Insurgency: Sandstorm Developers Discuss Canceled Game Set in Nicaragua

Tomas Franzese September 10, 2019 11:48 AM EST

Insurgency: Sandstorm developer New World Interactive once worked on an ambitious title called Insurgency: Exiles that was set during the Nicaraguan Revolution.

Back in December, New World Interactive released Insurgency: Sandstorm, a sequel to the mod-turned-FPS classic that updates everything in Unreal Engine 4, and the developer is currently working on a new IP at their recently opened Calgary studio. They are also the focus of the latest Gameumentary series from The Escapist, which is highlighting everything from the original mod’s inception to New World Interactive’s current status. In the recently released second episode of this series, New World Interactive not only discusses Day of Infamy but reveals a canceled project called Insurgency: Exiles that never saw the light of day.

The genesis of Insurgency: Exiles came about as New World Interactive was experimenting with Unreal Engine 4, and would cover the Nicaraguan revolution. “It took place in the Cold War, in the country of Nicaragua where there was a revolution. Really, to show both sides, but we particularly wanted to cover the Socialist revolutionary side of the conflict. We thought that was very interesting at the time to have a campaign from that perspective,” New World Interactive Founder and CEO Jeremy Blum explained. It was a conflict that seemed pretty fitting of the Insurgency name, so New World Interactive went forward with it and even visited Nicaragua for reference photos and inspiration for several maps.

Overall, Insurgency: Exiles was very ambitious as New World Interactive wanted it to feature single-player, co-op, and multiplayer. The game even reached the prototype level, using some guns from Insurgency. That being said, Insurgency: Exiles never got past the pre-production stage. “We were trying to make this single-player, multiplayer, co-op game which probably had the scope of something like Far Cry or GTA, and we realized very quickly that something of that scope was probably – well, we were punching way above our weight at that point,” Programmer and Technical Designer Stephen Swires ultimately concluded.

While Exiles never saw the light of day, a lot of the work on its code and engine carried over to Insurgency: Sandstorm, so it wasn’t all for nothing. You can check out the full Gameumentary episode below. The original Insurgency, Day of Infamy, and Insurgency: Sandstorm are all still going pretty strong on PC.

