Epic Donald, the cancelled third game in the Epic Mickey series, saw its demise after Disney Interactive Studios closed its doors in 2016, and Disney stepped away from self-publishing.
The original game did well with critics and experienced moderate financial success shipping over 3 million copies. The same cannot be said for the follow up titles, the sequel Epic Mickey 2: The Power of Two, or the portable companion Epic Mickey: Power Of Illusion. Technical issues hampered what could have been popular entries in the series, and these games both reviewed and sold poorly.
While these releases weren’t the only reason for the studio closing its doors, unsuccessful performance of games such as these all took their toll. Following the success of the first Epic Mickey game, Epic Donald began development before The Power of Two had even been released.
We only heard about the project in 2016, after Disney announced it was moving away from self-publishing, when concept art was released showing what Donald-themed take on the franchise would look like. It was suggested that it would take place in Duckburg and may have also featured Donald’s inventor friend, Gyro Gearloose.
YouTuber, Slope’s Game Room, has shared the only known footage of the cancelled project. The clip shows a few seconds of gameplay and comes from a build made in 2012. In it we see two Donalds, one in regular attire, and one dressed as Mickey Mouse, who appear to have a forcefield power rather than the magic paintbrush from the first game.
It’s not clear when the project was cancelled, but from the look of this it could have been dead in the water long before the studio shut its doors. As the footage comes from 2012, it may have been shelved following the critical panning and technical failures of the other Epic Mickey games.
Disney has not completely abandoned the video game market. Disney continues to license its properties out to other studios. Notably, there are at least five Star Wars games known to be in development. Disney also owns studios such as Lucasfilm Games, which is developing Return to Monkey Island. Creator Ron Gilbert shut down his website after people left personal attacks due to disliking the game’s art style.
Written by Georgina Young on behalf of GLHF.
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