Gaming News Almost 30 years ago, SEGA was preparing to release an erotic sci-fi thriller on PlayStation so bad it was canceled just before release

Game news Almost 30 years ago, SEGA was preparing to release an erotic sci-fi thriller on PlayStation that was so bad it was canceled just before release

Not a one night stand

For at least fifteen years, our video games have been so beautiful that they can show everything. The faces are expressive, the muscles contract naturally and the drops of sweat bead on the bodies realistically. Even before our screens were capable of displaying 3D protagonists with physical attributes similar to those of our world, developers crafted experiences where the body was in the spotlight with more or less erotic productions. We could talk about Gotcha in 1976, Softporn Adventure in 1981, Night Life, Bachelor Party or even the horrible Custer’s Revenge in 1982. Little by little, the labyrinths and texts gave way to much more evocative images.

Throughout the 1980s we saw the arrival of a number of games “X”, like X-Man and its bonus stage featuring sexual positions or Leisure Suit Larry. Then technological developments allowed our PCs but also our consoles to show bodies as they really are. The 1990s popularized digitized characters (technique used by Acclaim’s Mortal Kombat) but also FMV (pure full motion video) thanks to CD support. In 1992, Night Trap made headlines by showing young women – sometimes scantily clad – being murdered.

Now, the characters with whom we can interact are filmed, so they are real actors who move on the screen. FMV is quickly becoming fashionable, and as you might expect, the studios did not hesitate long before sprinkling their productions with eroticism to attract the eye of gamers. While in 1996, the tickets dropped by Duke Nukem for the strippers to wiggle provoked smirks, SEGA is preparing what it calls “an erotic thriller”, planned to be released at the same time as a certain Riana Rouge from Black Dragon Production, an FMV adventure game “sexy” class “Adults Only” in the USA.

Independence…and decadence?

It was at E3 1996 that Sacred Pools, the famous “erotic thriller” as presented by SEGA, is officially presented to the press. At that time, the manufacturer was doing badly. The confrontation against Sony, which has just released its PlayStation, is not working to its advantage. The Saturn is increasingly criticized by professionals while sales of the console are slowing dangerously. The president of the Japanese company, Isao Okawa, reviews possible action plans to avoid the crisis. He believes that creating a new independent development studio in the United States, capable of studying the growth of the Internet and other video game paths, could perhaps help avoid too difficult tomorrows..

This is how the Californian company SegaSoft was born at the beginning of 1996, which can be considered as a free electron within the manufacturer’s structure. Led by a former IBM executive, Nobuo Mii, it has authorization to create games “adults” multiplatform! This is how the group’s future production is envisaged as a Saturn game but also a PlayStation game, which may seem improbable. With Sacred Pools, SegaSoft decided to launch into an FMV game, even if the hype had already died down a bit. With a budget estimated between 2 to 3 million dollars, which represents a nice sum for the time, the developers embarked on the design of a title talking about mystical crystals found on an island where reign – on paper – lust and desire.

For SegaSoft, the project was taken seriously, and the team enlisted the services of James W. Riley, who had worked in Hollywood on films such as Star Trek: The Motion Picture and the animated adaptation of Lord of the Rings. Rings. Other members of the production team are veterans of American film productions, such as Molly Maginnis, Robert Primes, Nina Gilberti and Mars Lasar. These names may not mean anything to you, but what you need to remember is that the costumes, photography, editing and music are entrusted to big names who have worked with large companies (Disney) or on successful series (X-Files). On the programming side, the developers of The Code Monkeys (Surgical Strike, Tomcat Alley) are involved.

With great fanfare

In 1996, Sacred Pools was presented for the first time in the aisles of the Los Angeles Convention Center. Although there is only one video of the project, SEGA is doing everything to get people talking about its game. It is distributing invitations to people who pass by the SegaSoft stand for an evening that the manufacturer promises to be unforgettable. During the latter, artists perform acrobatics in a setting representing the Amazon (close to that of the software), to the strains of the alternative rock group Hole. The actresses also give of themselves by chatting with the guests and signing various autographs. However, while everyone seems to be having fun during the event, the return to reality is brutal for SegaSoft. The specialized press is not particularly convinced by the interest of Sacred Pools, and above all, they believe that the FMV genre is more in its twilight than at its zenith. While SEGA saw a bright future for interactive films, the press and players saw things differently.

The more the months pass, the less the wait around the project grows. The marketing teams are worried, and to make matters worse, the feedback from SEGA’s internal testers is not good. Slowly but surely, Sacred Pools is being forgotten : it officially disappeared from SEGA’s schedules in 1997. It was also during this year that Sega of America decided to no longer lose money by developing on Saturn, a console which was considered dead compared to the insolent success of the PS One. The decision to no longer make multiplatform software is taken by management, and while internal projects are not moving forward, SegaSoft talents are leaving the ship. The company ceased its activity in 2000. Sacred Pools was canceled, the project entered video game limbo.

Hide… this hip… that I cannot see

The story could have ended like this. After all, there have been a plethora of projects announced in the 1990s that never saw the light of day.. Only here, in May 2022, the site Gaming Alexandria who campaigns for the preservation of video games receives golden information. The administrators are contacted by Joe Cain, a game collector and former QA tester for Sega of America, who tells them that a certain David Gray, a former associate producer at SegaSoft, has playable versions of Sacred Pools received when he left the studio.

Today, thanks to Gaming Alexandria, the game can be downloaded and played. Since its availability, many players have posted gameplay videos to YouTube in an attempt to show the world what Sacred Pools was really supposed to be. And what is certain is that the aspect “erotic” promised when the game was announced is somewhat overused. Sure, there are plenty of scantily clad women during the video sequences, but there’s no full nudity or particularly racy scenes. What this alpha version shows is above all an FMV like we saw a lot of in the early 1990s, with everything that could be charming and attractive in the formula. Difficult to predict how the press and players would have received it, and whether SEGA was right to throw in the towel in the face of cold feedback, but we can only be delighted to see that this project has been saved from oblivion eternal thanks to a former member of the studio.