One of the more interesting games that went into development limbo has been The Lost, an horror themed action-RPG game from developer Irrational Games. The title was announced back in 2000 for the Playstation 2 as a modern day remake of Dante's Inferno with a mother going into Hell to rescue the soul her daughter who suffered from an accidental death. The game would have allowed the player to not only play as Amanda but other characters that she trades forms with during the game.

The Lost was originally to be released via Crave Entertainment and use the LithTech engine but delays crept in when the game switched to the Unreal engine (and also picked up an Xbox port as well). In 2003, Crave Entertainment decided to switch its focus to value priced games. As a result the game went into development limbo with Irrational saying little to nothing about what happened to the title. However, it looks like another company has taken up development of The Lost and is bringing it to the PC platform. That company is FXLabs, a Seattle based company that got the rights to develop The Lost way back in 2004. (thanks to Blue's News for alerting us to the game's listing on FXLabs' web site)

FiringSquad spoke on the phone briefly today with FXLabs CEO Tony Garcia who gave us more info on their side of the development of The Lost (we have attempted to contact Irrational via phone today for comment but as of the posting of this article we have not yet received a response). Garcia told us that they have an agreement with Irrational to develop the game and that they have decided to make their PC version as the main platform (an Xbox version is still planned). Irrational is considered to be a co-producer of the game, according to Garcia, with FXLabs working with Irrational's storyline and storyboards to create the game. FXLabs' actual development team is based in India and Garcia told us they have 50 team members who are currently working on the title. The game will use the Unreal Engine 2.5 as its basis. Garcia told us today that they showed a recent demo to Irrational Games about a month ago and said they were very pleased about the progress. However Garcia would not yet give us a specific release date, saying he should have a better idea about that in a month or so. A publisher has also not been decided upon but Garcia did say that Irrational's purchase by Take Two Interactive last year makes a deal with Take Two their first choice. FiringSquad plans to get more info on this new version of The Lost in the coming months. In the meantime FXLabs has released some screenshots from the new PC version of the Lost on their site that we have reproduced here. Garcia told us on the phone that the shots are about two to three months old.

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