• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

BioWare art director shows concept art from cancelled Revolver, started as a sequel to Jade Empire then morphed into its own thing/spiritual successor

FarSight XR-20

FarSight XR-20

Member
Jan 4, 2018
8,646
Concept Art Shows BioWare's Cancelled Sci-Fi Open World Jade Empire Successor

The spiritual successor to Jade Empire, called Revolver, would have featured parkour, non-linear storytelling, and more.
gamingbolt.com

Concept Art Shows BioWare’s Cancelled Sci-Fi Open World Jade Empire Successor

The spiritual successor to Jade Empire, called Revolver, would have featured parkour, non-linear storytelling, and more.
gamingbolt.com gamingbolt.com

Jade Empire is often considered one of BioWare's most criminally underrated games to date. Lost in the shuffle of the megaton releases of Dragon Age and Mass Effect, the martial arts RPG is often overlooked by most, but as its many, many fans would tell you, it's one hell of a game. There have been many who have wondered whether a sequel was ever on the cards at BioWare, and we now have a clearer answer to that.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


Revolver was a project that started life as a sequel to Jade Empire, and eventually morphed into its own thing, instead becoming more of a spiritual successor.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

More details were revealed in the recently published book BioWare: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development. Meanwhile, BioWare artist Matt Rhodes has been providing a better look of what the game would have looked like, showing characters, environments, antagonists, and more with dozens of pieces of concept art across a number of galleries on Instagram, all of which you can view below.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Revolver was going to be an open world game with a sandbox environment that would have put a focus on traversal and parkour. The game was set to feature non-linear storytelling and quests in its science fiction setting. It was in development from 2005 to 2008 for PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, but BioWare eventually cancelled the project internally, instead shifting focus to Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 (via Eurogamer).
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Some conceprt from his Instagram:

tj33.jpg

2kw9.jpg

fbko.jpg

hudi.jpg

6kmw.jpg

df4s.jpg

xdk1.jpg

7ht6.jpg

gvv6.jpg

0ko6.jpg

ro4z.jpg

xrcd.jpg

feys.jpg

18ij.jpg

lqp9.jpg

kd4z.jpg

su2e.jpg


A lot more concept in his Instagram (and more details in the Bioware: Stories and Secrets book certainly).
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
115,752
hey look another cancelled bioware project that's infinitely more interesting than anthem or mass effect andromeda

no i'm not bitter you're bitter
 
Enduin

Enduin

You look 40
Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,488
New York
Doesn't look bad, but also doesn't look all that special. It's concept art and a generic blurb it doesn't really mean anything.
 
AnimaRize

AnimaRize

Banned
Nov 7, 2020
3,483
The current bioware is not a company i'd trust to make a game as unique as that looks and give me the jade empire feeling again
 

Deleted member 9306

Self-requested temporary ban
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
962
Looks like it could've been a more progressive CP2077...

Who the hell is making the decisions at Bioware?
 
ILikeFeet

ILikeFeet

DF Deet Master
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
61,987
I just want to say Matt Rhodes is a great visual storyteller as evident by his comic Tellurion

as for Revolver, this looks like it could have been a spiritual sequel to Beyond Good and Evil
 
Tuorom

Tuorom

Member
Oct 30, 2017
10,915
Huh so they were doing that Mistborn jumping generations timeline. Could have been neat.
 
elenarie

elenarie

Game Developer
Verified
Jun 10, 2018
9,819
Would recommend the book, it's quite interesting. :)

Also, projects get cancelled all the time, this is nothing new.
 

Deleted member 36578

Dec 21, 2017
26,561
I like what I'm seeing. What could've been.
 
SolidSnakeUS

SolidSnakeUS

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,616
This has an infinitely cooler premise than Anthem or Dragon Age. This is something that should of never been canned.
 
AuthenticM

AuthenticM

Son Altesse Sérénissime
The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
30,085
Looks very cool. I wish we had gotten this game.

Though I have to say, if it's so far in the future, I would not have wanted it to be called "Jade Empire". I would have liked to get maybe a couple of additional games set in the same era as that of the first one. I wouldn't have minded the game taking place in the same universe as Jade Empire; I just think that calling it "Jade Empire" wouldn't be the right move, optics-wise.
 
jtb

jtb

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,065
It looks fine, though even the concept art feels hyper linear and constrained -- feels very much like old-school Bioware world design, which is fine by me. The art direction of Anthem was actually pretty good, that was the only thing about it that wasn't terrible.
 
The Unsent

The Unsent

Member
Oct 25, 2017
19,438
Some of those designs reminds me of Jack, the mercenary groups in Mass Effect 2 or the husk enemies.
 

GaussianMultivariate

Banned
Jul 26, 2018
2,464
I don't like its comic-like look... I prefer a more real look, like not fully realistic or anything but just nothing too cartoon-y or stylized
 
Man Called Aerodynamics

Man Called Aerodynamics

Member
Oct 29, 2017
7,500
Looks like it could have been something cool, and I'd check out anything BioWare, but there's not really a ton to go on here. Still, it's interesting to get a peek at things that might have been.
 

Nola

Member
Oct 29, 2017
8,062
This thread is a perfect example for why we get generic schlock and boring sequels from 90% of studios.
 
Elfgore

Elfgore

Member
Mar 2, 2020
4,580
Hm, some of those screenshots really make me think the theory that Jade Empire takes place in a post-nuclear war world seem likely.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.