AionGuard: The Ambitious Crimson Desert Project That Never Made It to Launch

Avalanche Studios, the Swedish team known for the Just Cause series and 2015’s Mad Max, has faced a tough road, canceling nearly as many projects as it has launched. Among these, co-founder and former CCO Christofer Sundberg reveals that the cancellation of their WW1/medieval/fantasy game, AionGuard, still stings the most.

In a recent interview, Sundberg reflected on his time at Avalanche, which he left in 2019, while also discussing his upcoming game, Samson, developed and published by Liquid Swords. However, it was clear that he had strong feelings about the cancellation of AionGuard in 2009, expressing frustration towards an unnamed publisher for pulling the plug.

“I haven’t played Crimson Desert enough, but we had everything that I’ve seen from Crimson Desert in the plans for that game,” Sundberg shared. “It was signed with a big publisher that has a lot of famous IPs… And then they just changed business direction again and wanted to focus on their existing IPs instead of new ones. They broke up with us on a text message, which I will never forgive them for.”

AionGuard was envisioned as an open-world fantasy game targeting PS3 and Xbox 360. As described back in January 2009, players would take on the role of a member of the AionGuard, a group of valiant magic knights tasked with reclaiming a world ravaged by evil. Players could approach this challenge in various ways, whether charging in headfirst, sneaking around to disrupt enemy supply lines, or rallying local tribes for assistance.

Despite acquiring the rights to AionGuard in 2009, Sundberg noted that the game never materialized because “every publisher just shut the door, because it was already announced.” This announcement came via an EDGE Magazine cover spread in January 2009.

Whether AionGuard would have evolved into something akin to Crimson Desert remains a mystery, as only a few low-resolution screenshots have survived the cancellation.