Trailer for Crytek’s third-person shooter Redemption, cancelled due to an annoying female AI companion

We start off the day with the trailer for Redemption, a third-person shooter that was shelved by Crytek even though EA had signed off on it. The game put players in the shoes of a character accompanied by an AI companion called Jelena – a ten-year-old girl whom you had to protect. The gameplay allowed for issuing commands such as telling her to hide in case of danger, calling out Jelena’s name to locate her as well as checking on her status. While Crytek intended the game to be one providing an emotional connection, it seems that Redemption triggered the wrong kind of emotions among playtesters. The project was supposedly cancelled as the testers found the AI companion annoying and the constant checking-on-her-status feature disruptive to the experience.

The locales illustrated in the showreel below are fairly reminiscent of Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us, and given the success of Ellie – the AI companion in that particular game – one cant help but wonder how this may have turned out if Crytek had put in a bit more effort into evolving Jelena’s character.