Back in 2016, the world learned about the existence of the cancelled Dreamcast Ecco the Dolphin sequel Ecco II: Sentinels of the Universe, because of the incredible work of the preservationist group Hidden Palace. And now thanks to another archivist named Comby Laurent, we have a bunch of brand-new images of the game, showcasing some of the different areas that were set to appear in this abandoned sequel.
As Hidden Palace explained in the past, Appaloosa Interactive was developing the game in 2001 for Dreamcast, with it set to be a sequel to Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future. However, when Sega stopped support for the Dreamcast console in the early 2000s and ultimately decided to abandon hardware in favour of becoming a third-party software developer, the title was canned, leaving it only 30% complete.
In the years since, more information has gradually emerged about the game, with most of it coming courtesy of Laurent (who goes by the name Sega Dreamcast Info online).
In 2019, for instance, Laurent managed to record some footage of the game from a devkit. Then, in 2021, he was the person responsible for convincing the former Appaloosa Interactive graphic designer Mihály Sáránszki to upload some footage of his own.
Just this month, Laurent continued this excellent work, sharing that he had gathered a boatload of images from a former employee taken in its PC-level editor. Some of these images, he explained, show previously unseen areas from the game, making it an especially significant find.
If you want to see the full collection of images, we recommend heading over to Sega Dreamcast Info. There you'll also find a comprehensive overview of what is currently known about this cancelled sequel. It represents a truly remarkable feat of digital preservation, considering that all of this could simply be sitting in someone's basement somewhere untouched and underappreciated.