NOT ON MY WATCH

THE DARKWATCH THAT NEVER FRANCHISE WAS

The developers had always intended Darkwatch to be the first instalment of a much larger IP, with ambitions to span multiple games and forms of media.

During development, High Moon had entered into talks with studios about a film adaptation, although ultimately these were put on hold as it negotiated its acquisition by Vivendi.

The studio got the greenlight to start work on a Darkwatch sequel following the release of Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy in 2008. For Darkwatch 2, the developers switched to using Unreal rather than its predecessor’s proprietary engine, and shifted the game’s perspective from first to third-person. It once again put players in Jericho’s spurred boots, this time many centuries in the future. In this world, the vampires had conquered the globe and reshaped it in their image. Humans were held in reservations, the playthings of their undead overlords, who would hunt them for sport and sustenance. North America had been split down the middle by a giant wall, with humanity’s last bastion holding out inside it. Jericho would have been awakened from his tomb by the scattered remnants of the Darkwatch and tasked with protecting a young girl, whose blood would have held the key to defeating the vampire menace. Along with new gear and weapons, Jericho had The Infernal Engine, a Gothic Batmobile-like vehicle supercharged by vampire blood. Early on in development, however, Vivendi was acquired by Activision. The publisher immediately shelved the project and reassigned the team to work on a Transformers game instead.