Ken Levine believes the canceled Irrational Games project could have been excellent.

Levine is best known in the gaming industry for BioShock and System Shock 2. He worked on several games, but after BioShock Infinite, only a small team remained from Irrational Games after the restructuring. Prior to BioShock, SWAT 4 was released in 2005 by Sierra Games and was instrumental in the resurgence of the simulation shooter. SWAT began as a spin-off of the Police Quest adventure games, and the authenticity and tactics were not lost in the fourth installment of the franchise. It became a huge hit in 2005, and then Irrational started working on something that would eventually become BioShock.

Only Sierra wanted another SWAT game, and Levine had previously said that the studio needed the money. A possible sequel, however, would have gone in a slightly different direction. It would have been a horror-centric project, originally called SWAT: Special Division and later renamed Division 9. Levine has had very positive memories of the game in the past (a typical case of what if?), and recently shared footage he has of the game, calling it without a doubt the best Irrational game never made on Twitter.

According to the archives of the Irrational Blog, the original concept was that the Special Forces would protect the nation from horrors that did not officially exist. Based on SWAT 4, the team put together a gameplay demo in about a week, and it’s amazing to see how similar it is to Left 4 Dead (which didn’t really exist at the time!). The publisher liked the idea, but Take-Two came along and acquired Irrational Games, who went on to focus on BioShock.

Division 9 was going to be a slower, more tactical fight against monsters with more original mechanics, so it would partially retain the tactical shooter style. Squad members could have been infected and treated by completing a mission, but if kept alive too long they could have been transformed… too bad it didn’t work out in the end.

Source: PCGamer