Raiders of The Lost Media - Daredevil: The Man Without Fear

Originally this would've been another DC related post, but after DC FanDome: Explore the Multiverse I thought it was time to explore things on the Marvel side. So here, another edition of Raiders of The Lost Media. Let's begin.

Part One - What is Daredevil: The Man Without Fear?

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear (or simply Daredevil: The Video Game) is a cancelled third-person beat 'em up game and was based on the Marvel Comics' character Daredevil. The game would've been available for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and PC.

Part Two - Plot

The story would have been The Kingpin was murdered or at least that's what was being claimed. But because of this a gang war has broken out because all of them want to be the top dog since Kingpin is no longer alive. Matt Murdock (aka Daredevil) must put an end to this before this war tears Hell's Kitchen apart, however is number one suspect is a supposed resurrected Elektra. Now Daredevil must not only stop anybody from getting hurt and/or killed in this war but he also know has to figure if Elektra is truly alive but is also the one who supposedly killed Kingpin.

Part Three - Development

Development for the game began when a small group of 5,000 Ft. developers wanted to make their own game after helping 3DO port with their Army Men series for the PlayStation. They first established a relationship with the publishing group Encore, Inc. Who owned the rights to Marvel's Captain America and Daredevil for video game purposes.

The game started as a low-budget PlayStation 2 title that would've been a series celebrating Daredevil's most important moments which won both Encore and Marvel's approval. Things changed when the president of 5,000 Ft. (Tim Page) was contacted by a buddy of his from Sony Pictures that 20th Century Fox and Regency Pictures were going to release an upcoming Daredevil movie scheduled for Feb 14th, 2003, after receiving this news it was decided that the budget would become much bigger and that the concept of the game would instead be an open-world action game that would be released for the Xbox and the PC. Since 5,000 Ft. was a third party developer they were required to report to Sony and Microsoft's product evaluation boards. Sony demanded they add several things to the game, such as a beat 'em up combat and a grinding mechanic that was inspired by Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, meanwhile Microsoft was more laid back about this, they just wanted the developers to do whatever they wanted. However Sony and Marvel had a ton of disagreements on how the development was going. Marvel wanted something for faithful to the Daredevil comics while Sony wanted a game with more experimental gameplay.

Despite Marvel and Sony butting heads the overall development for Daredevil was pretty smooth, well the first few months were like that. Changes started to happen when an introduction to new workers were hired, they were going to create an engine from an external source that would power several popular open-world games at the same time. But Encore didn't want to pay the fees for the engine, so they decided to use the base of RenderWare's technology to create their own engine....which didn't work well with Shadow World (that was something that would've helped Daredevil locate and sense the fear of his enemies) and the Billyclub mechanic that the developers created. 

Part Four - Cancellation

It was then decided that the game would be reworked into a linear third-person brawler after 5,000 Ft. decided to cut out the open-world aspect. Things didn't get any better when the developers missed their February 2003 release goal (it also didn't help that there were drug abuse allegations going on) and the game was pushed back to a Summer release date instead. The game was nearly finished until staff members at 5,000 Ft. left and Marvel refused to approve the game because they felt like 5,000 Ft. was more on Sony's side than theirs. So with those factors the game was cancelled.

Part Five - Availability

Sadly there's no physical copy of this game. No prototypes of it were ever released to the public and it's unknown if any employees from 5,000 Ft. have a copy of it.

Part Six - Videos

They only thing left of Daredevil: The Man Without Fear was two advertisements showcasing the gameplay.

   

Okay, so that's all for me. Come back on Saturday Sept 26th for my review of the newest Disney+ movie, Secret Society of Second-Born Royals. Until then enjoy the rest of your day.