Concept art from a canceled BioWare game appears online

Concept art from the canceled BioWare game Revolver has surfaced on the studio’s art director’s ArtStation page. 

As first spotted by Eurogamer, Matt Rhodes posted about the canceled project at the turn of the year, posting scores of pieces that show off the environments, characters, and enemies that you would have been going toe-to-toe with. 

As Rhodes writes on ArtStation: “Between 2005 and 2008 I worked on Project Revolver. Beginning its life as a sequel to Jade Empire, Revolver evolved and changed course many times throughout its development.”

While it’s hard to piece a timeline together, some of Rhodes’ images make it clear that they were from the Jade Empire sequel stage of the project. One image is even captioned “Very early illustrations, from back when Revolver was more like "Jade Empire, hundreds of years later". 

Rhodes also shared the images on Instagram, which you can see below. 

While the potential sequel may have been a tantalizing concept for fans of BioWare, Rhodes dates Revolver as being worked on from 2005-2008, so don’t expect this project to get resurrected anytime soon.

So why did Rhodes decide to upload these pieces now? Well, he explains on ArtStation: “It was recently revealed in more detail in the book Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development. To celebrate, I sifted through the archives and blew 15 years of dust off some of my favorite pieces from that project.”

The book in question delves into Revolver in more detail, revealing the game was set to be an open-world affair, with an emphasis on action. The studio eventually shifted focus to Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, which weren’t so bad, to be fair. And with Bioware currently focusing on Dragon Age 4, here’s hoping we’ll be seeing more of Rhodes’ work sooner rather than later.

Speaking of Bioware, don't forget that the Mass Effect Legendary edition is launching this year.