Agartha

Overview

Agartha is an unreleased game for the SEGA Dreamcast. Commissioned and funded by SEGA, development was started by French developer No Cliché, which was acquired by SEGA in 1997.Creative direction was done by Frédérick Raynal, a pioneering figure in the establishment of the survival horror genre with the influential Alone In the Dark series. Development started in 2000 (possibly earlier, in 1999), although references to the game can be found as early as 1998. The name of the game itself is a city, which, according to esotericist literature, resides in the core of planet earth. Intending to release in 2001, this coincided with SEGA's decision to discontinue the production of the Dreamcast. On January 30 2001, SEGA announced that no more Dreamcast consoles would be manufactured. Games that were already in development at that time were supposed to be brought to completion however. In spite of that announcement, Agartha never reached that state of development. No Cliché stopped development on as per order of SEGA Europe and ceased to exist soon after. Sometime between May 26 and July 22 of 2001. In 2008, the website unseen64, dedicated to documenting the history of unreleased video games, created an article about Agartha, documenting the little information that is known about the game. In the comments, one or more developers shared some memories and insights developing the game. The website also acquired a clip of 15 minutes very early in-game footage, displaying the eerie mood and the technical and graphical prowess of No Cliché. In 2018, an E3 Build was made available online.