EXO

EXO is a cancelled PS2 game from Particle Systems. It was to be an ambitious futuristic first person shooter.

Plot
The year is 2060. AI is making robot slaves for humanity. A cyberterror attack in New Hong Kong has turned the robot slaves against the humans. The terrorists take US government officials hostage and demand a huge ransom.

You would play as a team of security agents. There is Tanx, the winner of the V-War league champions. Then there is Yolanda Jackson, the NSA cyber crime expert who detected the attack.

Gameplay
Gameplay would be team based, taking cover and giving orders. You and your squad mates are donning exoskeletons, of which there are three types. These different suits give characters different skills. Puzzles would need solving this way.

There was to be 18 distinct indoor and outdoor locations. As the game progresses it would have gotten more broad and varied.

Development
The game had decent graphics for the time. A newly developed graphics engine specialised in realism, pushing the PS2 to the limit. A new physics engine was also programmed to excel.

Particle Systems, the developers, was acquired by Argonauts in January 2002. The company was renamed Argonaut Sheffield. The acquisition gave the dev team the funds to work on EXO.

By 2003 the game was running slow at 15-20 frames per second and wasn't "fun". It would take an estimated another year to get the game truly finished and optimised.

Cancellation
Infogrames, the publishers, lost patience and cut all funding. The team couldn't convince Infogrames to move the project to the Xbox. EXO was thereby cancelled.

Prototype
An alpha build exists at around 95% completion. All the levels are present. As of writing it has yet to dumped.

Video
Teaser.