Part 12: Cut content, expansion packs and Shogo 2

Cut content, expansion packs and Shogo 2

Full disclosure: I took most of the info directly from the Blood Wiki, which has a subsection for Shogo.

Close to the release date, content had to be deleted to make sure that Shogo would ship. Usually devs run into time problems, but Monolith actually made the game too large to fit on a single CD. So they took the knife to it and saw what they could shave off. Though, I also have to say that certain things have not been fully developed at that point and also were cut. Some of this content is easy to find on the Internet and some of it is buried inside of the resource files of the game. So let's take a quick look.

-Base game content-

The minor content that was taken out could be seen in some of the various movies on the official site. The shotgun was originally going to have a shoulder stock that was flipped up and out of the way of the handle. A weapon that was dropped, the "Pinpunchers", were the mecha equivalent of the two pistols that are the default weapon of on-foot game play. The assault rifle was planned to use both grenade types as a subfunction, which proved to complex for the state of programming, at that time. The manual also mentions that there are upgrades for you M.C.A, but they aren't in the game. From what I can tell, those would have given you more health/armor or boosted your rate of fire for a certain amount.

The game was to have different static pictures in the background during level transitions. These pictures would give you a small preview of the next level. There is also a file named "leviathan.mov" that gives a moving image of the U.C.A flagship. It is possible that Monolith Productions were thinking about having movies play between levels to move the story along instead of static pictures or static text.



Leviathan.mov


The less-obvious content is buried in the test resources. There are sound files and even fully animated characters that depict what would have happened during the levels. There were at least two levels that were taken out. The first one would have been after the level where Hank drives a truck into a garage, after Sanjuro battles the tank. The following level should have had Hank driving the truck, while telling Sanjuro how he met Kura and why he is helping you. He would have given a speech about how he found Kura underground and why he wants to be a hero. The level would have ended with enemy soldiers attacking and Sanjuro needing to clear them out.

The other level would have happened once Kura was rescued. It was meant to be a flashback to Sanjuro's kindergarten days with Kura, Kathryn, Baku and Toshiro at the U.C.A military academy. A glimpse of what parts of the level would have looked like is in the intro movie where you can see kiddie Sanjuro walking towards a basketball goal.



The game would have had Toshiro in danger of falling off a roof and Sanjuro finding a flower for Kura while also attempting to save his brother. What you did and how you did it would affect how characters dealt with you. It also would have affected Kura as well as what she said when she found out that you and her sister were dating. Sanjuro's child model is still in the game's data files, and typing in the cheat code "Mecha", which is designed to change your MCA into a different model in mecha mode, turns Sanjuro into the child model when playing in on-foot mode. By extension of this, the love triangle should also have had an effect on the ending. It's pretty much impossible to find any info on that part, but I assume it wasn't fully developed.

I'm fairly sure that there are more little things that have been taken out, but there is no info about it on the net. I've pointed out the weird thing with the train pass, after Kura gets arrested by the C.M.C, in the respective video. I just can't imagine that the devs didn't have an event planned for this. The train level before you reach the prison also feels like it has been reduced to it's cutscenes. The intro text even advises you to take a look around, as you never know what you might find.

-Expansions-

Shugotenshi

This expansion pack would have given more insight into Kura's roles. It would have been six or eight levels of Kura fighting the threat of a new militia of anti-Kato terrorists, dealing with Sanjuro and Kathryn and coming to terms with the death of Hank. Some new features would have been various body armours for Kura and new enemies and weapons. Its name is a translation of the Japanese term for "guardian angel" which was a major theme in its storyline. Some deathmatch maps from the project were released as the Shogo Six Pack, as well as a previous technology demo. I have no idea why it never came out.

A few screens still exist on the net, but they are awfuly tiny. If you care, you can check them out in this interview with the developers.

Legacy of the Fallen

This would have moved away from the fighting of Cronus and taken the player to a remote Kato mining facility at Iota-33. It would show just how well organized the Fallen actually were and the weapon capabilities of an AMBED ("Advanced Mechanical Biological Engineering Division") team. Legacy of the Fallen was to have an entirely new cast of characters, five new mecha to choose from, six new on-foot weapons, five new mecha weapons, several new enemy aliens, and levels that played out more like Half-Life in levels in structure. It was canceled after numerous delays. There was a postmortem on the its creators (Anarchy Arts) website that placed the blame on poor distribution agreements, mismanagement of development resources, and development team burnout. Some of the resource files for the project have been released and there was a similarly ill-fated fan attempt to finish it (only a technology demo and a weapons mod were released).

There is still an early techdemo available. Link


-Shogo 2-

Jeremy 'Loki' Blackman on keeping fan works canon.

Despite some previous intentions, Monolith Productions has repeatedly stated they have no current intention of doing a sequel, but numerous Shogo themed easter eggs have turned up in their later projects. No One Lives Forever featured Hank Johnson's grave in the game's last level; The Matrix Online features a nightclub called "Club Shogo"; Blood II: The Chosen features Shogo posters in various rooms in the CabalCo building's living quarters; F.E.A.R. has the Armacham company name, the Bullgut (called the "MOD-3 Multi-Rocket Launcher") and even the Shredder (called the "MP-50 Repeating Cannon") as weapons, plus a secret room with a radio that plays the opening theme music from Shogo and uses a Shogo texture depicting a man riding on a horse. Plus there are also textures that depict the Enforcer mecha as belonging to Shogo Industries and a texture depicting the Shogo cover art, probably as a poster. Plus some players have said that the UAV in F.E.A.R. looks similar to the Spider Mine in Shogo. F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin has a man called "Snake Fist" wearing "Shogo 2" t-shirt.

When a development image of this was released it on December 22, 2008 it caused a lot of industry and fan speculation over whether or not this was just another reference or if it hinted that Monolith was going to make another Shogo game. A previous case of such speculation came after the release of a promotional demo for LithTech 3.0, which featured mechs and Shogo-like environments (and images labelled "Shogo 2"). Other rumours were that Monolith was considering a primarily console-oriented third person shooter sequel to Shogo set in a futuristic Tokyo. Several attempts by the community to create a sequal, direct or spirtiual, have also been attempted.

But as it stands, there is no hard info on a sequel.