RoboCop for Game Boy Advance: A 2002 Build That Never Shipped
Titus Interactive secured the licence to make games from the RoboCop films in 1999, and by 2001 it was working on handheld versions. The Game Boy Color game duly arrived that year. The Game Boy Advance one, announced as RoboCop: The Future of Law Enforcement, did not. Titus showed fresh GBA screenshots in May 2002 and talked about an October 2002 launch; after that the project went quiet and was cancelled without any public explanation.
At a glance
- Based on: the RoboCop film franchise, under Titus Interactive's licence
- Created by: Planet Interactive Development, for publisher Titus Interactive
- Released: never in its day; a 2002 prototype build was preserved and made public in January 2022
- Genre: side-scrolling action
- What sets it apart: an unreleased, late-stage build that can be played from start to finish
What was promised
The announcement material described seven levels split into fourteen sub-levels, with twenty-five different enemy types. Coverage of the game describes a side-scroller in the spirit of the 1988 arcade game and its home ports.
From announcement to preservation
- 2001: Titus starts work on RoboCop for both Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance. Only the Color version is released.
- May 2002: new GBA screenshots appear, with an October 2002 release date in view.
- Late 2002 onward: the game disappears. One unconfirmed theory is that the developer itself folded around 2002-2003.
- January 2022: the preservation group Hidden Palace releases a 2002 prototype. Descriptions of it note some rough edges, but also that it is playable all the way through and looks close to finished.
That last point is what makes it interesting as an object: this is not a tech demo but a game that appears to have been stopped fairly near the finish line. The text in this build is available in several languages, including English, Spanish, German and Italian.