When something like StarCraft Ghost gets cancelled people tend to remember about it for years. Not all cancelled AAA games live on as such gaming legends, but it's safe to say they have a good shot at being remembered at least by some, and perhaps may in some shape or form eventually come back.

When indie games die, and especially when fan games die, either due to demands from whoever has the rights to the IP they are using, or simply because he team behind it runs ou of steam or time to persue it, those games are pretty much gone for good. Little to no chance to resurrect them, and barely anyone remembers they were ever even in the making. So, let's share some of those games that we waited for, hoped to see, only for things to fall apart before our eyes. Let's keep the memroy of their devs efforts and ideas alive.

I'll start with a few adventure games

Troll Song- a classic point & click adventure game with a twist. Instead of the usual "open" or "pull" actions your troll can "bite", "smash", "kick" or (my favourite) "roar" at things. The project is dead, but there is a short demo to check out.

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis Special Edition- an attempt to remaster the classic LucasArts game, shot down recently by Disney. A demo used to be available, but was taken down. I assume it can still be found somewhere though.

Indiana Jones and the Crown of Solomon- why remake, when you can make a new game? Last news on the site is from 2013, so the project is very dead, but a demo can still be picked up.

Carnival of Monkey Island- beutiful looking interquel set between Monkey Island 2 and 3. Unfortunately it got killed by Disney fast, with not a trace of anything playable.

Forge: the Loom Sequel- we never got an official one, so it was obvious some fans would try to fix that. Unfortunately something stopped them, as the last news come from early 2015. Still, there is a demo available, so there is at least a little bit more Loom for us.

Why stupid? Because they don't want people putting out products of dubious quality bearing Nintendo's trademarked intellectual property? The monsters. They're protecting their property. Nothing wrong with that.

I would like to de-list games that infringe on copyrights and trademarks.

Did King's Quest The Silver Lining ever come out?

Hero6/Quest for Glory VI comes to mind first for me.

The first four episodes did, and th 5th one is coming out this year (or at least is supposed to). That would not make much sense for a thread meant to list fan games :P

Pity about Troll Song. It's a terrific idea for an adventure game I think.
The only indie game I was really concerned about was 5734L3R :
trailer
but thankfully it seems like development got going again.

The only other game that comes to mind is The Y-Project which looked like it had the potential to be a great shooter.

The Broken Hourglass, an indie RPG aiming to be similar to Baldur's Gate, started in 2005, cancelled in 2011 (check out "Related Articles" and "Image Gallery"). From today's perspective, it doesn't look that exciting anymore, but keep in mind that back then there was no Pillars of Eternity, Tyranny, Tides of Numenera yet, not even Age of Decadence.

And, I guess you can't really call it a cancelled game, maybe it wasn't even started, but I think Instant Kingdom once proposed an expansion to Driftmoon, IIRC in connection with the Indie Dev Grant from Bundle in A Box? (EDIT: Found it! The Forgotten Islands Expansion Pack) I really wanted that to happen but it never did. :(

Derivative work is not always copyright infringement.
Many fan games have their own unique design and gameplay.

Sure, they should not use the Zelda or Mario name, but I think Nintendo also could do better, not just ask them to stop.

AM2R - RETURN OF SAMUS -
Full Screen Mario
No Mario's Sky
Pokémon Prism
Pokémon Uranium
Pokénet
Super Mario 64 HD Remake
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 2D
Zelda 30 Tribute
Zelda Maker

Oh, that makes me sad :( I would have loved an expansion for Driftmoon. Everyone is losing their shit over Pillars and Numenera and what have you, but I'd rather have a sequel to Driftmoon any day. For me it was Driftmoon that delivered a true gem of an indie old-school RPG. Yeah, I'm not big on pixel art, and going too far back old school (verb interface), but this one would probably have even me firmly in it's corner. I really enjoyed the demo. There was just something in playing as a troll and yelling at stuff that really cracked me up :)

Speaking of cancelled expansion packs, back in the days there was a team of modders called CODI (City of Doors Initiative) working on bringing Planescape to life in Neverwinter Nights, and I think it was supposed to become a premium module called "Survivor", but there were some issues within the group or something about the contract with Bioware, in any case it didn't work out in the end and the project was left abandoned. They had already done some impressive work on tilesets and models though, and even though some of it is forever lost, other parts were saved and released to the modding community at least.

It's increasingly difficult to find information and screenshots about it, sadly, also but not only because Bioware's old NWN sites were shut down and the old NWN Vault died as well. All the old links I once had are dead now. It also doesn't help that NWN2 had its own abandoned Planescape project, as well as at least one Persistent World called City of Doors (no idea if still active).

EDIT: Found some old screenshots of the custom content on my harddrive (see attached images). They're not of the cancelled Survivor module, but of another modder's attempt to build upon CODI's legacy content for his PW.

Actually I am more disappointed when real commercial titles get cancelled, such as:

- Star Trek: The Secret of Vulcan Fury
- Sam&Max: Freelance Police
- Leisure Suit Larry 8: Lust in Space
etc.

With fan games it's more probable that they never get finished, even if they don't run into legal problems, but games which have been in real production with real money, that's always a shame. Not really no.
After getting letters from lawyers twice they had to drop "King's Quest" from the title, and whatever remained of that game never got completed. They did manage to release something without getting sued though, so in that sense, yes it did come out. If it involves even a single character from a commercial game, then it's a violation of IP and all that. Design and gameplay as such is rarely, if ever, a problem, and I don't know if it's even possible to make any IP claims on things like gameplay, or even a generic plot.

You can use the same format, as long as you don't use the same content.

If you try to use Guybrush Threepwood in an original game, you're in legal problems.
If you rip the story, plot elements and puzzles with minor alterations, but use original characters, you should be fine.

Well, of course there is the case of Great Gianna Sisters, but in that case it was a too obvious rip-off...

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis 2
No news since 5 years (probably dead).

Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth
No news since 10 years (quite dead).

Rise of the Hidden Sun
No news since 5 years (probably dead?).

Star Wars SoE: Hunting the Hunter
R.I.P.

Damn, a Star Wars adventure game? That would have been cool. I've always thought it weird that we never got an official one. I mean- LucasArts, Star Wars, adventure game, seems obvious, right? Seems like thre should have been a whole series.

Hear ye, hear ye.

The sad tale of Chrono Resurrection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrono_Resurrection

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YELRuYNBRDk