said:
" Alright, cool.  So tell me about Just Cause 3 now. "
Guns. Scorpion guns.