Metallica had cancelled a post-apocalyptic video game, and here’s gameplay footage

The legendary metal band Metallica almost had a video game. No, not Guitar Hero: Metallica. Damage Inc. was set to be a post-apocalyptic car combat game that took place in open-world levels, letting you drive around in Mad Max style vehicles in a dusty, desolate world complete with day and night cycles. While you couldn’t move around on foot, you could hop out of one car and switch to another if it better suited your style. Otherwise, the game looks to have been heavily influenced by contemporary games like Twisted Metal Black.

The game was originally planned for PlayStation 2 and Xbox back around 2004, and it was under development at Black Label Games for Vivendi Universal before being canned due to, according to the video above, licensing issues and what seems to have been a concerted effort by Vivendi.

Metallica’s Damage Inc. looks like goofy fun

While the existence of the game wasn’t entirely unknown before this, the game footage shown in PtoPOnline’s video seems to be the first-ever gameplay footage of it.

It’s far from finished, but what’s there is pretty compelling, with day and night cycles, wide open areas, and a variety of car configurations.

The game is long since dead, but it looks like it could have been goofy fun. And much better than most other video games based on bands. But then, we’ll never know.