Playable Prototype of Daredevil: The Man Without Fear Appears Online 19 Years After Its Cancellation

Console Games, PC Games

A Prototype for the Canceled Daredevil: The Man Without Fear Game Surfaces

After nearly 20 years, fans of the superhero action game, Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, can finally get a taste of what could have been. A playable prototype of the PlayStation 2 version of the game, developed by 5,000 Ft. Studios, has emerged online. This beat ’em up title would have allowed players to assume the role of Daredevil and put a stop to the gang war plaguing Hell’s Kitchen.

New footage and the playable prototype were uncovered by Eurogamer and made available on the video game archive site, Hidden Palace. While the leaked copy of the game is reportedly plagued with bugs, such as players clipping through walls, most of the completed content at the time of cancellation is included.

Daredevil: The Man Without Fear was originally intended to be a loosely connected collection of the hero’s most memorable moments. The game was planned for release on PC, PS2, and Xbox. However, as the announcement of a Daredevil movie starring Ben Affleck was made, the scale of the game expanded significantly, resulting in numerous delays.

Despite several release date postponements, the game was ultimately axed after key developers from 5,000 Ft. Studios left and Marvel declined to approve its release. The finished version of the game would have offered players the ability to showcase acrobatic moves, flipping and fighting their way through Hell’s Kitchen to end a violent gang war sparked by the apparent assassination of Kingpin, a notorious criminal.

While fans will never experience the fully polished version of Daredevil: The Man Without Fear, there may be a glimmer of hope for the Marvel superhero’s return to the gaming world. Speculation has been circulating for some time that Daredevil could make an appearance in Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man series. The recent comments made by Insomniac’s Senior Creative Director, Bryan Intihar, about a Daredevil Easter Egg in Spider-Man 2, suggest that there might be crossover content in the works. Intihar advised gamers to “Stay tuned.”