When it comes to video games, the acclaimed film director of Guillermo del Toro (
Pan's Labyrinth, The Shape of Water) doesn't have the most fortunate track record. His first collaboration with Hideo Kojima (
Metal Gear Solid),
Silent Hills, was cancelled three years ago by Konami and we're still waiting to play their second joint project,
Death Stranding. But long before both of them there was
InSANE.
Unveiled at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards on 11 December 2010 by del Toro himself,
InSANE was supposed to be the first installment of a planned trilogy of
InSANE video games. According to the Mexican artist,
InSANE was supposed to "
take players to a place they have never seen before, where every single action makes them question their own senses of morality and reality."
Unfortunately, THQ announced
InSANE's
cancellation on 6 August 2012, with the intellectual property rights transferring back to del Toro. At the time, the original THQ (the THQ trademark was acquired by Nordic Games in 2014) was facing major financial problems following
Homefront's underwhelming sales and the complete fiasco of the uDraw GameTablet leading to a net loss of $239.9 million in 2012.
The Game Informer crew recently had a chance to talk about
InSANE with three former Volition developers that worked extensively on the game:
InSANE's art director Matt Flegel, lead writer Steve Jaros (now at Valve), and senior producer/creative director Jacques Hennequet. In the interview, the developers revealed that
InSANE would be a "
first-person Eldritch horror game with a heavy emphasis on mind f----s" and you can learn more about the
InSANE development down below:
THQ announced the cancellation of InSANE on August 6, 2012.