It's not often that we get to take a look at a potential game that ultimately wound up on the cutting room floor. What's more, when the game in question was to be a reboot of an iconic franchise from 25 years ago, it makes the experience that much more special.

Unfortunately that's exactly what happened just a few years ago with a project codenamed Maverick Hunter. The game was supposed to be a reboot of the classic Mega Man series, backed by the team that created Metroid Prime.

The same artist that created Iron Man's armor in the successful film franchise was tasked with designing the new Mega Man. The game, under development at Austin-based Armature Studio, was to follow the mythology of Mega Man X meaning it would be much darker and sinister than the original Nintendo classics. Mega Man was to be transformed into a first person shooter.

As you can imagine, the project had the making to be something special but after just six months of development, the game was scrapped. Sources at Capcom said there was a playable prototype which showed promise but the game was seen as a gamble after Keiji Inafune (the person behind the original series) left the company.

Maverick Hunter now joins Mega Man Online, Mega Man Universe and Mega Man Legends 3 as a game that will never see the light of day. If nothing else, we have a series of renderings and a video that give a glimpse of what could have been.