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Subscribe to our newsletter Well before Just Cause developer Avalanche lost Contraband, a co-op heist game planned as a major Xbox release, to Microsoft's cascading cancellations, the studio had to abandon an open-world fantasy game known as AionGuard in the '00s.

New comments from Avalanche co-founder and former CCO Christofer Sundberg suggest AionGuard could've looked an awful lot like Crimson Desert, the newly released open-world fantasy game from developer Pearl Abyss that's sold millions of copies in a few weeks.Speaking with PC Gamer, Sundberg directly compares the two games: "I haven't played Crimson Desert enough, but we had everything that I've seen from Crimson Desert in the plans for that game."AionGuard would've had dragon riding, elemental systems leaning on physics interactions like freezing and breaking ice, and transformations including towering golems, Sundberg says.

Some of that might sound familiar if you've been running around Pearl Abyss' latest desert ## Editor's Note This is an interesting development that could shape the future of gaming. Source: [GamesRadar+](https://www.gamesradar.com/games/open-world/we-had-everything-that-ive-seen-from-crimson-desert-former-just-cause-boss-says-of-avalanches-cancelled-fantasy-open-world-game/)