Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, sweepstakes, and more!
Canceled SEGA Genesis game would've had Alien vs. Predator playing football
When you think about it, the idea of a hard-shelled, virtually indestructible xenomorphic organism from outer space is pretty crazy on its own. So too is the idea of a manhunting, Day-Glo-blooded race of distant hunters who treat Planet Earth like a game preserve. And as for pitting Alien and Predator against each other by bringing them into the same movie-verse — well, it can’t get crazier than that, right?
Actually, it can — and almost did. For a brief moment sometime in the 1990s, some would-be game developer had the amazing idea of forcing Alien and Predator to settle their cosmic differences ... on the gridiron.
Yep, you read that right: Long before there ever was an Alien vs. Predator on the big screen, the duo could have gotten their crossover start by playing football against each other in a video game for the SEGA Genesis. Thanks to the National Videogame Museum in Frisco, Texas, we now know that a proposal for an Alien-versus-Predator football face-off existed — and it’s too, too bad that the idea never made it past the concept stage.
More outlandish than a speedracing blue hedgehog, this clash of titans would have been called Cosmic Hard Bowl and, judging by the accompanying art panels, would have unfolded in different football venues throughout the U.S. — possibly in the year 2702.The museum hasn’t elaborated on which corner of the game development universe this concept might’ve come from, and the drawings suggest that Cosmic Hard Bowl was only ever an idea, and nothing more. But the sight of Ridley Scott and H.R. Giger’s terrifying creation toting a pigskin in a helmet and shoulder pads has us wondering if, perhaps, the Alien vs. Predator franchise’s best days may yet be ahead of it.
With a third crossover movie still rumored as a remote possibility, maybe there’s still hope for these two to suit up, shake hands, and take the field. It’s a matchup we’re dying to watch — but it’d definitely be the kind of face-off we wouldn’t want to referee.
