Bring Back The Cancelled Dirty Harry Game !

The reveal of the Dirty Harry video game came in February, 2005. At the time, it was being targeted for a release in 2007 to coincide with the release of the HD-DVD Dirty Harry film collection. This was part of a marketing push by Warner Bros. to resurrect the franchise and the video game, in particular, was intended to give the series greater relevance among to younger audiences.

The game took place between the first and second films, Dirty Harry and Magnum. Little information on the narrative was ever revealed, but according to the initial press statement, its aim was to add more depth to the protagonist.

It was in February 2006 that the game, then still going under the working title of ‘Dirty Harry’, was finally put into full development. It was being worked on for the Xbox 360 and PS3.

It was initially undecided whether or not the title was going to feature an open world San Fransisco, one former developer told us, but by the start of the year, it had been decided that it would instead take on a mission-based structure. It then became a ‘duck and cover’ third person shooter with melee combat elements.

The storytelling of the Dirty Harry game was linear, but featured a “reputation system”, as one ex Collective developer described. Players would be given the choice how to deal with criminals: they could either knock them unconscious with a melee attack or straight up shoot them with Harry’s trademark .44 magnum. The NPC’s in the game would then react dynamically to these actions. For instance, developing a high kill count or firing on someone unnecessarily could land you in hot water with the chief of police. Conversely, being too lenient on crooks could cause them to take the detective less serious, mocking him and considering him less of a threat.

The Collective had given their game assets to ACMEfilmworks, including character models and engine schematics. ACME, under the direction of filmmaker Tigar Hare, then used these to render the trailer. Thus, it gives us a somewhat accurate portrayal of what it would have looked like in motion; albeit with a slight up-resing treatment.

As we have come to understand, Eastwood had yet to record any voice work for the game at this point, so the trailer used audio lifted directly from the original movie for the voice of Harry Callahan.

Up until the start of 2007, development on the title had been progressing “smoothly

Subsequently, The Collective had to lay off the entirety of their Dirty Harry team of around 30 people. This was, at first, denied by a representative of the studio, but as time went on and more former employees came out of the woodwork, it became apparent that this had been the case.

Foundation 9, the parent company of Collective, said that the redundancies were part of an effort to “optimise” the studio’s development capabilities. While these statements were by no means untrue, our sources disclosed that it was, in actuality, a direct result of Dirty Harry’s failure; a truth thinly veiled by the PR cover-up. The loss of the contract with WB meant that Foundation 9 no longer was financially secure enough to keep them on board.

Ultimately, despite years of toiling away behind the scenes, the Dirty Harry video game was not meant to be. In mid 2008, its final cancellation came about after its short-lived revival. A former artist from TimeGate said the decision was made by WBIE simply because “it wasn’t very good”. After several years of sinking money into a project that wasn’t turning out as they had hoped, the publisher ceased all work on it. Unlike detective Callahan, WB had no last shot left to fire, as no further attempts were made to pursue a new development studio.

Since the game vanished without a formal statement from Warner Bros. on the game’s status, various fan movements such as “Bring Back Dirty Harry The Game” have been established online in an attempt to resurrect it.