Thrill Kill

Thrill Kill was developed in the late 1990s for the Sony PlayStation by Paradox Development, later Midway Studios - Los Angeles. There was much hype surrounding the game, billed as the new Mortal Kombat, and expectations were high in the gaming community. The original publisher was to be Virgin Interactive, which was acquired by Electronic Arts for £122.5 million in the summer of 1998.

By this point Thrill Kill had already finished development in entirety. A few weeks before shipping, the game was scrapped by EA because they didn't want to "publish such a senselessly violent game", as they felt that it would harm their image. They also stated that they deemed the game so offensive that they would not even attempt to sell the game nor to have it released by another publisher.

Later, former employees that had worked on the game released the full game to the group T@STY who completed it before releasing it onto the internet, along with various beta versions, and bootlegs of the game flooded the market and were still seen by a large share of its original intended audience nevertheless. All files are still widely available through filesharing, and playable through emulators.

Featured in Icons: ESRB (2004)