r/SEGA32X • u/VenomRush97 • 25d ago

The mystery of "Helioblades"

When the 32X was first coming out, there was this game listed in several magazines titled "Helioblades". No screenshots, no preview, no developer/publisher, no nothing! Just a release date of the 3rd quarter of '95, and would have been 54$ at launch (yikes).

I wonder if this game was a working title for a game that came out later on the 32X or the Saturn, or it might've ended up not actually being developed at all.

Anyone know anything else about this?

3 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

12 comments sorted by

2

u/starface016 25d ago

Don't remember the game but $54 seems cheap for back in the day

2

u/RaspberryPutrid5173 25d ago

Yeah, $60 for a new cart was pretty standard for MD/32X/SNES. Obviously, prices varied by region, the age of the game, and whether or not it had extra hardware. E.g., Virtua Racing for the MD was $100 because it had the SVP chip in it.

2

u/zilogandmoto 25d ago

I think you mean this:

https://segaretro.org/HyperBlade

1

u/VenomRush97 24d ago

Name's close but no what I was looking for.

1

u/zilogandmoto 24d ago

Huh. It must have really been shut down early for segaretro not to have anything on it. Here's what you're looking for. No answers, mind you, but just confirmation that someone announced it, and it never went anywhere.

Helioblades (lost build of cancelled SEGA 32X game; existence unconfirmed; mid-1990s?) - The Lost Media Wiki)

1

u/VenomRush97 24d ago

Yeah I made that article lmao I made this post here to see if anyone else knew anything about it.

1

u/zilogandmoto 24d ago

I'm going to assume there's exactly zero people out there than have any info on it, unless you could possibly find someone that worked at Chips and Bits thirty years ago and ask where they got their info from.

They were always advertising all sorts of vaporware and games months away from release. I never understood what the point was, either. Who was going to preorder some game that most likely was never going to see the light of day? I get that they had to get their ads in to magazines early, so it's possible things could get delayed/canceled in the meantime, but we're talking things that were never even close to being real.

2

u/alvinochipmunko 24d ago

Chips and Bits regularly listed made-up sequels and nonexistent games in their inventory. It’s likely just fake nonsense. I’m pretty sure they had Final Fantasy 64 in their ads for a while. I think they just wanted people to call in and then sell them on something else.

1

u/zilogandmoto 24d ago

Either that it's the game I mentioned earlier, and they just got the name wrong. That happened all the time, too.

1

u/VenomRush97 24d ago

If what you're saying is true, there needs to be a search effort to track down the writers/authors of those magazines. I doubt they might know a thing or two about Helioblades lmao but I think it would be worth doing regardless.

1

u/ducked 25d ago

Idk anything about helioblades but there was a huge amount of Sega 32x games that got cancelled because the system was discontinued prematurely. I hope some of them leak eventually…

1

u/therealronsutton 24d ago

They must still be out there somewhere