A little over a decade ago, the gaming community buzzed with the potential of ‘City of Metronome,’ an ambitious project by Tarsier Studios, which never saw the light of day. Promising a unique sound-based gameplay within an eerie, steampunk world, the game aimed to revolutionize the puzzle-platform genre. However, despite the initial excitement and a promising showcase at E3 2005, ‘City of Metronome’ faced an indefinite silence, leaving fans wondering about its disappearance.
The game introduced players to a surreal cityscape, controlled by a menacing Corporation, and featured a young train-engineer named Tin, who navigated this oppressive world using a device to record and manipulate sounds. ‘City of Metronome’ stood out for its distinct artistic inspiration drawn from the likes of Studio Ghibli and The City of Lost Children, and for game mechanics that leaned heavily on sound manipulation rather than traditional combat—a concept that was both its allure and its downfall.
Despite the innovative concept and a demo that caught the industry’s attention, the reality of bringing such an unprecedented idea to fruition became Tarsier Studios’ biggest challenge. The founders, Andreas Johnsson and Björn Sunesson, admitted that they were driven by a blend of ambition and naivety, stating, “What if we can create something that has the coolest gameplay and the best world and [a] super-good story? And obviously we had no idea how to do those things.”
This inexperience, coupled with the difficulty in securing a publishing partner, led to the project’s cancellation. “After failing to find a publisher by the year 2007, they cancelled the project,” read a statement that now echoes the frustration and unrealized potential of ‘City of Metronome.’
The studio’s pursuit of a publisher was not without effort. They held discussions with industry giants like Sony and Microsoft, but their pitches—described by Johnsson with a cinematic trailer’s flair as “A next-gen action adventure game where sound is your weapon”—were not enough to secure the necessary backing. Eventually, the inability to turn a cool concept into engaging gameplay led to the game’s demise, with Sunesson reflecting on the sound-based mechanic: “It’s hard to figure out something that makes it worth doing so it doesn’t become a gimmick where you dress up a button press.”
As time passed, the idea of reviving ‘City of Metronome’ occasionally resurfaced within Tarsier Studios, but the founders were cautious, with Johnsson musing, “It does pop up every now and then, every other year or so, like, ‘OK, hmm, what if?'” However, the consensus seemed to be that the game belonged to a different era—a time capsule of ambitious game design that perhaps wasn’t meant to be.
While ‘City of Metronome’ faded into obscurity, its DNA lived on, becoming a source of inspiration for Tarsier’s later successes like ‘Little Nightmares.’ The atmospheric horror adventure ‘Little Nightmares’ does incorporate elements of ‘City of Metronome,’ proving that while the original game was silenced, its spirit continued to resonate within the studio’s creative ethos.
Relevant articles:
– What was a game you were looking forward to that never got released?
– Whatever happened to City of Metronome, the missing game by Little Nightmares developer Tarsier?
– Little Nightmares might be the most impressive game at Gamescom