Just Cause games were the best destruction sandbox games. Anything that's red can explode, and Avalanche Studios has created four games based on this principle. Unfortunately, the studio closed before we could release our fifth game or the game we were working on at the time, Contraband. But what we'll be talking about today is one of the studio's early planned games.
Of all the projects the studio has canceled, former CCO Christofer Sundberg claims AionGuard had the biggest impact. Perhaps old wounds are starting to sting again, as Sundberg claimed the medieval fantasy game was very similar to the recently released and wildly popular Crimson Desert.
Avalanche COO suffers most from AionGuard's cancellation
Although ambitious games being canceled has become commonplace in today's industry, Sundberg believes AionGuard has all the ingredients to succeed, as “it would have been a crimson desert.” In an interview with PC Gamer, he said that many of the game's features are similar to those of Pearl Abyss.
“That's exactly what it was. I didn't play Crimson Desert enough, but that game plan included everything I saw in Crimson Desert,” he said. “We signed a contract with a large publisher that owns many famous IPs… but then they changed their business direction again and wanted to focus on existing IPs instead of new IPs. I can never forgive them for breaking up with us via text message.”
AionGuard is introduced as a sort of medieval Just Cause where you play a wizard knight whose mission is to take back his kingdom by destroying enemy fortresses. However, Sundberg included many more features, as seen today in the Crimson Desert. However, considering how many features are packed into Pearl Abyss' game, it's not clear which features he's talking about exactly.
An open world sandbox where you can conquer territory however you want sounds pretty common now, but Avalanche was planning to release the game for the PS3 and Xbox 360.
- released
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March 19, 2026
- ESRB
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Age 17 or older / Blood, drug-related, high-intensity violence, verbal abuse
- developer
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Pearl Abyss
- publisher
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Pearl Abyss
