Patrice Désilets, the lead designer of the first Assassin’s Creed, left Ubisoft some years ago to found his own studio and develop a new game called 1666: Amsterdam. The game was cancelled due to the closure of its original publisher, THQ, and legal troubles with Ubisoft. When THQ collapsed, Ubisoft acquired the rights to the game and scrapped it. The game was in development for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at the time. The developer has since regained the rights to 1666.
Recently, Désilets gave a talk about 1666: Amsterdam, where he showed off parts of the game during a presentation at the Reboot Develop Conference in Croatia. The footage was captured and uploaded by Brandon Sheffield, who notes that the game’s theme was “be worse than the devil.” Much of the gameplay revolves around controlling animals traditionally associated with black magic and witchcraft.
The footage shows the player running through the game, first as a mouse, and then as a man in a hat and cloak who casts a spell that immolates a group of people.
It’s unlikely that we’ll ever see 1666: Amsterdam in any incarnation, given that Désilets has since moved on to work on Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey—which is sad, because it actually looked pretty cool.